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Things you do to longer games to reduce the playing time.
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One thing that has kept me from buying some very cool games is the length of playing time. I only know people who are non-gamers, and the only way I can get them to play is when they know a game will not take too long. So, if I see anything over 90 minutes I don't even bother considering it. Obviously there are some great games that I am missing. This is where I need your help. I want to know if there are any games (over 90 minutes long) out there that you have figured out a way to cut down the play time without ruining the fun. So whatcha got? Please list the game, what you did to shorten it, and how it affects the game in terms of time and fun.
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Posted On: 2008-05-12 08:22:11
Edited On: 2008-05-12 08:22:05
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Here is my cheesy example.
Risk can be a very long game, but it doesn't have to be. I found a file by Leo Zappa that makes it much quicker and more fun: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/9645 Three of us played the game in less than an hour the last time I tried this out. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-12 08:11:35
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I must admit that this is the real reason behind this list. I love everything that I have read about this game so far: It takes place during WWII, has German guards, prisoners, and an escape. However, there is no way I could buy this game when the playing time is 3 hours!. Who would want to play this with me? I would love to find out if anyone has found a way to shorten it considerably. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-12 08:15:10
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Normally when a player dies, they lose half their zombies. Not a problem early on, but can make the game drag when you go from 22 (almost done!) to 11 (noooooo!)
We play with losing d6 zombies instead of half. Since it tends to be easier to get zombies in the early game (not so many around, more ammo/health, etc) this hasn't caused any real problems. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-12 09:47:44
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We got Elfenland in the first place because it accommodates six players, and we got an early edition and so learned it with the rule that each player gets an *additional eight* cards at the beginning of each round (after saving a maximum of four), not merely *refilling to eight,* as in the rules of the later editions. The game is much better with the *additional eight* rule because it gives you interesting hand management decisions, but it's also longer because people have longer routes to plan.
So we liked the game, but it sometimes took over two hours to play. And besides that, we were tending to wind up in three-way ties for the perfect score of 20, with only the number of cards left in hand to break the tie.
Eventually the idea of cutting the game down from four to three rounds occurred to us. We tried it, and it was the ideal solution. Our games now run around an hour and the winning scores are typically in the 16-18 range. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-13 09:04:34
Edited on: 2008-05-13 09:06:11
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For this we use one of the optional rules which is to allow the purchase of any resource card for twice its cost instead of just allowing the purchase of the level 9 card. This takes maybe 1 - 2 hours off the play of the game. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-14 17:02:59
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6.
Tikal [Average Rating:7.47 Overall Rank:65]
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Tikal is a great game, but it is intense and sometimes can be tiring. So we remove some of the tiles marked with the two last letters. We make sure that, depending on the number of players, all players get an equal amount of turns.
There are no critical tiles with the last two letters, anyway. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-15 08:04:19
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Ok, this won't speed up the game that much, and this tip could apply to any number of games, but I use it for this game and Sid Meier's Civilization. Basically I bag the components for each player. So each player grabs a bag, and starts play. |
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Posted On: 2008-05-16 22:49:11
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Posted On: 2008-05-13 13:43:39
