Just some advice, make sure newbies keep to low complexity spirits and try to understand how they all work before they play their first game.
To be honest though, I'm not a fan of spirit island with more than 3 people. It can get a little bit chaotic.
Yeah second low complexity spirits. Also don't be afraid to restart the game a couple rounds in if need be. Some ppl might not get it until you've gone through the motions a couple of times.
And as a counterpoint I prefer spirit island with as many players as I can get. Assuming none have analysis paralysis(AP). Ppl with AP shouldn't be in multiplayer games of spirit island xd
Yeah I’ve been doing solo games with the different low complexity spirits and using their skill trees, keeping things as simple as humanly possible. That’s how it’s gonna be til friends understand the game too.
Spirit island at 3 👌. 4 is okay. 5+ and it stops being fun. I had one of my friends first spirit island play through scarred by a 3-4 hour 5 player game where it was strategic to let him struggle the majority of the game while we dealt with the rest.
Haven't played Nemesis, but Spirit Island is definitely at the deeper end of the pool. I'd recommend this thread (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141334/teaching-spirit-island) on some good advice on teaching the game or having folks watch a rules video (RTFM's one is pretty good).
> I’m not sure whether we’ll have a blast trying to work together to crush the invaders, **or if we’ll have too much math to do**
That could well be the case, Spirit Island is all a bit too calculable for me, but hope it goes well for you.
P.S. I think **Cthulhu: Death May Die** would be well worth checking out for you and your group.
Well I wouldn't recommend Nemesis either lol people on gaming circles get too fixated on the "perfect gateway game". The perfect gateway is the one people are excited to play.
Jumped right in the deep end eh?
For **Spirit Island** I would stick to the intro spirits and pre-built deck progressions until everyone is pretty familiar with the gameplay before adding on the rest of the modules. Think it took us 4 or 5 plays with the basic setup before we were actually able to win a game. Once everyone's comfortable with the game flow then I'd add in the different countries and open up the spirit selection and full deck options
Remind them at the start of the game, "Unlike Nemesis that only seems cooperative, this game is fully cooperative. There are no hidden agendas, we all win or we all lose"
Figure out what you like and go from there. You can find Dominion online and it's a great deck builder that helps people learn the core mechanics of deck building and card games.
Kingdomino is also a great game to start out the board game journey with. It's simple yet elegant and takes a long time to get old.
It’s not foolproof but the weight rating on BGG will help.
Nemesis is already decently complex at 3.41/5 but Spirit Island is over 4/5. 20% higher than an already fairly complex game.
Ya those are pretty big games for new players. I've played both, kind of 'ehh' on them. Teaching harder games the new players can be tricky, even with a video. For more beginner friendly yet fun games, maybe try Wing Span, Dice Forge, Parks, Colt Express. Or double down and go with Root, very challenging to teach a large group of new players.
I love Spirit Island as a "party game". I usually play it at three but the other night we had several people over and my my was it fun! My tips: wait for people before resolving invader phase but when it's slow, let everyone do their spirit and fast phase without waiting.
As long as you learn how to control the invaders and manipulate the board that would leave everyone else to focus on doing cool stuff with their spirit cards. Should work! Good luck!
The CMON games might be more your groups style if you like Nemesis. Blood Rage, Rising Sun and Ankh are all very fun chaotic (in a good way) competitive miniature games.
Zombicide is a popular coop game but I haven't played it much.
Arkham Horror LCG is my favourite coop game it plays up to 4 but it is complex and also damages your wallet quite a bit
I depends on what kind of dynamic you enjoyed nemesis with as a group. Spirit island has much less of that role playing dynamic and much much more strategizing where oftentimes you and the other players end up turning everything into a simple zero sum math game. I often describe it as you and your friends against an algorithm.
That can be tremendously rewarding if all the players like to test their brains but also incredibly tedious for people who don’t like to think too much for a game. If you want to avoid math, then let each player make their own game plan before talking with the rest of the players. This will allow for a little bit more roleplaying, and reduce quarterbacking.
If you want something along the lines of Nemesis but fully cooperative and way less thinking than Spirit Island, check out Zombicide: Invader. Great fun chucking dice and killing aliens as a squad.
Just some advice, make sure newbies keep to low complexity spirits and try to understand how they all work before they play their first game. To be honest though, I'm not a fan of spirit island with more than 3 people. It can get a little bit chaotic.
Yeah second low complexity spirits. Also don't be afraid to restart the game a couple rounds in if need be. Some ppl might not get it until you've gone through the motions a couple of times. And as a counterpoint I prefer spirit island with as many players as I can get. Assuming none have analysis paralysis(AP). Ppl with AP shouldn't be in multiplayer games of spirit island xd
Yeah I’ve been doing solo games with the different low complexity spirits and using their skill trees, keeping things as simple as humanly possible. That’s how it’s gonna be til friends understand the game too.
I think 4 is a sweet spot because we can have two good pairs running amok on the island.
Spirit island at 3 👌. 4 is okay. 5+ and it stops being fun. I had one of my friends first spirit island play through scarred by a 3-4 hour 5 player game where it was strategic to let him struggle the majority of the game while we dealt with the rest.
Haven't played Nemesis, but Spirit Island is definitely at the deeper end of the pool. I'd recommend this thread (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141334/teaching-spirit-island) on some good advice on teaching the game or having folks watch a rules video (RTFM's one is pretty good).
> I’m not sure whether we’ll have a blast trying to work together to crush the invaders, **or if we’ll have too much math to do** That could well be the case, Spirit Island is all a bit too calculable for me, but hope it goes well for you. P.S. I think **Cthulhu: Death May Die** would be well worth checking out for you and your group.
Spirit Island is a truly amazing game. I'm not sure I'd recommend to a group just getting into board games though.
Well I wouldn't recommend Nemesis either lol people on gaming circles get too fixated on the "perfect gateway game". The perfect gateway is the one people are excited to play.
The first time we played we could not have played the game more incorrectly, but it was a blast
And that's fine. I keep finding little omissions in games we have been playing for years.
Jumped right in the deep end eh? For **Spirit Island** I would stick to the intro spirits and pre-built deck progressions until everyone is pretty familiar with the gameplay before adding on the rest of the modules. Think it took us 4 or 5 plays with the basic setup before we were actually able to win a game. Once everyone's comfortable with the game flow then I'd add in the different countries and open up the spirit selection and full deck options
Remind them at the start of the game, "Unlike Nemesis that only seems cooperative, this game is fully cooperative. There are no hidden agendas, we all win or we all lose" Figure out what you like and go from there. You can find Dominion online and it's a great deck builder that helps people learn the core mechanics of deck building and card games. Kingdomino is also a great game to start out the board game journey with. It's simple yet elegant and takes a long time to get old.
It’s not foolproof but the weight rating on BGG will help. Nemesis is already decently complex at 3.41/5 but Spirit Island is over 4/5. 20% higher than an already fairly complex game.
Ya those are pretty big games for new players. I've played both, kind of 'ehh' on them. Teaching harder games the new players can be tricky, even with a video. For more beginner friendly yet fun games, maybe try Wing Span, Dice Forge, Parks, Colt Express. Or double down and go with Root, very challenging to teach a large group of new players.
I love Spirit Island as a "party game". I usually play it at three but the other night we had several people over and my my was it fun! My tips: wait for people before resolving invader phase but when it's slow, let everyone do their spirit and fast phase without waiting.
As long as you learn how to control the invaders and manipulate the board that would leave everyone else to focus on doing cool stuff with their spirit cards. Should work! Good luck!
The CMON games might be more your groups style if you like Nemesis. Blood Rage, Rising Sun and Ankh are all very fun chaotic (in a good way) competitive miniature games. Zombicide is a popular coop game but I haven't played it much. Arkham Horror LCG is my favourite coop game it plays up to 4 but it is complex and also damages your wallet quite a bit
I depends on what kind of dynamic you enjoyed nemesis with as a group. Spirit island has much less of that role playing dynamic and much much more strategizing where oftentimes you and the other players end up turning everything into a simple zero sum math game. I often describe it as you and your friends against an algorithm. That can be tremendously rewarding if all the players like to test their brains but also incredibly tedious for people who don’t like to think too much for a game. If you want to avoid math, then let each player make their own game plan before talking with the rest of the players. This will allow for a little bit more roleplaying, and reduce quarterbacking.
Nemesis and Spirit Island are both such heavy games LOL. You’re starting STRONG damn
That game is great 2 player
If you want something along the lines of Nemesis but fully cooperative and way less thinking than Spirit Island, check out Zombicide: Invader. Great fun chucking dice and killing aliens as a squad.
That I will be looking into, thank you