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quote:Also, engaging with the BGG community is an absolute trap. Critical discussion is practically a four letter word there. Edit: whoops, thought this was a different thread... anyway... Yeah, BGG is a real place. I've printed and played a bunch of games from there over the years (I'm interested in game design) but I eventually learned to not to give any negative feedback (well, any feedback at all really). Nobody there really wants it; the best response you could really hope for was sort of a condescending "I appreciate your feedback (PS YOUR WRONG AND YOU DON"T UNDERSTAND MY VISON)". In particular, I remember testing some guy's 2 player abstract combat game. It was vaguely checkers-ish - but all pieces could move any direction from the start. With nothing to force the players together, a clear dominant strategy was to make a defensive wall and wait (probably forever, unless your opponent decided to lose). Also, I noticed that there was an easy way to stall out the game (permanently) if you were down on material. I pointed out the first concern, explained the stalling strategy, and suggested some rule changes that he might consider. I got flamed to high hell in the thread (all by people with "designer" badges), and got a couple angry PMs. People were mad that I wasn't positive, they were sure nobody would ever play like that (nobody would stall a game, because they want to WIN), surely I didn't think I understood this guy's game better than its own DESIGNER? and this wasn't about me and I should go make my own game (what have YOU ever done?) and why are you such a jerk? Rather than replying, I deleted my account. BGG has a lot of useful content, but the forums are aggressively stupid. jmzero fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 02:16
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For the people who got their Ryuutama books, did any shipping confirmation go out? Or should I just expect to be surprised one day?
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Oct 14, 2015 03:05
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jadarx posted:For the people who got their Ryuutama books, did any shipping confirmation go out? Or should I just expect to be surprised one day? No shipping confirmation. I asked about this once on another KS, so I don't know if it applies to this one, but taking the time to send shipping notifications slows down the entire shipping process so they just said fuckit and spent all their time and energy doing actual shipping.
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Oct 14, 2015 03:08
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General Ironicus posted:Lovecraftesque is in its final countdown. It's a GMless cosmic horror game that is meant to make mythos horror stories without being so darn racist: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1122788890/lovecraftesque Cover art is ok but this loving rules  Check out the venus fly trap chandeliers and the suggestive color balance on the food. I realized the black eyes were creepy but it was a full minute until I even noticed the legs.
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Oct 14, 2015 03:08
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13415575/the-great-dinosaur-rush-board-game Saw this up a few days ago. It's been up since the beginning of the month and looks pretty cute and involves making your own stick dinosaurs. It still has 40 days to go, so there's tons of time left. Innovation Deluxe also only has less than a week left, so it's near time to  or 
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Oct 14, 2015 03:14
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Xelkelvos posted:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13415575/the-great-dinosaur-rush-board-game I'm absolutely in love with the game's theme and design concepts, but I'm concerned that it being marketed as a 'family' game means that it won't have much staying power with me. It's meeting its goal, though, so no reason for me not just watch out for when it gets a retail release and see its reception.
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Oct 14, 2015 04:43
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Holy poo poo, I got my Ryuutama hardcover in today! It's goddamned heartwarming!
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Oct 14, 2015 04:51
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jadarx posted:For the people who got their Ryuutama books, did any shipping confirmation go out? Or should I just expect to be surprised one day? No confirmation, just be surprised like I was today. Both versions of the book look nice, now I just have to convince my group to play it. Admittedly that's less of me actually needing to convince the group and more me needing to claim the next open spot on our schedule.
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Oct 14, 2015 04:51
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Out of curiosity, what is everyone currently funding? Because I'm in for $140 for Delta Green so I can get one for me and one for a friend, and I'm playing with backing Infinity and/or Rippers, but I like to buy physical, so I don't know if I'll do either, or cave and buy PDFs. I'm backing Delta Green and Fellowship right now. I want to back Masks too but I'm not super into the genre and it's in competition with upping my pledge to get The Fall of Delta Green GUMSHOE hack. Because calling down napalm on a shoggoth somewhere in Laos.
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Oct 14, 2015 04:58
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Out of curiosity, what is everyone currently funding? Because I'm in for $140 for Delta Green so I can get one for me and one for a friend, and I'm playing with backing Infinity and/or Rippers, but I like to buy physical, so I don't know if I'll do either, or cave and buy PDFs. I'm in for all the PDFs on Delta Green because I live in New Zealand and would have to sell myself to Nyarlathotep to pay shipping.
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Oct 14, 2015 07:29
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GrandpaPants posted:Stegmaier posted a link to "playtester comments" at BGG and I clicked it in hopes of actual serious discussion and criticism. Nope, it's just marketing quotes. If you'd like a comment from someone who sat in on a game at Spiel for 15 minutes I can give you one later. Short form is "it's good", though.
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Oct 14, 2015 08:15
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Got my copy of Entropy today, the contents are really high quality. I'll find out if the game itself matches at some point. I got the Ninja Dojo minigame along with it, should be a good intro.
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Oct 14, 2015 08:34
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GrandpaPants posted:Can you talk about this more? The gameplay description on the Kickstarter made it seem like a functional, but kinda dull game. Between Two Cities is a "cooperative" game where one person can win. Basically, you build cities with your neighboring players, then each player scores the lowest city score between them (so in a three player game, if the city scores are 50-60-70, the player between 60 and 70 would win). It plays very quickly unless your group is prone to talking things out; some players prone to analysis paralysis can be jolted out of their reverie because the players next to them are trying to convince them to please put the park and not the factory in their shared city, etc. I find the rules set incredibly tight. Player order is determined at first by drawing a card that selects seating order (for example: hair length). The first and third rounds are played like a game of 7 Wonders, where you draft tiles and pass them around, giving you a bit more strategy in selecting buildings that aren't necessarily good for your neighbors. The second round uses duplex tiles, which are challenging but not impossible to place in your 4x4 city. At the end, each building type scores differently depending on how many you have and how you placed them. Scoring cities is the longest/least fun part of the game, but it's not as bad as some more heavyweight games. This isn't a hardcore game - I'd rank it about a 4-5/10 in terms of depth - but the general feeling that the mechanics are a well oiled machine pervades the gameplay and makes it a good icebreaker/intro game, or a good way to break up an evening winning streak (since two strong-at-other-games players sitting next to each other will generally build too strong of a city between them the first couple plays). TL;DR: Lightweight competitive suburbia with a Knizia scoring system, bring it out to mix up your evening a bit. Plays 3-7 normally and 1-2 with modified rules.
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Oct 14, 2015 16:28
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Speaking of Ryuutama; I had completely forgotten that I was expecting a hardcopy of it! Its so....classy looking!
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Oct 14, 2015 19:10
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General Ironicus posted:Lovecraftesque is in its final countdown. It's a GMless cosmic horror game that is meant to make mythos horror stories without being so darn racist: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1122788890/lovecraftesque Also, "respectfully addressing mental disorders" seems kind of weird - how do you "respectfully address the impact of the trauma on the human mind" in CoC? I don't recall anything being especially insensitive or anything... Seems like much ado about something that can be easily handled by not being a generally terrible person.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:23
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Yes, it's not like the CoC madness rules have a result that makes you gay or something, does it? Please say no, I don't own a copy of CoC presently.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:26
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Yeah those are two really weird, out of place paragraphs. Does the game come with a handy list of names for housecats aside from "Niggerman" too?
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Oct 14, 2015 21:27
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I'm not a backer, but the idea is explicitly to avoid the Lovecraft tropes of 'bad blood' from mixing or mingling with something that's not another white person, and the treatment of non Anglicized cultures as savage things to be feared full of nasty poo poo. Anything that sticks to the default Lovecraft mythos monsters is going to carry both of those unless they make an intentional effort to excise them. Lovecraftesque seems to be intended as a way to hit the bleak, cosmic horror, protagonist is doomed tone, without carrying over a bunch of literally century old racist bullshit along with it. As far as mental health, I can remember things like psychosexual disorders being on the mental health charts until relatively recently, on top of a general misunderstanding of how trauma relates to the mind and people become dissociated from themselves or society at a whole in favor of the RPG staple of random tables. I'm curious to see what their final product is. I love a lot of the big picture ideas of Lovecraft's work but the inherent racism is kinda undeniable and there's nothing wrong with a product taking inspiration from one area of it while condemning that bit.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:40
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Trail of Cthulhu has a sidebar about mental illness and not making light of it etc. And sidebars about race and how it doesn't matter in the game
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Oct 14, 2015 21:40
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alg posted:Trail of Cthulhu has a sidebar about mental illness and not making light of it etc. I wouldn't say Trail of Cthulhu specifically is very concerned with being 'respectful' towards the subject. For one, the main sidebar in the Mental Illness chapter is called Tediously Obligatory Disclaimer, which seems rather passive aggressive towards the idea Lovecraftian gaming doesn't always have the best take on mental illness. To be fair though, the section on race is much better, from memory and Pelgrane generally is pretty good about having non-white sample characters in their ToC scenarios. Tediously Obligatory Disclaimer posted:This game simulates mental illness as seen in Lovecraftian and Lovecraft inspired fiction and gaming. It should not be confused with real psychology, even the real (and mostly outmoded) psychology of the 1920s and 1930s. Although no disrespect is intended to those suffering the real-life effects of mental illness, we submit to those concerned by this issue that horror is meant to be irresponsible, disreputable, and upsetting.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:37
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Dulkor posted:I'm not a backer, but the idea is explicitly to avoid the Lovecraft tropes of 'bad blood' from mixing or mingling with something that's not another white person, and the treatment of non Anglicized cultures as savage things to be feared full of nasty poo poo. Anything that sticks to the default Lovecraft mythos monsters is going to carry both of those unless they make an intentional effort to excise them. Lovecraftesque seems to be intended as a way to hit the bleak, cosmic horror, protagonist is doomed tone, without carrying over a bunch of literally century old racist bullshit along with it.
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Oct 15, 2015 00:24
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berzerkmonkey posted:Yeah, but that stuff was never in the game in the first place. Also, I really don't remember any of it in the Mythos stories either - I think a lot of people conflate his personal writings with the stories and go apeshit because they read something on the Internet once. uh The Call of Cthulhu posted:The region now entered by the police was one of traditionally evil repute, substantially unknown and untraversed by white men. There were legends of a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypus thing with luminous eyes; and squatters whispered that bat-winged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight. They said it had been there before D'Iberville, before La Salle, before the Indians, and before even the wholesome beasts and birds of the woods. It was nightmare itself, and to see it was to die. But it made men dream, and so they knew enough to keep away. The present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on the merest fringe of this abhorred area, but that location was bad enough; hence perhaps the very place of the worship had terrified the squatters more than the shocking sounds and incidents. e: The Dunwich Horror posted:Outsiders visit Dunwich as seldom as possible, and since a certain season of horror all the signboards pointing towards it have been taken down. The scenery, judged by an ordinary aesthetic canon, is more than commonly beautiful; yet there is no influx of artists or summer tourists. Two centuries ago, when talk of witch-blood, Satan-worship, and strange forest presences was not laughed at, it was the custom to give reasons for avoiding the locality. In our sensible age—since the Dunwich horror of 1928 was hushed up by those who had the town's and the world's welfare at heart—people shun it without knowing exactly why. Perhaps one reason—though it cannot apply to uninformed strangers—is that the natives are now repellently decadent, having gone far along that path of retrogression so common in many New England backwaters. They have come to form a race by themselves, with the well-defined mental and physical stigmata of degeneracy and inbreeding. The average of their intelligence is woefully low, whilst their annals reek of overt viciousness and of half-hidden murders, incests, and deeds of almost unnameable violence and perversity. The old gentry, representing the two or three armigerous families which came from Salem in 1692, have kept somewhat above the general level of decay; though many branches are sunk into the sordid populace so deeply that only their names remain as a key to the origin they disgrace. Some of the Whateleys and Bishops still send their eldest sons to Harvard and Miskatonic, though those sons seldom return to the mouldering gambrel roofs under which they and their ancestors were born. The Shadow Over Innsmouth posted:When the driver came out of the store I looked at him more carefully and tried to determine the source of my evil impression. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered man not much under six feet tall, dressed in shabby blue civilian clothes and wearing a frayed golf cap. His age was perhaps thirty-five, but the odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck made him seem older when one did not study his dull, expressionless face. He had a narrow head, bulging, watery-blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears. His long thick lip and coarse-pored, greyish cheeks seemed almost beardless except for some sparse yellow hairs that straggled and curled in irregular patches; and in places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease. His hands were large and heavily veined, and had a very unusual greyish-blue tinge. The fingers were strikingly short in proportion to the rest of the structure, and seemed to have a tendency to curl closely into the huge palm. As he walked toward the bus I observed his peculiarly shambling gait and saw that his feet were inordinately immense. The more I studied them the more I wondered how he could buy any shoes to fit them. The Street posted:There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of the Street. Tulul fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 00:33
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Paper Kaiju posted:I'm absolutely in love with the game's theme and design concepts, but I'm concerned that it being marketed as a 'family' game means that it won't have much staying power with me. It's meeting its goal, though, so no reason for me not just watch out for when it gets a retail release and see its reception. It's probably just that it's not quite so deep. It reminds be a bit of Hey! That's My Fish with extra bits which isn't a bad thing. The replay value might be a bit of an issue
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Oct 15, 2015 02:12
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http://www.tor.com/features/series/the-lovecraft-reread/ is an analytical reread of all the mythos stories which includes commentary on the various racisms that Lovecraft peddled in his prose. He doesn't limit himself to hating on black folks, he even differentiates among types of Germans for purity's sake.
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Oct 15, 2015 03:52
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I recall an early story where he elaborated a lot on just how lovely he thought poor white people were, too
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Oct 15, 2015 03:57
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Lovecraft was the kind of guy who could marry a Jewish woman and still maintain his anti-semitism loudly and publicly. Because him marrying her made her no longer a Jew, you see. 
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Oct 15, 2015 04:37
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People in the Scythe kickstarter comments bitched so much they're doing regular stretch goals now
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Oct 15, 2015 04:50
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Some friends of mine are doing a Kickstarter for a 4E D&D and Pathfinder nautically themed adventure setting called Anchor Rock: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rollplay/anchor-rock-an-adventure-setting-for-pathfinder-an It even has an angry grippli warrior in it. 
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Oct 15, 2015 04:58
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boom boom boom posted:People in the Scythe kickstarter comments bitched so much they're doing regular stretch goals now Goddamnt, people in comments sections are the loving worst.
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Oct 15, 2015 05:18
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Lovecraft was the kind of guy who could marry a Jewish woman and still maintain his anti-semitism loudly and publicly. Because him marrying her made her no longer a Jew, you see. Lovecraft was the kinda guy that even other racists in a racist rear end time period said 'Jesus we get it man, you don't care for the blacks'. boom boom boom posted:People in the Scythe kickstarter comments bitched so much they're doing regular stretch goals now What changed?
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Oct 15, 2015 06:22
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Tatum Girlparts posted:What changed? Jamey calculated in advance the funding levels required for each stretch goal, and intended to release them at a rate of one per day whether they were passed or not. However, the project was so unexpectedly successful that if he stuck to those calculations he would be doing nothing but revealing goals that had already been unlocked. Funding on Kickstarters tends to slow down when there are no stretch goals to push for, so the people in the comments asked him to move to the traditional model so as to provide encouragement. Of course this probably means it will require more funding before all the goals are unlocked, but let's face it - the project has raised $750k in two days. There's little danger of it not getting everything and if the total surpasses the original calculations Jamey will probably just say so and unlock any remaining goals. On the subject of seven-figure Kickstarters and racist New Englanders: Cthulhu Wars Onslaught Two begins on the 18th. It's a second chance to get the first wave at KS prices, plus several new faction expansions that will stop people wondering why there's an 8-player map when the game only goes to seven.
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Oct 15, 2015 10:17
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Yeah, Lovecraft was hella racist and its nice to see some of the things derived from his works openly acknowledging that and making a conscious effort to move away from it. I'm a huge Lovecraft fan and going back and reading some of his stories again there's definite places where all you can do is cringe.
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Oct 15, 2015 12:03
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People are too averse to change Is he still planning on revealing a new goal each day if the previous goal hasn't been met yet?
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Oct 15, 2015 12:32
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It looks like he's revealing each goal as the previous one is unlocked. Although he stuck in a bunch of other strech goals at levels that have already been surpassed ($250k got us custom meeples per faction, and a few other goals) and there's no update from him yet so I don't really know what's going on now. I can see the next Lessons from Kickstarter blog when he's done with this: "Your backers are precious and also complete loving whiny baby morons"
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Oct 15, 2015 15:17
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FISHMANPET posted:I can see the next Lessons from Kickstarter blog when he's done with this: "Your backers are precious and also complete loving whiny baby morons" Jesus Christ is it true. Probably 99% of the overlap is the BGG scum that make me avoid reading their forums. But really, I can't wait for his retrospective posts, they are always so interesting.
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Oct 15, 2015 15:22
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BTW, yesterday there were about 300 backers at the $1 level and 6800 at some level that gets a product. Today there's about 350 backers at the $1 level and 7700 backers at some level that gets a product. The kickstarter was still getting new funders. But I think he did it not because it was actually hurting his funding but because people wouldn't shut up about it in the comments.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:02
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ChiTownEddie posted:In a much less dumb kickstarter...Scythe is now live. So this is a "wait for it at retail" because it will cost less and unless you need the coins or artbook, it isn't worth even considering the KS, right?
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Oct 15, 2015 16:08
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Indolent Bastard posted:So this is a "wait for it at retail" because it will cost less and unless you need the coins or artbook, it isn't worth even considering the KS, right? As with almost any KS, you can wait for retail. Especially if you want the base game as opposed to the Supa Special Version. Stonemaier makes sure that every aspect (upgrades, coins, promo packs, etc) are available post KS to purchase. Cheaper I can't say for certain, the only reason I have Viti+Tuscany Prima for cheaper is because I got a sale price. The Between Two Cities looks to be similar for retail compared to KS prices. I back because I actually respect Stegmaier and the way he runs his projects, and the fact that he mostly couldn't make games without KS. Hell, he said recently he was amazed and excited he could afford to do a reprint of Viti without KS funds helping him pay for it. Now that it's funded though? Go ahead and wait it out for retail.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:15
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So far two of the revealed stretch goals are promo cards that will be included for backers but not included in the final game, but will be available for separate purchase. I would bet there's going to be a few more promo card stretch goals because a few extra cards is easy and cheap. It also sounds like his margins are lower on this than with the other games, so retailers may not be able to mark it down as much as they normally would. Looking online for Viticulture, Tuscany, Euphoria, and Between Two Cities, and comparing what I paid for them via kickstarters or his other preorder venues, versus what they're going for now, I don't think I could really get a better deal right now. Also Viticulture is out of stock again at CSI and probably other places as well. I think the same thing is going to happen with Scythe where maybe it'll be cheaper for the 5 seconds it's in stock, but it will generally be a pain in the rear end to find. Also, Jamey does a bang up job with this process and I think backing him rewards his good behavior. Note, I haven't backed (yet).
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Oct 15, 2015 16:27
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Indolent Bastard posted:So this is a "wait for it at retail" because it will cost less and unless you need the coins or artbook, it isn't worth even considering the KS, right? Basing it on the Tuscany Kickstarter, I'm not quite sure. It's hard to say since it's sold out in a lot of places so I don't know whether the current prices reflect what it used to cost when it was available, but looking at the prices at CSI and Miniature Market, buying Tuscany and Viticulture costs roughly what the $99 Collector's Edition did, $87.50 and $98 respectively. The Collector's Edition also came with the metal coins, though, and I think without them the edition with both games was just $79, which makes that a better deal than online retail. Again, though, I'm not sure how accurate this is, but it does seem at least somewhat comparable to OLGS, especially compared to other Kickstarters, and I'm not even going to bother taking the rest of the world into account. Note also that Scythe has promos that won't come in the retail package, but will be available somewhere between $5-10, judging by the normal prices on the BGG store. They're likely incredibly marginal on actual gameplay impact, but you'll always know where that hole in your heart came from. I'm glad he did change the stretch goal policy though since the previous one seemed really dumb. It likely would have ended up the same (i.e., everyone gets all the stretch goals), but it seems almost conflicting to say "We budgeted for these stretch goals" and "we're setting the price of these stretch goals every morning." It seemed an unnecessary reinventing of the wheel that at best just confused people and at worst seemed like a money grab, at least moreso than what Kickstarters are normally, at least. Academy Games' last Kickstarter for Mare Nostrum hit all their stretch goals before the end of the campaign, which was nice to come in on the last day and go "Well, I guess this is what I'm getting, cool."
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Oct 15, 2015 16:28
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