There was a period when Han, Allen and I met up regularly to play boardgames. All of us bought games, and we bought slightly different kinds of games. That meant we had the opportunity to try a good variety of games. We all liked playing fast. We often started taking our turns when the previous player was still taking theirs (provided it wouldn't affect the active player). Sometimes we confused ourselves because of this. Then Han moved to Australia because of work, and later he moved to Johor. We couldn't play as frequently as we used to. Allen and I had our other stuff (life) to be busy with, and we didn't play as much as before. Now Allen has moved to Singapore due to work, and it's even rarer for the three of us to be able to game together. Previously whenever Han visited Kuala Lumpur we'd try to meet up to play. Allen still returns to KL regularly, so maybe we will still get to meet up now and then.
Recently Han initiated some online games on BoardGameArena.com. We did not set an appointment to go online at the same time. We use asynchronous mode. So this is like play-by-email. We get notified when it is our turn, and we go online to take a turn. Games can take several days to more than a week. We play several games at the same time. I have been playing quite a number of new-to-me games this way. BGA has tutorials for some of them. Or I watch rules videos.
I have played Riftforce before. Playing it again reminded me of how wonderful this little game is. You only have access to four abilities, and yet there are so many clever ways you can use them.
I had the urge to buy a physical copy of the game. I did a quick check, and no one in Malaysia seems to have it in stock. I looked up Amazon.com, and was surprised it was quite cheap. Base game + expansion + shipping was just MYR 136. This is a little scary. I guess good for Malaysian consumers, but this is stiff competition for local Malaysian retailers.
I played Innovation with Jetta. The art on BGA should be from the latest edition. My physical copy is first edition, so playing on BGA felt weird at first. The user interface is done well though. It's easy to check any card in play, even those stacked underneath others.
Later Han, Allen and I played Innovation too. We played with all the available expansions - Echoes of the Past, Cities of Destiny and Artifacts of History. I had not learned to play them before, and it was a little overwhelming taking on all at once. Before this I had suspected that playing with two or more expansions at the same time would be tedious. I wonder whether this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It did feel rather tedious. Too many things to take care of at the same time. Maybe I need some getting used to before I'll feel comfortable. The good thing about playing online is the computer does all the tedious shuffling and setting up for you. I might be able to get used to playing with many expansions online. When I do this with a physical copy, I'll probably complain about the tedium.
I wonder why the expansion Figures in the Sand is not available on BGA.
On the right panel, the second group is the normal achievements. Those above are the relics, a new type of achievement. Those below are all special achievements. These include the five from the base game, plus two more sets of five from the expansions. That's a lot of achievements to plan for!
One of my dogma powers let me splay my red cards up and turned me into China - so many factories! Splaying up is the best way to splay because you get to reveal three icons from each card below the top card.
One of the good things about playing online is the computer keeps track of your icon counts and displays them conveniently like this. You don't need to count your icons one by one each time you want to check whether you are stronger than your opponents.
We did Res Arcana too. I have the physical copy, but it has been a while since I last played. My Hypnotic Basin gave me so much water I didn't know what to do with it. At this point I had 11 water! The Hypnotic Basin when used gave me as much water as one opponent had fire. When used at the right time, I could collect a lot of water. It gave 2 water at the start of every round too.
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