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Topic	thirty-one tabletop games, ranked
SeabassDebeste 03/15/18 10:11:06 AM #70:	24. Captain Sonar https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171131/captain-sonar Genre/mechanics: Team vs team, hidden movement, real-time, player combat Rules complexity: 5/10 Game length: 20-40 minutes Player count: 2-8 Experience: 4-5 games with 6-8 players First played: 2016 Two submarine crews, seated across a physical barrier, move around a grid with their positions secret, but their movements announced ("NORTH! WEST!") to the other team. The captain determines the movement of the ship, when to use weapons/other powers, and when to surface. The first mate manages the equipment (as it needs to be charged via movement before used). The engineer is responsible for managing what abilities are unusable due to the ship's heating up. A radio operator tracks the other sub's movement by listening when their captain announces their move. Your goal - to sink the other team's sub using missiles or mines. Enjoyment - My first play of Captain Sonar was by far my favorite - at a meetup, with people I knew and liked. I was the hapless captain with the game's owner - who tends to be into getting thematic - as my first mate. He constantly relayed the situation with the engineer - what directions were bad to go, which ones were good to go - along with what systems we had at the ready. The radio operator was whispering where she thought the other sub was. As a result, I could focus on simply going around, occasionally surfacing, and blowing mines/launching missiles at exactly the right moment. No play since has really recaptured that feeling of actually being in a sub and being a commander who has to make important decisions after delegating a bunch of thought. But with the right crowd, it's still frantically paced, with plenty of opportunity for self-sabotage (shout-out to bad engineers like me!). An entire team can get excited when a torpedo hits, and the chaos it causes the other side is awesome when they realize they have to surface with a recharging attacker on their heels. Design - I love everything about Captain Sonar's design - from the individual player mats that are customized, to the fact you get to name your ship, to the length of the game. Each player also gets a very unique role - one of my favorite is the "Sonar" feature, used by the First Mate, in which the other team's captain must state his choice of two of three coordinates - sector, longitude, and latitude - but one of those must be true and one must be a lie. Easy way to mess with people. My biggest issue with CS as a gaming experience is the difficulty of the radio operator's job due to the other captain's inability to be heard. Essentially, you benefit your team drastically as captain if you're not clear when you announce your movements, which seems flagrantly uncool. Some sort of convention, such as saying "HEADING NORTH" instead of "NORTH" is needed to ensure fairness. A captain who can elevate their voice specifically to talk to the other team is good, as well. Bonus question - What games make you feel the most involved, thematically? Hint for #23 - just try to keep it on the table, and no scratching! --- yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness <cite>SeabassDebeste posted [p:897845014] in thirty-one... [t:76412082]...</cite> <quote>24. Captain Sonar https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171131/captain-sonar Genre/mechanics: Team vs team, hidden movement, real-time, player combat Rules complexity: 5/10 Game length: 20-40 minutes Player count: 2-8 Experience: 4-5 games with 6-8 players First played: 2016 Two submarine crews, seated across a physical barrier, move around a grid with their positions secret, but their movements announced ("NORTH! WEST!") to the other team. The captain determines the movement of the ship, when to use weapons/other powers, and when to surface. The first mate manages the equipment (as it needs to be charged via movement before used). The engineer is responsible for managing what abilities are unusable due to the ship's heating up. A radio operator tracks the other sub's movement by listening when their captain announces their move. Your goal - to sink the other team's sub using missiles or mines. Enjoyment - My first play of Captain Sonar was by far my favorite - at a meetup, with people I knew and liked. I was the hapless captain with the game's owner - who tends to be into getting thematic - as my first mate. He constantly relayed the situation with the engineer - what directions were bad to go, which ones were good to go - along with what systems we had at the ready. The radio operator was whispering where she thought the other sub was. As a result, I could focus on simply going around, occasionally surfacing, and blowing mines/launching missiles at exactly the right moment. No play since has really recaptured that feeling of actually being in a sub and being a commander who has to make important decisions after delegating a bunch of thought. But with the right crowd, it's still frantically paced, with plenty of opportunity for self-sabotage (shout-out to bad engineers like me!). An entire team can get excited when a torpedo hits, and the chaos it causes the other side is awesome when they realize they have to surface with a recharging attacker on their heels. Design - I love everything about Captain Sonar's design - from the individual player mats that are customized, to the fact you get to name your ship, to the length of the game. Each player also gets a very unique role - one of my favorite is the "Sonar" feature, used by the First Mate, in which the other team's captain must state his choice of two of three coordinates - sector, longitude, and latitude - but one of those must be true and one must be a lie. Easy way to mess with people. My biggest issue with CS as a gaming experience is the difficulty of the radio operator's job due to the other captain's inability to be heard. Essentially, you benefit your team drastically as captain if you're not clear when you announce your movements, which seems flagrantly uncool. Some sort of convention, such as saying "HEADING NORTH" instead of "NORTH" is needed to ensure fairness. A captain who can elevate their voice specifically to talk to the other team is good, as well. Bonus question - What games make you feel the most involved, thematically? Hint for #23 - just try to keep it on the table, and no scratching! --- yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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