It's worth noting that it can easily go like 1.5 hours or longer with 6 people if you have new players. Never underestimate how slow some people can be either because they're new or because they take a long time to make decisions.
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Board Gaming Era |OT| (Mostly) Unplugged Gaming
- Thread starter XShagrath
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It's FFG. I guarantee it will come in a tube, just like their other large playmats. It's not a nice reusable tube, but just a clamshell. I guess you can use it for storage when not in use, but it's not optimal.
I ordered the game and playmat through my local store and while I got the game today (currently putting sleeves on all the mini-cards), they said the playmat wouldn't be in till the 30th due to a shipping issue.
I backed On Mars. I like all of his games, including Vinhos. Just be aware that the package deal with any of his older games. They are pretty much MSRP.
Did you see that Kolossal's latest KS got suspended? Possibly due to having too many unfilfilled KS at once.. well, that's one speculation. They have a ridiculous amount of KS going lately.
Also, the Bloodborne Board Game trailer got released:
https://youtu.be/ZlFelry1e1w
All his games are really good. If you dont' have any of his games I would maybe recommend The Gallerist instead to complement On Mars, since it seems like On Mars is complexity turned up to 11 while Gallerist is (relatively) lighter and is gonna go over well with people who might never touch On Mars.
They are also the KS versions with the non-retail extras, also some of those games disappeared from retail.
Thanks! Before reading your post, I have actually shifted over to the Gallerist, and you have helped confirm that will be the wiser choice.
Yeah, it's speculation, but they're running multiple KS at the same time, and they have all of these still to be fulfilled:
Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy - Funded July 29 2018
Terrors of London - Funded Aug 19 2018
Mezo - Funded Oct 21 2018
All Manor of Evil - Funded Nov 15 2018
Western Legends: Ante Up - Funded Jan 23 2019
The Clowdus Collection - Funded Feb 7 2019
Consumption: Food and Choices - Funded March 7 2019
Papillon - Funded Apr 17 2019
That's a lot of irons in the fire in various stages of production for a small company.
Papillon ended yesterday and then their next one went up this morning
They're also apparently associated with Folding Space in some way, which was also suspended at the same time
They've fulfilled 5 of their 13, with most of the remaining 8 being this year. 2 have been delayed slightly but no reason to think they're not happening, with the others still within the estimate dates
They're also running multiple KS out of different accounts (Kolossal Games and Kolossal Micro)
I dont think there's anything "shady" going on, but they're most likely doing something that KS is against
Thanks, I'm going to check Incan Gold out.
I wanna hear more about this game, but im a bit unsure about having to use an app with the game.
I picked up On Mars. I have The Gallerist and Kanban at home but I haven't played them (I only get to go home and play them during my holidays). I'm looking to get Lisboa and Vinhos to round off my Lacerda collection, but the prices on Kickstarter were too expensive (shipping!) so I'll hold off until Amazon gets it for a bit of a discount. I want to get CO2 as well, but I have no idea if Stronghold is going to print more of that. And I'm quite disappointed I missed out on Escape Plan last year, I only started finding out about his games this year, and now its almost double the price $79 -> $140. For $140+$25 shipping I could easily get 4 or 5 full price games that I've been after just as much (Loyang, Gugong, Teotihuacan, Viticulture, Tzolkin).
I found On Mars more intuitive even though there's a lot of aspects to the game. Many aspects of On Mars concepts are fairly easy to grasp as long as you're familiar with that genre. But that's just going off youtube videos.
Plus I have a feeling On Mars will be MSRP ($129) for a while after it comes out and its $89 now + shipping. Shipping to Australia for me was $36 so its literally MSRP + free shipping for me. Expensive, but it'll be close to that when it comes out retail.
Few folks asking here about Vitals games and being a Vital mega fan I'll run through all of them so people know what to buy:
CO2 - Not on this Kickstarter- possibly his most straight forward game to play and teach, very much a game that requires next level future planning so you don't get dicked over. Excellent eco-nomical (hoho) strategy game. (4/5 on weight)
Kanban - Wait till 2020. #insidebaseball ;)
Vinhos - His most 'normal' game with standard worker placement actions, it's incredibly tight and you have to manage everything to the nth degree knowing where you'd like to be by the end of the round before spending your actions but incredibly rewarding if you can pull things off. (3/5 on weight)
The Gallerist - His masterpiece (I'm on a roll) imo. A eco system within an eco system within an eco system. It's smoother than butter to play, a lot of commodity speculation with the artists. Working out what people need which meets your end game needs means that you can have them do a lot of the leg work for you. Most economical strategy game he's done so far, not for the faint of heart and quite heavy- not in rules but in depth. Similar to Vinhos in that it's very worker placement (4/5 on weight)
Lisboa - In his words this was his magnum opus, he'd spent years developing it before bringing it to KS and it shows. This is a fucking monster of a game- A 30-45 minute teach, you'll have no idea what to do for at least half the game before it all clicks like a magic eye puzzle and you'll be spinning yarns on how to get those shops to score for you but not for your opponent. To try to describe the game: A city builder, cum engine builder, cum point salad- it's relationship status on Facebook would be: "It's complicated". An absolute bastard of a game, absolutely no instant gratification but its slow growth and building is incredibly satisfying- if you can find a way to get those shops to work for you and then use decree cards to get someone elses hard work to pay for you too? Oh god. It's so good. (Weight: Biblical/5)
CO2 - Not on this Kickstarter- possibly his most straight forward game to play and teach, very much a game that requires next level future planning so you don't get dicked over. Excellent eco-nomical (hoho) strategy game. (4/5 on weight)
Kanban - Wait till 2020. #insidebaseball ;)
Vinhos - His most 'normal' game with standard worker placement actions, it's incredibly tight and you have to manage everything to the nth degree knowing where you'd like to be by the end of the round before spending your actions but incredibly rewarding if you can pull things off. (3/5 on weight)
The Gallerist - His masterpiece (I'm on a roll) imo. A eco system within an eco system within an eco system. It's smoother than butter to play, a lot of commodity speculation with the artists. Working out what people need which meets your end game needs means that you can have them do a lot of the leg work for you. Most economical strategy game he's done so far, not for the faint of heart and quite heavy- not in rules but in depth. Similar to Vinhos in that it's very worker placement (4/5 on weight)
Lisboa - In his words this was his magnum opus, he'd spent years developing it before bringing it to KS and it shows. This is a fucking monster of a game- A 30-45 minute teach, you'll have no idea what to do for at least half the game before it all clicks like a magic eye puzzle and you'll be spinning yarns on how to get those shops to score for you but not for your opponent. To try to describe the game: A city builder, cum engine builder, cum point salad- it's relationship status on Facebook would be: "It's complicated". An absolute bastard of a game, absolutely no instant gratification but its slow growth and building is incredibly satisfying- if you can find a way to get those shops to work for you and then use decree cards to get someone elses hard work to pay for you too? Oh god. It's so good. (Weight: Biblical/5)
I finally got around to reading the rulebook to Empyreal and now I cannot wait for that one to come out (hopefully still at the end of summer). I backed it when it was live because it's a Level 99 Games game; that was all I needed to know for them to get my money. I like the company and the game that the company puts out. Now that I've dug through the rulebook though and see what the game is all about beyond 'trains and BattleCON/Indines characters," I've decided it looks like it's gonna be a really good one.
Managed to pick up Teraforming Mars for $50 CAD from Sunrise Records, who are doing a "All board games 35% off" sale right now (at least where I am). And I had $40 left on a gift card, so basically paid a bit over $10 out of pocket, which is the cheapest I've ever bought a board game for. They unfortunately didn't have many other games I was interested in, or didn't already own. They had a couple versions of Codenames, some Catan sets, Carcassone, and then a bunch of shitty Duck Dynasty Monopoly and Rick and Morty Guess Who, type games.
Anyway, I read through the rules last night. It doesn't sound that complicated, but it seems like it could be a pretty long game too. If the fiancee is interested, I could see setting up a two player game tonight. Anyone have any tips for playing Teraforming Mars for the first time?
Anyway, I read through the rules last night. It doesn't sound that complicated, but it seems like it could be a pretty long game too. If the fiancee is interested, I could see setting up a two player game tonight. Anyone have any tips for playing Teraforming Mars for the first time?
Top 3 games that I play with my wife, we've been on a kick recently with it and just got on the kickstarter release too. Anyway, here are my tips:
Don't play with the beginner corps. They're stupid and you'll never play with them ever again. The actual corps give direction on how you may want to play the rest of the game based on their ability/starting resources. Otherwise, you tend to be very aimless. I would also recommend focusing/playing toward the award/milestones at first. It'll give direction on what you should be trying to accomplish.
Also, include all the cards. Again, I don't know why they decided to limit the opening cards but it's completely unnecessary. We still play with the new player rule of starting with 1 production in everything. We find the alternative just needlessly adds a turn or two to the game.
You may here recommendations to draft cards rather than just being dealt random cards. We personally don't bother with drafting, but even if you wanted to go down that route, I wouldn't recommend it for your first few games simply because you're new to all the cards anyway. You'll spend enough time reading/re-reading stuff that it's not worth the added time.
Green cards after being played can be completely covered up except for the symbols at the top (which other cards may reference). It'll help with board space/room. We also organize our blue cards in two columns, one column is "Action" cards the other are "passive" cards whose abilities are always active/on. Events are placed face own in another pile. Try to keep things tidy and re-read your blue cards often so you're remembering to trigger them.
There's a bunch more I can think of, but you can probably play a game or two and figure out the rest yourself. Again, it's not all that complicated... there's a lot of symbols and such but everything is spelled out on the card (or the book).
Bloodborne the board game kickstarter is set for tomorrow at 3pm EST.
I've never yet kickstarted a cmon game, but I know they're notorious for making big huge stupid kickstarters, and though I find the practice somewhat anti consumer, in this case, I hope they really go all out. The game seems interesting from what's been revealed, so I hope they shovel as much from the video game in as they can. Areas, bosses, etc, but part of me worries they're testing the waters with this one and are just going to do a base game with some smaller extras on the side rather than have expansion boxes at the outset.
I've never yet kickstarted a cmon game, but I know they're notorious for making big huge stupid kickstarters, and though I find the practice somewhat anti consumer, in this case, I hope they really go all out. The game seems interesting from what's been revealed, so I hope they shovel as much from the video game in as they can. Areas, bosses, etc, but part of me worries they're testing the waters with this one and are just going to do a base game with some smaller extras on the side rather than have expansion boxes at the outset.
Don't know if I've mentioned but I got Five Tribes, Kingdomino, The Castles of Burgundy The Card Game and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 recently and they've all arrived except Pandemic. I guess that will be coming shortly. I love Amazons free prime international delivery for Australians. You guys have no idea how expensive games were 10 years ago in hobby shops here. I feel a bit bad I'm giving all my money to Amazon but I've bought a stack of stuff at least 30-50% less than what I would have got from hobby shops.
Terraforming Mars is an unbelievably fun game, one of my favourites and it's real easy once you start. It can be quite long in two player, one of our games took 5-6hrs, but I think on average two players should take 2-3hrs.
The game is better if you play the full rules ie with the card draft and all the extra full game cards. But for the first game I'd just go with what it says in the manual (ie the short game).
The 6hr game I played with my brother was amazing. I thought there was no chance of winning, but I ended up winning by one point (it was like 139-138) and I ran around the room screaming for 5 minutes. One thing I really like is that you can see your opponent make better (or worse) moves pretty clearly and have a sense of who's winning. Also with the card draft you get to see 95% of the cards so there's not a whole lot of luck involved.
Terraforming Mars is an unbelievably fun game, one of my favourites and it's real easy once you start. It can be quite long in two player, one of our games took 5-6hrs, but I think on average two players should take 2-3hrs.
The game is better if you play the full rules ie with the card draft and all the extra full game cards. But for the first game I'd just go with what it says in the manual (ie the short game).
The 6hr game I played with my brother was amazing. I thought there was no chance of winning, but I ended up winning by one point (it was like 139-138) and I ran around the room screaming for 5 minutes. One thing I really like is that you can see your opponent make better (or worse) moves pretty clearly and have a sense of who's winning. Also with the card draft you get to see 95% of the cards so there's not a whole lot of luck involved.
Speaking of this, I've never kickstarted a boardgame in general, is there anything that will like "sell out" or like you need to back IMMEDIATELY to get some kind of tier or reward? Basically, should I be sitting there refreshing or something until the second it is available?
depends. They're doing an early bird bonus, which usually means some kind of discount or extra figure for backing in the first x hours or being one of the first x number of users
SOMETIMES, they put a limit on higher tier rewards but that's usually limited goods that aren't gameplay relevant (things like signed versions of stuff)(disregarding CMONs Death May idiocy)
CMON is usually straight forward nowadays since they use it as a pre-order. As long as you get first 24 hrs, you should be fine.
Humble More Board Games Bundle. Includes $1 for Twilight Struggle and $12 for Scythe.
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/more-board-games-asmodee
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/more-board-games-asmodee
CMON always have it start out at $100 but by the end of the campaign they will for sure have added another $200 in addons no doubt.
Gah. I'm so weak. I couldn't resist Bloodborne.
Seems so, and I'm glad. I hate tiered kickstarters.
Seems so, and I'm glad. I hate tiered kickstarters.
Cannot see the appeal at all of Bloodborne. I've got enough mini filled games however. I don't need another co-op from a subpar designer.
Isn't Eric M. Lang attached? He made my two favorite games of all time, Rising Sun and Blood Rage. Is it the other person you feel is subpar?
Eric Lang also made Godfather which is way better than it has any right to be.
Then again, I feel like I read someone say that Eric Lang's name basically gets attached to anything CMON makes even if he was barely involved as a consultant, just because it's a selling point.
Attached yes but he's attached to everything since he joined CMON. Michael Shinall is attached as the designer to this. However Eric Lang has made just as many shit games as he has made corkers. I disagree with Blizzard that The Godfather was any good- we played it at 5 players and sold it the next day as everyone found it a vapid shallow game and we'd rather play, literally, anything else. Shinall had made: Rum & Bones and Song of Ice and Fire- neither of which have been talked about outside of the month they got fulfilled.
I hate to be the voice of reason, god knows I love to spend money on games, but nothing about this game sings to me that anyone will be talking about it in two years time.
Which is why I was a little surprised when God of War was announced and didn't see his name on the cover. Though as a card game and smaller scope, I guess I shouldn't have been. Wait for the minis filled God of War game and his name attached, I suppose.
As much as I'd like to back Bloodborne, my two gaming buddies have no attachment to the IP, and the inevitable expansions that'll balloon the cost will make it a pass.
I've played Godfather at least once with 2 players, and 2-3 times with 4-5 players. I think pretty much every time it was a hit, and I also feel it has more depth than you suggest, especially from only one play. I politely suggest that your analysis exaggerates a bit and isn't representative of the average player opinion. Even my wife who typically hates high-conflict games rather enjoyed it.
I can't keep gaming groups straight -- is your gaming group the one someone mentioned on Discord that is highly passionate in regard to certain game types or mechanics? If so that might explain the reaction since not everyone will like the game, solid or not.
Feel like you read someone...?
If you follow him on Twitter, he has talked about Bloodborne a lot. He mentions in interviews that he loves the game but is bad about it. So I think it is pretty easy to pick out games that he isn't involved with and games that he is.
Or just look at the box...he isn't attached to Ethnos, Massive Darkness, On Her Majesty's..., Gizmos, Modern Art, and many more. I know it is a joke but when you are a full-time game designer at a BIG game company and have sold big games, why wouldn't you have your name on it?
The folks I play with range from hardcore 18XX players to very old school board gamers to former miniature players and some folks who started with Cosmic Encounter and went from there. I think there is a higher expectation out of worker placement games- most are not fresh in to the hobby so have a higher standard out of their worker placement and simply lumping in some take that with reused art assets isn't enough for them. They don't need something cerebral but they gravitate towards it. I'm the person who is most likely to be willing to play a more ameritrash game but even for me it was far too shallow and I wouldn't play it twice if offered if even say Champions of Midgard or Viticulture was being bandied about. I think I need more than put thing here, gain X resource. I need an element of engine building or progression.
CMON paid for him- they are god damn going to use him.
CMON really need to hire a better graphic designer .... those cards are really ugly looking. I could forgive them with something like Bloodborne the card game but with $100 game at this point they need to at least not looking like something someone done it at home. Player boards are also ugly looking, they don't have to be overdone like FFG but they should not be that bland looking. As for as Lang game I enjoyed Bloodrage but other than that his other games have mostly been a big dud with our play group also. We got Rising Sun to the table once and no one ask to play it again. Godfather was play once and while wasn't bad we didn't care to play it again either.
the dev diaries for bloodborne had me excited; the 12 card deckbuilding thing mixed with dungeon crawling sounded great. I was very much into everything I was reading
I think the gameplay is something i'd be into, but it's a theme that only I care about (the ~6 of us who are in my game group, i'm the only one who's beaten it, and only 1 other person has even played it and that was for less than an hour)
So far, everything about the kickstarter has got me debating if i'm even going to keep my pledge. I was expecting square dungeon tiles with more squares in em but so far they look as bland as possible, same with everything you said (cards, boards, etc)
Plus, all of the SG leading straight to chalice shit and not more campaign stuff or using much of the eldritch stuff is a damper on my excitement as well
I've thought the same about bloodborne the card game, that it's a theme only i care about, but it's always been a hit each time we brought it out, it's fun enough that at most everyone only needed to know we were some cool dark dudes facing some scary monsters in a dungeon.
As for the board game, it seems that a large, possibly even larger than the campaign, aspect of the game, is the chalice dungeon mode which is a single game where anything could happen, instead of the structured campaign play.
As far as the stretch goal stuff.. Yes, I was like 'that's it!??' when I first saw the kickstarter. But you'll notice there aren't any bosses yet from outside the dungeons. Others familiar with CMON kickstarters seem quite confident that CMON starts a kickstarter with a core game, and slowly leaks out add ons and expansions throughout the campaign, so by the end of it you're spending 300 dollars on all kinds of stuff.
So I think it's safe to say we're not just seeing a million stretch goals, but other upgrades and hopefully expansions. I agree, I want kin!!
I don't honestly know if the game is even good or not. I just love Bloodborne. I'm fully aware that is the wrong reason to kickstart a game in the first place. And this...
...is making me consider cancelling the pledge. I hate when kickstarters pressure you into buying additional content, hinting that you won't have the complete experience if you don't go all in. If that's the road you want to go down, at least be transparent about it and have those expansions in the pitch from day one.
...is making me consider cancelling the pledge. I hate when kickstarters pressure you into buying additional content, hinting that you won't have the complete experience if you don't go all in. If that's the road you want to go down, at least be transparent about it and have those expansions in the pitch from day one.
Most companies announce expansions once the initial rush has died down so that the campaign doesn't grind to a halt after a day or two and stretch goals stop being "unlocked".
Not all companies operate like CMON. I've done quite a few kickstarters, but generally don't kickstart miniature bonanzas like this (the exception was Kingdom Death, which consisted of a veritable flood of plastic) , and for the most part expansions have been kept to a minimum. Most boardgames I've kickstarted has been complete packages. I get that this is part of their business model, but it strikes me as somewhat dishonest. It's easier to sell people on a bunch of needless expansions when they've already taken the bait of the initial kickstarter. I love Bloodborne, and couldn't resist backing this adaptation, but depending on how the kickstarter evolves I might cancel the pledge.
Most of the games with minis do as the sunken cost fallacy is how they get you for the additional £100 you didn't expect to spend.
But it's not all cynical- the 18chesapeake is a surprising hit even to it's creator who normally makes all his games by hand meaning he can now really invest in making the best introductory 18XX game he can.
I suppose I should have clarified "mini-heavy" Kickstarters operate like this, but it's also marketing. They're trying to drum up business and keep in the conversation during the whole thing. I'll agree they're trying to exploit customers, especially with FOMO. Also not a fan of the Early Bird special or KS exclusives.
Agreed again. Since this isn't my first CMON KS I knew that $100 was going to be the introductory price and the all in would be somewhere in $300 range.
There are a bunch of board games on sale on Amazon for Today's Deals. For you Star Wars Destiny folks, there's a booster box on sale 75%(!) off.