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Pierzak posted:That's why they're called trash. Good American-type games, on the other hand
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Aug 15, 2012 13:19
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Tekopo posted:...don't exist. You should really finish your sentences! You shut your mouth. I've got a copy of Space Hulk here, and I will make you eat every last component of it.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:23
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Jokes aside, I never really understood the emnity between the two sides, although I don't think it's as prevalent here compared to other discussion forums (well, at least until someone mentions talisman/munchkin etc). The games I enjoy the most always seem to straddle the line between the two camps and overall I think games that manage to have rules that strongly couple with the theme of the game are deservably better than games that are too abstract (and thus have the theme coated on as an afterthought) or too thematic (and thus the rules suffer since the game wants to do too much rather than abstracting). This often seems to get mixed up with mistaking strong themes for 'themes that I like', which seems to mostly center around zombies/spaceships/fantasy for most nerds. I mean, the theme for Agricola is boring as hell but no one can deny that the rules are strongly associated with the theme of the game.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:33
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Tekopo posted:Jokes aside, I never really understood the emnity between the two sides, although I don't think it's as prevalent here compared to other discussion forums (well, at least until someone mentions talisman/munchkin etc). The games I enjoy the most always seem to straddle the line between the two camps and overall I think games that manage to have rules that strongly couple with the theme of the game are deservably better than games that are too abstract (and thus have the theme coated on as an afterthought) or too thematic (and thus the rules suffer since the game wants to do too much rather than abstracting). It's tribalism. Boardgaming is already a stigmatized hobby, and a lot of people deal with that by subdividing it and ostracizing everybody else ("well at least I don't do faggoty roleplaying"). SA as a whole is pretty vigilant about boot-stomping people who do that poo poo. And as for the dreaded Munchkin/Talisman - well, there's just so many better options out there. I'd like to think it's an intervention to help people playing those move on to more enjoyable stuff. I'd suspect there's plenty of other games we'd tell people to stop playing - like the RE Deckbuilding game (BL's rant on that was classic), or maybe even something like over-complicated monstrosity Vinhos I mentioned earlier.
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Aug 15, 2012 13:53
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The problem is also that people see the thematic/rule-centric divide as a sliding scale, where an increase in one causes a decrease in the other, which I don't believe is true. Although the tribalism of boardgamers does seem to be present, I think it becomes less evident when you step outside the boundaries of the internet: board games seem to attract a greater percentage of regular people than some of the other nerd hobbies, or at least that's been my experience with a large group that's open to the public.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:05
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Tekopo posted:The problem is also that people see the thematic/rule-centric divide as a sliding scale, where an increase in one causes a decrease in the other, which I don't believe is true. I think it's generally true though - it's rare to find games that do both well.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:15
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Tekopo posted:The problem is also that people see the thematic/rule-centric divide as a sliding scale, where an increase in one causes a decrease in the other, which I don't believe is true. Although the tribalism of boardgamers does seem to be present, I think it becomes less evident when you step outside the boundaries of the internet: board games seem to attract a greater percentage of regular people than some of the other nerd hobbies, or at least that's been my experience with a large group that's open to the public. I think a good test is if you stripped out the theme, would you still play the game? Like Puerto Rico I mean, the theme is there, but honestly it could just be generic and it would still be fun. But something like, say, Arkham Horror probably wouldn't see play with rules-only cards and a normalized board. Both are fun, but are different sorts. Of course, you have games like Quarriors which still straddle the line.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:22
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Crackbone posted:I think it's generally true though - it's rare to find games that do both well.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:47
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Tekopo posted:Some of the examples I'm referring to are most games by Vlaada, which as a designer seems to have found the sweetspot for rules/theme interaction. I couldn't imagine Dungeon Petz, Dungeon Lords, Space Alert or Galaxy Truckers working outside of the theme that they have. Agricola, which I mentioned before, is another example. Although they aren't for everyone, wargames and 18XX games tend to do this as well. So, what does the thread think of Prophecy, Vlaada's take on Talisman? For all the mention he gets here, no one really talks about that game at all. Absolutely not trying to start anything, just curious.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:04
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It's alright. Playable, but I literally never want to bring it out, and much, much prefer Mage Knight.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:06
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A Strange Aeon posted:So, what does the thread think of Prophecy, Vlaada's take on Talisman? For all the mention he gets here, no one really talks about that game at all.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:09
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Tekopo posted:Some of the examples I'm referring to are most games by Vlaada, which as a designer seems to have found the sweetspot for rules/theme interaction. I couldn't imagine Dungeon Petz, Dungeon Lords, Space Alert or Galaxy Truckers working outside of the theme that they have. Agricola, which I mentioned before, is another example. Although they aren't for everyone, wargames and 18XX games tend to do this as well. On the flip side, most of Vlaada's games are dense as gently caress. Trying to digest or teach Dungeon Lords is not an easy task. Probably why I like Galaxy Trucker so much, it's a lot more accessible to the average joe (which is most of who I can game with).
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Aug 15, 2012 15:11
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I only really purchase/care about wargames (that I never play).
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Aug 15, 2012 15:28
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Since the new Resistance Kickstarter was mentioned recently, it seems appropriate to mention that the same game publisher guy has also put up a Kickstarter for a Donald X. Vaccarino game called Gauntlet of Fools: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/gauntlet-of-fools It's interesting to me that even the designer of basically the most successful deckbuilder out there has gone the Kickstarter route to get another game made.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:30
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Shadow Ninja 64 posted:It's interesting to me that even the designer of basically the most successful deckbuilder out there has gone the Kickstarter route to get another game made. I get the feeling that Donald is a bit of a one hit wonder, as his other releases seem to be met with a more tepid response. What Dominion offered was a new mechanic, the game itself being playable was just a bonus on top of that. Without a shiny, interesting new mechanic to ogle over, though, his games just become these light affairs that are diversionary, but nothing worth having a discussion about, really (coming from Kingdom Builder and Infiltration, both of which totally fall flat for me). Good as an introduction, but people move on really quickly because they end up being pretty shallow. On another note, when I read the rules on Gauntlet of Fools, I immediately thought that it was Munchkin meets DXV. I obviously have no idea how it plays, but it seems like the only decision in the game is what hero+weapon+boast combination you want to use. Oh, I guess when to use your character + weapon abilities too, but I imagine most of those will be pretty no brainers. I'm obviously not the target audience for the game, but drat, it seems like the kind of game that I would want to be over asap. Edit: In slightly less negative discussion, does anyone know what the situation is with Duel of Ages 2? It's supposed to be at Gencon, but I would have assumed there'd be like, I dunno, images or something on BGG. Their net presence is distressingly low, and as janky as the original game was sometimes, I still really liked it. GrandpaPants fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 15:53
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Shadow Ninja 64 posted:Since the new Resistance Kickstarter was mentioned recently, it seems appropriate to mention that the same game publisher guy has also put up a Kickstarter for a Donald X. Vaccarino game called Gauntlet of Fools: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/gauntlet-of-fools There's no downside, basically. The logistics of production suck, especially for low-volume items like boardgames. You're floating production costs (which can easily 10-20k) for upwards of 6 months, then you're selling at half MSRP to distributors. Plus there's uncertainty of demand. With KS, you basically get the money upfront to cover production, you can get a gauge of potential demand, AND you get to keep the full product sale price instead of splitting it with a distributor. Basically, everybody except the distributor and FLGS win. EDIT: Also, the reality is even a highly successful designer like DXV doesn't make a ton of money from their games.
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Aug 15, 2012 15:55
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Also, Gauntlet of Fools looks a lot like DXV's attempt to fix Munchkin.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:05
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Shadow Ninja 64 posted:It's interesting to me that even the designer of basically the most successful deckbuilder out there has gone the Kickstarter route to get another game made. Even Steve Jackson used Kickstarter to make some cash. Personally, I think that it sucks that established and/or financially successful professionals use a generally grass-roots approach to funding but it's not against the KS rules. Kickstarter listing says this: quote:If you are so excited about this game, why do you need kickstarter funding to get it made? vvvvvvv Yeah, it's not completely lovely but it should be more polished for a project like that. My favorite was the constant glare on the gentleman's glasses. The Sean fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 16:08
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Man the video on that Kickstarter is bad. It's just some bored sounding man sitting down and talking with bad audio and then showing a few components at a distance. I like Indie Games but christ do they make bad KS videos.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:08
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The Sean posted:Personally, I think that it sucks that established professionals use a generally grass-roots approach to funding but it's not against the KS rules. Just imagine KS had been around to resurrect Firefly in time to get the actors under contract, for example.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:12
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The Sean posted:DXV says this: Actually that paragraph (and the entire Kickstarter proposal) is from that Travis guy from Indie Boards and Cards, and it's the same blurb he's had on every one of his projects to date. DXV likely has no involvement with the KS side of things or production.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:12
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The sample art they show for Gauntlet of Fools is pretty cool - it's got a pulpy Conan vibe I dig. The game itself doesn't look that interesting, so I'm passing on the kick starter. As far as his other games, I wasn't crazy about Kingdom Builder at first, but a bunch of my friends REALLY ended up loving it and I came around to really liking it too. It's just so drat chill.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:13
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homullus posted:That bothered me at first also. I thought about it a lot more, and I think it's great for hobbies. It's not a zero-sum game and it allows fans of established names to help ensure the products they want get made. Tim Schafer makes the best video games nobody plays, but now the people who DO play them can make sure he keeps making them and not losing money. Yeah, I'm not completely against it. I am generally for supporting local economies and getting away from large companies so I do see the benefit of interacting directly with potential audiences but I feel like projects from extremely successful people could possible saturate a market like this to the point of hurting less financially-able project producers (and therefore hurting the creativity edge that this kind of a service provides). Again, I'm talking about possible results of this, not claiming anything concrete now. Shadow Ninja 64 posted:Actually that paragraph (and the entire Kickstarter proposal) is from that Travis guy from Indie Boards and Cards, and it's the same blurb he's had on every one of his projects to date. DXV likely has no involvement with the KS side of things or production. I quickly noticed that and edited my post right after I made it 
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Aug 15, 2012 16:18
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The Sean posted:Yeah, I'm not completely against it. I am generally for supporting local economies and getting away from large companies so I do see the benefit of interacting directly with potential audiences but I feel like projects from extremely successful people could possible saturate a market like this to the point of hurting less financially-able project producers (and therefore hurting the creativity edge that this kind of a service provides). No truly large company will use kickstarter, because they don't need it; they have cash reserves or lines of credit that are far more effective. If anything, the open nature of Kickstarter risks oversaturation. When every jerkoff can post a worthless KS it devalues the site as a whole and makes it harder for projects to get eyes on them.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:20
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Tekopo posted:Jokes aside, I never really understood the emnity between the two sides, although I don't think it's as prevalent here compared to other discussion forums (well, at least until someone mentions talisman/munchkin etc). The games I enjoy the most always seem to straddle the line between the two camps and overall I think games that manage to have rules that strongly couple with the theme of the game are deservably better than games that are too abstract (and thus have the theme coated on as an afterthought) or too thematic (and thus the rules suffer since the game wants to do too much rather than abstracting). The stupid flaming between Ameritrashers and Eurogamers hasn't happened in years on BGG. I completely agree that many of the really popular games are now hybrids (Eclipse, Mage Knight, Dungeon Petz). As far as FF having lovely rulebooks, even the old guard Ameritrashers have been critical of their sloppy releases like Mansions of Madness. Smaller guys like Plaid Hat, Asmodee and Z-Man have been putting out the lion's share of well-received AT, and while FF still does well, it's hardly the only company tapping the niche anymore. They really need to step up their game. For a good view of the trend, take a look at the hot games list on BGG. Over the last year or so, it's been a good mix of AT and Euro games. Compare that to 2007 when only games where Renaissance merchants shipped boxes of brown cubes to noble overlords seemed gather buzz. A majority of these cottage Euros seem like tech demos now. The hobby definitely benefited from the awkward period where players obsessed over elegant mechanics, and we're now getting some really great games because of it. Your last point is great. Phil Eklund is an example of a designer who pumps out almost pure AT games, but his themes are so high brow that they are often mistaken for Euros.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:22
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GrandpaPants posted:If you're looking for an ADVENTURE game, you might want to look into Mice and Mystics. I haven't played it, but initial reviews are positive. It also has that sort of miniature world thing going on that stems from stuff like The Borrowers and Mouse Guard (and really any other anthropomorphized mouse book/movie/whatever). Wow. This game looks like it pushes every button. The artwork, and even the miniatures all look incredible. Looks like it is supposed to be out next month if everything works out. It just might be cute enough to draw the non-gamer gamers in.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:32
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Philthy posted:Wow. This game looks like it pushes every button. The artwork, and even the miniatures all look incredible. Looks like it is supposed to be out next month if everything works out. It just might be cute enough to draw the non-gamer gamers in. If you pre-order directly from Plaid Hat right now you get the promo cards as well (cards you could normally only get at a convention they're showcasing it at) http://www.plaidhatgames.com/store
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Aug 15, 2012 16:45
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After reading the OP, I decided to scour the web for any copies of Space Alert. When was it last reprinted? Because it looks like it's not going to be available for a bit.
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Aug 15, 2012 18:43
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quote:If you pre-order directly from Plaid Hat right now you get the promo cards as well (cards you could normally only get at a convention they're showcasing it at) Great, your post there cost me like $80. Bloody mouse figures with little swords, and paying for abilities with cheese and I don't even know what the hell kind of game (Mice & Mistakes) this is. poo poo. I hate myself.
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Aug 15, 2012 18:51
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jmzero posted:Great, your post there cost me like $80. Bloody mouse figures with little swords, and paying for abilities with cheese and I don't even know what the hell kind of game (Mice & Mistakes) this is. poo poo. Yeah, I was sore tempted but I think it is going to come down to availability unless I can get this with some Amazon credit somehow.
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Aug 15, 2012 18:56
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jmzero posted:Great, your post there cost me like $80. Bloody mouse figures with little swords, and paying for abilities with cheese and I don't even know what the hell kind of game (Mice & Mistakes) this is. poo poo. Hope you at least checked the LOS rules  If I recall, it is something along the lines of "Reach an agreement among the players as to whether something is within LOS."
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Aug 15, 2012 18:56
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GrandpaPants posted:Hope you at least checked the LOS rules This is one of the best LOS rules I have ever heard.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:00
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We'd be playing until the next decade if we used a rule like that.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:03
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UnoriginalMind posted:After reading the OP, I decided to scour the web for any copies of Space Alert. When was it last reprinted? Because it looks like it's not going to be available for a bit. It last got printed in March and I was lucky to have snagged a copy.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:06
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Lorini posted:We'd be playing until the next decade if we used a rule like that. It's a co-op game, so there is little reason to be contentious. Unless you are a dick, in which case you just outed a dick in your group. To resolve this particular situation, play a game of Diplomacy, gang up on the dick, then watch him leave and never want to come over to play games again. Easily rectified.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:08
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UnoriginalMind posted:After reading the OP, I decided to scour the web for any copies of Space Alert. When was it last reprinted? Because it looks like it's not going to be available for a bit. It was reprinted last year (april-ish 2011), there is supposed to be another reprint coming out soon, but it was just delayed (again), so who knows when it will actually hit shelves. I wouldn't cross my fingers for anything before Halloween. On a Space Alert note, I had session 3 the other day. 4 returning players and 1 new player. New guy has read the rulebook and is a gamer so we jump into a full mission (mission 2). Wow, there are a lot of loving threats in this mission. Like 7 or 8 of them. We lost. Bad. Some pretty bad energy management featuring some people firing lasers many times with no energy. I don't remember what ultimately killed us but we definitely blew up around turn 9. I was just about to wreck some poo poo with the fighters too, and I think someone was firing rockets that we never got to. We set it up to go again and run mission 3. Less threats on this one, and we are doing ok, but not amazing. We eliminate 2 internal threats, take a bit of damage. One guy trips (went the wrong way) and gets delayed. People are firing some lasers but not at the same time so we are either trickling in 1 or 2 damage at a time or not even getting past the shields. Getting down to the last few turns, a key pulse cannon blast takes out the shields of, and destroys, an energy cloud with 1 hp left that was about to kill us, while at the same time delayed guy still manages to fire and kill one of the other threats. Everyone is out of (useful) actions at this point and there is still one more external that will kill us next turn and then MISSILE OUT OF NOWHERE (fired 2 turns ago) saves the whole ship! New guy goes "pretty good game, but do you think it seemed kind of easy?" "Too easy? Granted, we won, but first of all, we got blown to bits in the first game, and we barely escaped with our lives in the second. Plus, the randomized tracks and enemies means you can get the same mission with different enemies on the short tracks, making it harder. Oh, and also, let me show you these yellow threats that we haven't even used yet..." Elysium fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 19:20
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UnoriginalMind posted:After reading the OP, I decided to scour the web for any copies of Space Alert. When was it last reprinted? Because it looks like it's not going to be available for a bit. I e-mailed CSI a week or two ago and the response was that they were unofficially expecting a reprint at the end of August or early September.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:20
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taser rates posted:I e-mailed CSI a week or two ago and the response was that they were unofficially expecting a reprint at the end of August or early September. Oh! Excellent. I'll have to choose between it and Chaos in the Old World come September then. Oh who the gently caress am I kidding I'm going to buy both and hate myself for it.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:27
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Crackbone posted:You shut your mouth. I've got a copy of Space Hulk here, and I will make you eat every last component of it. You do know Space Hulk is a British game, right?
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Aug 15, 2012 19:48
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UnoriginalMind posted:Oh! Excellent. I'll have to choose between it and Chaos in the Old World come September then. Oh who the gently caress am I kidding I'm going to buy both and hate myself for it. No, your wallet will hate you. You'll be having too much fun to hate yourself.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:52
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