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The abstracts category on BGG is a bit of a mess. Or not very well defined if I want to be more generous.

https://boardgamegeek.com/abstracts/browse/boardgame

The top 5 "abstracts" are Cascadia, Harmonies, Azul, YINSH, Patchwork.

I consider only one of these an abstract.

#boardgames #boardgamegeek #bgg

Been really enjoying Zenith on BGA. The multi-lane tug-of-war reminds me a bit of Caper Europe. The card powers are simple to understand but interesting and with multiple ways to use the cards there are usually some good options. I hope I will be able to find a physical copy soon.

Ranking of my recently discovered BGA favorites:
Zenith
FlipToons
Miams
Naishi
Diced Veggies

#boardgames #boardgamearena #bga

The drafting in Diced Veggies reminds me of My Shelfie but the sum limit is a nice addition. You take dice from the edge of the block, their sum must be 10 or less. Once you have the dice you mostly care about their color rather than the value. You use the color to fulfill recipes. So far this is quite simple, what makes it work for me is the Hype cards: these give bonus points when you fulfill additional constraints.

#boardgames #boardgamearena #bga

Miams is a cute little rolliewrite. Doesn't seem to have an international release yet so only been able to play it on BGA so far.

The game looks very simple but thanks to the cards there is a tableau/engine builder hiding under the surface. Just had a game where I scored 40 points in a single turn with a crazy combo.

#boardgames #boardgamearena #bga

Matchstick Tycoon is a cute take on ladder climbing. It's gimmicky but in a fun and unique way.

Cards are 0 to F and since the digits are made out of matchsticks similarly to segmented calculator displays you can rotate them or modify them by adding matchsticks. So you can turn a 3 to an E or a 0 to an 8.

#boardgames #boardgamearena

The Galactic Cruise tutorial on #boardgamearena is 185 steps. That's definitely one of the longer ones.

#boardgames

In a previous toot thread we've been talking about ways to launch processes from Emacs in a way that lets them survive Emacs exiting, crashing or restarting via M-x restart-emacs.

The best way I've found so far:

;;; with separate cmd and args:
(call-process command nil 0 args)

;;; or let the shell parse the command:
(call-process-shell-command command nil 0)

The key is the 0 as the third argument, this causes Emacs to discard the output and not wait for the process.

I use it like this for my EXWM command launcher function:

(defun my-exwm-run (command)
  (interactive (list (read-shell-command "$ ")))
  (call-process-shell-command command nil 0))

Previously I used start-process-shell-command and nohup but that accumulated defunct processes when using M-x restart-emacs. The call-process-shell-command with the 0 arg doesn't seem to have that problem and it doesn't need nohup. This is a bit counter intuitive because call-process is supposed to be for synchronous processes. Not sure if make-process (the async primitive) can do this the same way.

If somebody is familiar with how/why exactly this works I'd love to hear your thoughts.

#emacs #exwm

Ready for to farm! Agricola All Creatures Big and Small is on the table. Advanced mode which means more buildings to pick from.

I just noticed that the original title is "Agricola: Die Bauern und das liebe Vieh". German boardgame titles are always fun.

#baordgames

Didn't quite make it.
#boardgames #sprawlopolis

I am a rulebook hoarder. Whenever I take a closer look at a game downloading the rulebook is the first thing I do. I have over 2500 boardgame related pdf files. I access them using pdf-tools in #Emacs, index them using #recoll and I use a small hack to make M-x pdfgrep search using the recoll index. I use the #OCRmyPDF tool to OCR the ones that didn't come with embedded text.
#boardgames

@nolando (About #Atiwa) We like it a lot! I always enjoy the "placing a token uncovers income" mechanic and this game has plenty of it. The shifting worker placement spots and the "land management" are neat too.
If you want to dig into it the Friendly Ties podcast has an episode dedicated to the game with some great discussion.
#boardgames

We played Cat in the Box at 2p. The variant is ok but I feel like there is a better 2p game hiding in there if we can find it. I am thinking something like:
- Cards 1-6 are used, board adjusted accordingly
- 8 cards set aside, 5 of them place dummy tokens
- 9 tricks (11 cards dealt, 1 discarded, 1 unplayed), no ties
- A Fox in the Forest-like greedy/humble scoring system that incorporates the Paradox case
- Bonus is always awarded as long as you don't cause a Paradox
#boardgames #catinthebox

@snacktraces Makes me wonder if it would work as a 2v2 team game. Team members in alternating seating, no communication. At the end of the game either sum up both team members or take the lower score team member for each site and add those up.
#boardgames #imhotep