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I like Richard Borg, just enough wargame to his games without having to try to digest a ton of rules.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:29
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Toshimo posted:Argent: Tried it at GenCon. It seemed ok. Heavier and less anime than expected. What is gooncensus, since I'm on the fence about backing a Kickstarter that won't deliver for 9 months? It's good. A little bit "too many notes, Mozart" that I think allows people to play more separately and "obscurely" than is ideal. The worker placement with the different kinds of mages and the bells for ending the round, with the really nicely variable university setups, are my favorite parts. This is good because these good things are the core of the game. I sometimes feel as though they (wrongly) lacked confidence in the game's core, and so added more "stuff" thinking (rightly) that the quality of any game's core is obscured when nobody can really tell who's winning.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:32
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Simone Luciani probably deserves props for Tzol'kin and Marco Polo, though i haven't heard as many kind words about Grand Austria Hotel or Lorenzo il Magnifico so maybe the tank ran out there.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:35
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Tales of Woe posted:Simone Luciani probably deserves props for Tzol'kin and Marco Polo, though i haven't heard as many kind words about Grand Austria Hotel or Lorenzo il Magnifico so maybe the tank ran out there. Lorenzo is big in my local circles but I've yet to play it.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:39
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Richard Berg > Richard Borg
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Aug 21, 2017 16:02
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CaptainRightful posted:Richard Berg > Richard Borg
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Aug 21, 2017 16:29
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fastbilly1 posted:Berg made many amazing games, both at SPI and GMT. But Borg's games have gotten non gamers into playing wargames. So you start with Borg then move to Berg. No can do. Once Borg gets you, that's it.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:33
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fastbilly1 posted:Berg made many amazing games, both at SPI and GMT. But Borg's games have gotten non gamers into playing wargames. So you start with Borg then move to Berg.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:35
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Tekopo posted:There is a reason why I recommend C&C in the board wargame thread as a beginner game. Although I dislike Memoir '44. It just doesn't feel very WWII to me. Play Battlecry. It is what the system was created for and it fits the Civil War theme far better than Memoir WW2. Memoir will always be one of my favorite entry wargames, even if there are better options out there.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:40
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fastbilly1 posted:Play Battlecry. It is what the system was created for and it fits the Civil War theme far better than Memoir WW2.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:43
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Tekopo posted:My favourite is C&C Napoleonics, I feel it has the best rules. I would buy Battlecry but I hate the plastic models. If you are up for a project: https://www.commandsandcolors.net/battlecry/forum-main/units/85-battlecry-counter-sheet.html This is honestly one of the reasons I have been looking at laser engravers. Laser engraved wooden chits look boss.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:46
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I found the existence of some super cheap board game mini convention near Chicago where game designers bring their creations for playtesting and feedback and whatnot. It's $10 for a 3-day pass as a player. I wonder if that's any fun to do...
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Aug 21, 2017 16:48
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fastbilly1 posted:Berg made many amazing games, both at SPI and GMT. But Borg's games have gotten non gamers into playing wargames. So you start with Borg then move to Berg. I should clarify that > is a relational operator used for comparing quantity, not quality.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:53
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ShaneB posted:I found the existence of some super cheap board game mini convention near Chicago where game designers bring their creations for playtesting and feedback and whatnot. It's $10 for a 3-day pass as a player. I wonder if that's any fun to do...
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Aug 21, 2017 16:55
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I used to playtest boardgames but not anymore. Too many instances of 'how dare you criticize my game!' for me. I should note that I am pretty blunt in telling them exactly and specifically what is wrong with their game and why.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:59
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Lorini posted:I used to playtest boardgames but not anymore. Too many instances of 'how dare you criticize my game!' for me. yeah my only playtesting experience with a friend involved a decent amount of pearl-clutching on his part.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:00
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Hey y'all, I put up the Game of Thrones thread, for those potentially interested in joining. Recruiting for 72 hours. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3831248&pagenumber=1#lastpost
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Aug 21, 2017 17:01
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"Hey dude that event deck really shouldn't be random, if you balance the game around 2 bad events and 3 good events then just draw that many of each in a random order or something" "I hear you Vlaada and am going to do nothing at all to fix that problem"
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Aug 21, 2017 17:08
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I can't wait to hear people's impressions of First Martians. Not because it interests me at all, but because it looks like he went full Ignacy.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:11
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silvergoose posted:"Hey dude that event deck really shouldn't be random, if you balance the game around 2 bad events and 3 good events then just draw that many of each in a random order or something" I mean, that may be a bad story game-design wise, but the guy was so nice about it  . "Oh my, Vlaada you're so smart, you're giving me such deep insights and I really appreciate it". No sour personal experiences there.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:11
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Bottom Liner posted:I can't wait to hear people's impressions of First Martians. Not because it interests me at all, but because it looks like he went full Ignacy. EDIT: I watched the full "how to play" made by Watch it Played and it's just another experience generator where you have to get lucky to win.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:14
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Bottom Liner posted:Played a beginner game of Terraforming Mars with 5 players. 2 players had great draws and got a good engine going and really liked the game, 1 person hated the game and dropped on the 4th round, and the other two of us drew poo poo and did nothing. That's Terraforming Mars. By the 6th round, all other players had gotten cheap city tile cards and started building out their board presence whereas I drew nothing but expensive or useless crap, putting me in a huge disadvantage purely by RNG. In fairness, the beginner version of the game is a horrible introduction to the game and the starting corporation identities and drafting variants add a lot of player agency and take away a lot of the giant deck of random cards determining if you get to do anything or not problem. My GF and I picked up Terraforming Mars and Cave vs Cave this weekend. We got in a quick play of the latter and loved it. It really feels like a super streamlined version of Caverna and there is a fair bit of puzzling going on there too. Making us of the action spaces is critical, but so is planning on where you build your walls and digging too. Very very cool. We're looking forward to trying TM shortly. How does it play with two? Is the consensus to skip the learning game and just do the full one? And has anyone interacted with the expansions enough to say whether they fix some of the problems with the base game that have been brought up a few times? I'm pleased with your impressions of Rising Sun though. I love politicking in my games and hopefully I can finagle my group into playing it. Right away I know it's not going to be for everyone but hopefully a certain sub-selection of people I know will be more than happy to throw off their tunnel-visioned anti-social behaviour to actually communicate rather than just pushing cubes around.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:45
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FulsomFrank posted:My GF and I picked up Terraforming Mars and Cave vs Cave this weekend. We got in a quick play of the latter and loved it. It really feels like a super streamlined version of Caverna and there is a fair bit of puzzling going on there too. Making us of the action spaces is critical, but so is planning on where you build your walls and digging too. Very very cool. We're looking forward to trying TM shortly. How does it play with two? Is the consensus to skip the learning game and just do the full one? And has anyone interacted with the expansions enough to say whether they fix some of the problems with the base game that have been brought up a few times? Not sure about playing it with 2, I would think you'd be able to get your tableau and engine a lot more developed before pushing the end conditions. Yeah, the full game is not really any more difficult to learn and is much better.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:50
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ShaneB posted:I found the existence of some super cheap board game mini convention near Chicago where game designers bring their creations for playtesting and feedback and whatnot. It's $10 for a 3-day pass as a player. I wonder if that's any fun to do... Hi I playtest broken games every other week (and let people playtest mine) and let me tell you my experiences. 1) The majority of people designing board games are going to make something so incredibly terrible that it'll be a miserable slog to even get through it. I've had sessions where people haven't figured out what their end-game condition is, or haven't put enough thought into it to realize the win-con they made is completely impossible for anyone to achieve. Broken mechanics, easily abused tactics, and lack of actual rule space is the norm. To be clear, I understand that I am there to playtest games and give feedback to help them improve, but this does not mean I should be playing something that is, literally, impossible. 2) While you meet a good amount of developers who love critical feedback and will do more listening than speaking, you will meet some that are acting like you are murdering their children in front of them when you give criticism. They will be incredibly argumentative and make sure that after every comment you make, they have some rebuttal to why it is the way it is, even if the way it is, is completely broken. I played a game where players could attack each other as gameplay went on. I played the entire game trying to avoid combat entirely, and was able to thrash anyone else by simply ignoring the entire mechanic. When discussed afterwards, the developer insisted that I didn't understand the game. That said, if you are giving blunt, critical feedback, you aren't doing what you're there to do. 3) When you meet developers who are clearly passionate about what they do but not so involved that they ignore criticism, you can play some truly magnificent games that you never know if you'll play again. At this group, we've been playtesting the game of a student who's in the city for an internship this summer since he doesn't have a local group back home, and it's one of the fastest and most engaging strategic area control games I have ever played. You can make great connections, get into the industry if you want, and wind up coming across some great titles before they even hit kickstarter.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:54
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Toshimo posted:Argent: Tried it at GenCon. It seemed ok. Heavier and less anime than expected. What is gooncensus, since I'm on the fence about backing a Kickstarter that won't deliver for 9 months? It's generally well accepted here, but allow me to be a voice of dissent. Do you know what's great about worker placements? 1) The sense of progression from the beginning to the end of the game and 2) the idea of interaction by blocking actions. Do you know what's great about 99% of board games? There exists a clear winning condition. Argent fails at these three admittedly cherry picked points. There are 10 voters that you can woo. You know 3 at the beginning of the game. You can either expend more resources to see more marks, or you can just ignore that and get more of everything. It's a point salad where you don't know which ingredients are useful. I and my friend felt as though you could just get more of everything instead of working toward a specific strategy. Some voters care about having the second most resources, but more voters care about having the most. You initially have the ability to block spaces and take actions as in a normal worker placement. However, you can easily shadow ( also take same action), injure (knock out an opponent's worker for the round) or evacuate (bounce an opponent's mage for use later this round) to take the actions you want. There are counters for the latter two actions in the types of mages that you place and the order in which you place them. However, because you select 5 of 7 total possible mages at the beginning of the game, the game felt deterministic before the first worker was placed. Lastly, like pretty much every L99 Game that isn't Battlecon or Pixel Tactics, the game length is too long for the decision space that you have. The set up takes forever because pretty much everything has variable set up and there are too many resources to juggle. This suggests the same issue that I have with Abyss: even if you have a solid game, if you pull too many random levers you will break the game over a rock called RNG. All of the set up and table space and resources just to suit up a worker placement mechanic that isn't even guaranteed. Never before have I been so disappointed with a game. The potential worst part is that it is common knowledge that the designer actually suggested a trimmed down version of the game to Brad Talton, and he shot it down. Brad, much like Vlaada, could use someone to strip out 20% of the games he touches in order to kill the bloat. I'd give Argent a hard pass.
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Aug 21, 2017 17:56
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When testing something (whether games or anything else) it's best to limit yourself to stating what did and didn't work for you, and avoid segueing into why or what exactly you think is broken and how to fix it unless specifically asked. This is proper scope for testing but is also for your own benefit as well, as defense against getting into it with pissy designers.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:24
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I disagree partially. You should absolutely tell someone if you feel something specifically does not work, or is not providing the intended result, but I agree that you shouldn't try to fix it unless they ask for your ideas. Remember to be nice, but critical.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:30
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Kashuno posted:Hi I playtest broken games every other week (and let people playtest mine) and let me tell you my experiences. For a while I tried printing and playing random games on BGG. I believe that for many of these games, I was the only one - including the designer - who ever actually tried to play a full game. Like, there was one disastrously thought-free fish combat chess-like game, where the losing player had easy, obvious ways to draw out the game forever (like corner sliding in checkers, but with no counter even if the other guy was way ahead). Nobody had really commented on this game other than the normal "looks great can't wait to try it!", but once someone (me) had the audacity to say something substantive, I got jumped by like 30 members of whatever game design wank circle this guy belonged to. How could I possibly know the game as well as the designer? And obviously what I said wasn't right, and if it was then nobody would ever consider such a strange tactic in an actual game. Another game had nothing but whiny posts by the designer about how nobody would try his game. I looked at the files, and it was like 80 pages of mostly dark colors, with most of the page space wasted (it was a bunch of square tiles mostly, but instead of being in a rectangular grid you could chop up quickly, they were, like, spaced out across a bunch of pages with background images, some of which I think you were supposed to print multiple times). The game also prominently figured a couple random resolution tables, and these - despite being something you'd use most every turn of the game - were in small text and cut across two pages. I told him what I think he could change to make people more likely to try printing out his game - as it stood, it was going to be $10 in toner and 3 hours - and, again, the game went from being ignored to it being a "screw jmzero" party. I was the bad guy who just wanted to destroy, while the selfless designer was giving, FOR FREE! his special vision to the world and how dare I question that. And all his family and friends LOVED IT, so obviously I was just a jerk. quote:This is proper scope for testing but is also for your own benefit as well, as defense against getting into it with pissy designers. Yeah.. I've been on both sides of testing, and I think it's important for designers to remember who is doing who a service here. Testing mostly isn't a lot of fun, and often the people who are willing to do it (especially early in a game's development) are "into" games enough that you should put some weight on what they say. Their willingness to say something substantive - the kind of stuff your friends won't - is a resource you shouldn't discount (or outright destroy by getting pissy/defensive). BGG has mostly become useless for designers looking for feedback because it has more people who want testing than are willing to test (especially for anything but the simplest games), and the culture is dead against anything that isn't "looks great! super excited!". When I give more specific feedback, even if I feel quite strongly about something, I try to make it sort of "stream of consciousness, maybe something I ramble into will sound interesting to you" style. I find every once in a while someone likes an idea, and if they don't nobody has any need to get offended. jmzero fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 18:37
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I like the Argent win condition a lot conceptually but I think it probably fits better in a lighter game where you're not quite as invested. I haven't played the game but it seems like playing a 2 hour brainburner and then having the scoring be 'noisy' rather than fully deterministic is not ideal.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:45
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I've had super good luck playtesting games at Double Exposure events in the NYC/NJ area--it's a group with a few cons per year that really seems to have built up a strong design community. There's definitely a skill to reading game descriptions and finding the ones that seem to have the most promise, but I'd say the majority of the games I've playtested there have ranged from promising to great. I actually do tend to give a lot of "ideas for how to fix things" advice, but I always preface it by saying that they shouldn't do anything that I say and that I'm just saying it to try to basically just give feedback from a different angle.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:46
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The subreddit has a surprising amount of hype for Photosynthesis. Did anyone try that game? I'm always interested in a new abstract, especially one with pretty art.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:58
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Bottom Liner posted:Goon game of New Angeles crashing and burning super hard because of ransom demands by Fellis in round three despite there being no federalist (allegedly). Is New Angeles good? I keep hearing mixed opinions on it. Also there will never be a good Fallout game until they make a COIN New Vegas game
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Aug 21, 2017 19:03
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Kashuno posted:I disagree partially. You should absolutely tell someone if you feel something specifically does not work, or is not providing the intended result, but I agree that you shouldn't try to fix it unless they ask for your ideas. I think we're saying the same thing 
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Aug 21, 2017 19:03
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I got to do a late playtest of Freedom the Underground Railroad, and Brian Mayer was very nice and receptive, and even took my suggestion of "east and west are super confusing directions when the slavers can reverse, go north/south sometimes, maybe make them arrows or something?".
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Aug 21, 2017 19:08
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Tales of Woe posted:I like the Argent win condition a lot conceptually but I think it probably fits better in a lighter game where you're not quite as invested. I haven't played the game but it seems like playing a 2 hour brainburner and then having the scoring be 'noisy' rather than fully deterministic is not ideal. I like noisy win conditions, since it forces people to actually watch and pay attention to what other people are doing, which removes a lot of the multiplayer solitaire aspects of Euros (even if Argent didn't let you summon a volcano in a classroom and poo poo). Shared, but secret, goals are one of my favorite mechanics (Argent, Troyes, Archipelago) precisely because it forces me to not just go into the game with a plan based on what they started with, but to adapt that plan to changing circumstances. Going into a game of Argent going, hmm, well maybe I should get a lot of Planar cards isn't going to be a good time. Judging whether you should get into the Planar card "race" when you have 0, one dude has 2, and another has 1, when a really good Spell just got put on the market, is a meaningful strategic game decision. I also think it's a good skill to have a read on who's "winning" the game without necessarily having to quantify that. If it helps discourage people from ganging up on Jim because he has like, 5 more points than the player in second, all the best for it too.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:13
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Tekopo posted:Friday is also pretty good until you hit the win condition all the time. I'm sure it will be an optimization problem eventually, but I'm still having fun with it after 10 or so plays.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:15
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I kind of like noisy win conditions myself, but even public info victory point tracks can get a lot of last turn action which makes them kind of fuzzy, too. Depends on the game of course.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:19
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At GenCon, I demo'ed games that were selling finished product that was worse than a lot of fan-made content wrt rules/templating/layout. Playtesting seems very optional and so does getting anyone with any development experience to take 5 minutes to tell you that your game is an utter shitshow of random mechanics and keywords. But somehow, they still get enough $$$ to get a 20x20 booth at GenCon to hawk their lovely product
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Aug 21, 2017 19:24
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:I'm sure it will be an optimization problem eventually, but I'm still having fun with it after 10 or so plays.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:25
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After a disasterous Thursday at Gencon we decided to avoid the dealer hall for the entire con and just play as much poo poo as we could. That meant getting more games of Concordia in and yep, that's still a great Euro A+ In the BGG Hot Games room we tried out Magic Maze and it lived up to the hype. It reminds me of a co-operative Chip's Challenge and I'm looking to completing it with my group. I think the game-of-the-show for me was Adrenaline. It's billed as an FPS board game and they sure nailed that aesthetic. But having never read the box I thought it would be a lovely dice fest but it's actually an abstract tactical game with area control except the areas are the other players. CGE's custom giant board was a good way to sell that game although I seriously question why they have to sell it at full MSRP when I can just walk to CSI's booth and pick it up for $50. They're the publisher, they can set any drat price they want. That's a Question is okay. It's clearly geared for younger gamers and will probably fly off Target shelves. Crosstalk was basically Codenames but with some extra layers to it. The clue givers have a secret clue they give to the guessers and they write down public clues which their opponent guesses first. The neat thing is a white board with some symbols on it that you can only use once that lets you do stuff like emphasize a specific clue or cross one out to let your partner know they shouldn't focus on it. I think I like it better than base Codenames and Pictures because it's less abstract, more involved, and you can actually guide your partner around at the expense of helping your opponent. The secret clue system is a good idea. The biggest stinker was True Dungeon, weird dexterity based live game that's held at every major con. I got in with a seasoned group that loaned me their items but it was pretty clear the game runners were dead tired at 10pm. There's nothing worse than unmotivated moderators. There's some cool sets and the puzzle rooms were fun, the actual combat portion was boring poo poo. Friday got a 6 player game of Mare Nostrum with the new alternate leaders and had a miserable experience. Rome's new leader is terrible, or at least I couldn't figure out how to use him properly. It was 3 new players with 3 veteran players and lesson learned we should mix up the seating order so that all the new players aren't on the opposite side of the more aggressive experienced players. I still like Mare Nostrum, but the balance is highly variable and kingmaking is an inevitability if people don't know what they're doing. I've never played Wits and Wagers but the new version was enjoyable for a trivia game. Won $20 from it and immediately reinvested it at CSI's booth for Tash Kalar and Time of Struggles, a new GMT wargame that touts being a deckbuilder except you choose your cards. It looks interesting. I bought a Battletech box set a few months ago for way too much money and lo and behold Catalyst was courting a Chinese woman I can only assume represents a manufacturing company as they displayed their new Battletech box set coming Q1 of 2018. I love me some giant robots so hell, I might sell my old box once a solid release date hits. Lastly, I avoided falling down a deep dark pit. CSI was selling Beyond Valor and Totaler Krieg in the ding and dent section. I was about to snap off the buy as the guy was discounting the games on Sunday but $80 each when I would also need the ASL manual put me off. I've got Triumph and Tragedy for my strategic wargaming, thank you. I'll probably never go back to Gencon. The experience was fine but Origins is a mellower, and cheaper, experience. I don't play tournament games, I don't care about events, so the huge crowds and long lines do nothing for me. I will say that everyone I met at Gencon was super friendly, even some dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters I played Secret Hitler with were all friendly and enjoyed the game as I made a point to ask "are you Hitler?" every chance I could get. It seems like every heavy game I organize at Origins there's some jerk who can only play for an hour and whines when poo poo doesn't go their way.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:26
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