f13.net

So, I think we can all agree that the effect Kickstarter has had on the board game industry has been absolutely immense. Between just raw knowledge that something exists and the way it's brought straight up art quality to the forefront, it's fairly reasonable to say that the net effect has been good. Advertising, in a way, has become cheaper (just give up a cut to Amazon / Kickstarter). Hell, now you CAN advertise board games. I don't think I ever saw an advertised board game before Kickstarter. I'm not even sure I saw a worker placement game without hot garbage art before Kickstarter.

Anyway, a lot of people here have bought 10, 20, 30+ games on Kickstarter and I'd like to know how you come to the decisions you come to. Or what immediately turns you off. As an example, here's something I typically would have bought but it contained something so deal-breaking that I didn't even put it on my "saved projects." I present to you, Tradewarz: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/480710422/tradewarz-a-game-of-kings

Minis were unique, fun and didn't REALLY need to be painted.
Art in general was good.
Tiny bit of the ruleset/gameplay I read about seemed ok.

But the name, should I see something called Tradewarz sitting on the shelf, I'd regret the purchase until the sun burnt out. Given that its failing (in a world where total garbage... doesn't fail), maybe others couldn't get past the name?

Moving on, in addition to what you like and don't like, what purchases have you all made that you regret?

Mostly, I'd like to narrow down not so much "what makes a good kickstarter" but "what presentation makes a game seem good enough to throw money at." For the sake of argument, let's ignore CMON and Zombicide or whatever the fuck. Yeah, it's a lot of minis. I get "value," this isn't about "value." Also, those games suck and are ugly.

in b4 "nice try, Seth Hiatt"

My normal process depends heavily on how much the kickstarter is.  If it's less than $30 and looks interesting, a fool and his money are parted.  If it's less than like $60, I'll read the pitch in full and make a call based on that.  Below $100 I start looking at the gameplay videos, mostly to see how the actual gameplay plays out.  Above $100 I have not bought first editions, and I read the shit out of reviews of the first editions before buying them.  So far that only includes gloomhaven and city of kings which both pushed my buttons hard after the reviews.  

That said, there is some simplicity to Teleku's version:  "Hey Teleku, look, something shiny" *a year later*  "Oh right, i bought this".


As far as Tradewarz goes, the name is what made me open up the page.  I wanted to see what sort of trainwreck would name itself that.  Then I saw what they made and temporarily lost my mind.  Then I read the rules and noped out hard on the first page when it was as wishy washy as the name.  Names matter folks.

So far the only thing i regret buying is Founders of Gloomhaven.  It clearly needed a few more design passes, and in the future I'm not going to be backing anything that looks like an unfinished rules set because of it.

All that said, this looks amazing and fit my < $30 criteria, yet I still read the rules due to the theming and name.  Everyone should buy this though  :awesome_for_real: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socialsloth/gem-hens-a-real-time-dice-rolling-eggstravaganza?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=gem%20hens


edit:  It looks like they're taking the name change recommendations seriously, although maybe not seriously enough.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/480710422/tradewarz-a-game-of-kings/posts/2279103

i am not buying gem hens

I'm an outlier data point here, as I've got 721 backed projects in the games category, and at least 90% of those are board games, so clearly I'm a little indiscriminate, though I'm basically completely out of space, and have been trying to be better about what makes me pull the trigger. Off the top of my head, the things that matter most to me in some sort of roughly ordered list of importance are

1) Name recognition of the designer. Board games aren't quite a single auteur endeavor in most instances, but they're pretty damned close. It's rare that I really enjoy one game a designer puts out and can't find at least something interesting to think about in another one of their designs.

2) My hot button interests from the mechanics side. I like co-ops and legacy or campaign mechanics. Any game touting those is going to at least get a detailed investigation. This also works the other way. Are you dice chucker dudes on a map game without much else going? You're probably getting a pass.

3) Name recognition of the publisher. This is more of an anti-indicator that I should back then anything else. CMON miniature heavy products are largely crap, so if it's one of those and it's not also an Eric Lang design, it's probably getting ignored. The Horizon Zero Dawn game is another one. If I'd attached Steamforged as "The Dark Souls people" earlier, it wouldn't have gotten a second glance.

4) Innovation. If I read through a description and can't immediately pigeonhole it as "Oh, that's a lot like $FOO", I'll probably back it just to see what's going on under the hood. I've ended up with a lot of pretty blah projects that didn't quite come together as a result of this, but I've ended up with a ton of hidden gems as well. To me this is really what's amazing about kickstarter. It let's things that are risky or niche enough that a publisher won't go for them see the light of day.

5) Cost. I'm fortunate enough that money isn't much of a concern (thanks Bay Area tech bubble), but I'm not completely stupid. I'll think a bit more about something that costs triple digits than something that doesn't. However because most games that do end up costing that much are miniatures heavy dice chucker type games, they probably already got weeded out by section 2.

As for games I was disappointed with, the biggest ones are practically all of the CMON miniatures fests before I made a rule about that. I think Dogs of War is the only good one they kickstarted, and while that has miniatures for absolutely no good reason, they're not really the thrust of the project.

721 backed projects? I thought I had a problem.

Yeah, it's a bit gross. I think that number is everything backed in the category, regardless of whether or not it was canceled or the funding failed, but it's a stupidly high number however you slice it.

I have two Kickstarter accounts and probably clock in between 150 and 200 total with about 20-30 cancellations / refunds. I'm pretty picky but some stuff is just snap purchased. That said, I don't think I'll ever run out of space, so it's less of a problem.

I pretty much can echo everything said so far.  Another big criteria for me is rarity.  Boardgames used to be scarce and KS used to be about helping entrepreneurs.  I’m turned off when a campaign is just a pre-retailer marketing spend.  If the KS is the only way to get the game or if it’s a small publisher who often isn’t in retail (like war games, or Phil Eklund’s joint) then I’ll usually back.  I can’t stand seeing publishers like Queen or Artipia or anyone doing a campaign and the game is then 5% more at a FLGS a few weeks later.

I should add, I'll go in blind on anything involving John Clowdus from Small Box Games.

That ^, although he and his stuff basically got purchased by another company last winter to start doing kickstarter to retail for his back catalogue.  So far they've only pushed out Omen though, so we'll see if any of his other stuff ever actually sees the light of day again.

Edit:  Looks like I haven't been paying attention.  Appears that they're staging a handful of his other games, and one that I don't have might be about to be listed on kickstarter.  Interesting.  Going up on the 25th supposedly.  Date is in a thread on BGG.

https://kolossalgames.com/our-games/mezo/
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1998448/kickstarter-date

Edit edit:  Holy crap.  No, it's a completely new game, and a board game at that.  My brain just exploded.

I saw this thread and was all set to write up all my reasons for kickstarting games, saw this, then realized I couldn’t refute it.   :awesome_for_real:

But hey, lets do a list of the reasons I’ll back something anyways as I help myself to the open bar in the Executive Lounge at the Westin Chosun. 

1.)  Collectable - This is something I can only get on Kickstarter.  This is why I backed the collectors edition of Twighlight Struggle and Tokaido, despite already owning copies of the originals.  Also things like Scythe, where I get a bunch of extra nice miniature/plastic version of components I wont get in normal retail versions.

2.)  Shiny - I’m a sucker for impressive components.  And I do not think this is a bad thing.  To me, in this day and age, board games have to be a very visual experience (or be well suited to quick party game play.  See next point).  I can go online and play any sort of multiplayer game much easier than getting a bunch of people to sit around and try to enforce/remember rules myself.  Everybody sitting around a table with a game that gives an impressive presentation of art, style, or shear number of miniatures is a big part of the fun.  This is why Warhammer 40K can still rack in the amount of money it does for overpriced miniatures, even though you could play the game with cardboard chits.  Because fuck that, you are in it for the spectacle WW1 style space lazor tanks crashing into hordes of bright green aliens wielding scraps of metal as swords and firing jank ass machine guns in the other hand.

Conan, Bloodrage, Rising Sun, UBOOT, and Street Fighter all fit into this one (plus some more).  Oh, and something called Kingdom Death.  Mind you, I still only kickstart if the game seems fun, so I still avoid a lot of the mass miniature games that just don’t appeal to me.  Most recently I backed “So Long, My World” just because the art and the whole theme of the game really appealed to me, despite pretty much being a card only game.  And I rarely kickstart card only games, unless....

3.)  Cool Party Game, Bro - I kickstart stupid cheap shit because while I work in a job where I’m often at drunken social gatherings with intelligent people who are down to play games, its to hard to pull out some 5 hour long horseshit and try to explain the rules.  The collectors edition of Secret Hitler (good crossover with my first point) may be one of the most successful kickstarters for me ever.  I have gotten so much use out of that in the Foreign Service, and it never gets old getting high level government officials around a table and have them start accusing each other of literally being Hitler.  It has been a massive hit everywhere I take it.  The wooden box it comes in also gets praise over the peons who bring their standard cardboard shit.  Anyways, this also includes shit like exploding Kittens and Bears vs. Baby’s.  It’s quick, its easy, its fun, its visual.  No reason not to if it has some decent names behind it.  I’ll sort of glom things like Omen and other small box games into this.  If you do a good job of presenting the game mechanics, and its just basically a cheep deck of cards, then why the hell would I not kickstart.  I backed a glorified deck of cards called Bushido Breakers because it seemed like the idea might work, and it was super cheap (I have not yet opened the box).

4.)  Some Specific Mechanic - There are certain things that appeal to me specifically as a gamer, and I’ll naturally be drawn to kickstart games that follow that theme, even if others wont.  In the old MMO personality type shit (that means nothing anymore), I was hard exploration.  This means I backed things like the 7th Continent or even Endevor.  I also enjoy crafting, and even bounce a game idea round in my head that revolves around crafting magical weapons.  This made me kickstart Enchanters (which was probably a really dumb idea) just to see other ideas around the mechanics of creating magical items.  I’m sure we all have our own specific quirks that set us off and kickstart shit others might shake their heads at.  I kickstarted City of Kings because the RNG mechanics looked like it could be fun.

5.)  Specific Theme - I should probably borg this into point 4 as it fits the overall category, but I’ll just point it out as something people may decide to back a game based on.  I love history, majored in it in college, so I have a huge weakness for historical games.  I kickstarted ‘Days of Ire’, a game about the uprising against communist rule in Budapest, for this reason (also helps I was living in Eastern Europe so it was on my mind).  Despite the fact I have nobody to play it with and with all the other games out there, I doubt I’ll ever open the damn box at this point.  But I have zero regrets, and I’ll probably kickstart more random historical shit like that in the future.  I’m sure others do the same thing for different reasons.

I never, ever read about the game mechanics.  I don't care.  Rules are cheap and plentiful online, and I can always house rule cool minis into a game I know I enjoy.  For me, it's all about the miniatures.

I've backed:

Exploding Kittens (gift for the wife)
Blood Rage
Kingdom Builder Marshlands and Harvest (fuck Queen Games - they're the worst)
Small Star Empires (both KS phases)
Deep Madness (delivering soon)
Rising Sun
Vindication/Epoch the Awakening (delivering soon)
Cthulhu: Death May Die
Eclipse 2

All are enjoyable games for my various game groups.  How do I know this about the games that have yet to release?  I mock them up for a demo session with my friends before the KS ends to help me decide whether I want to back it. 

I open KS daily with the saved search t see new tabletop games.  If something has an earlybird and looks at all interesting, I back it and then schedule a check i later to evaluate it.  If no Early Bird, I wait until a week before it ends to evaluate it.   For the most part, I won't back games that do not have KS exclusives as I can generally get it cheaper down the road and have enough games that I'm not desperate to get something new.

I have 100 games.  If I buy a new one, I get rid of an old one.  Even if a game is good, I won't buy it unless I think it is better than similar games that I already own,  or it fills an empty hole in my collection.

Most new games on KS are not impressive and I pass them by in a few seconds.  I spend more time with a game if I like the theme, mechanics and look.  However, I rule out a lot of games and regret it, such as Spirit Island and 7th Continent.

I don't by KS games unless it's a reprint I have played and want, essentially.

I dunno why I'm in this thread.

whew, what a rollercoaster

I like the theme, the game is fun in the same way that Betrayal is, and I can use the minis for an RPG I run that is set in a early twentieth century setting.  Some of the minis will also get used for my D&D games - the next campaign I run will be heavily influenced by the Far Realms.  It isn't going to be my favorite of the games I got from KS, but I won't regret the ~$100 expense. 

Solo support and a strong atmosphere are pretty much all I look for (I also backed CMON's Cthulhu at the last minute). I was pleasantly surprised with Massive Darkness, its shallow and cheesy but hits just the right level for a solitaire game for me. Especially with the promo and crossover content (the vanilla game is really thin).

My main disappointment with KS has been video games. My main happiness has been KDM, all in twice now.

You might want to keep an eye out for Deep Madness returning to KS.  It can be run Solo and looks to be challenging.  Their first KS run cost more than expected, so they're doing a second run now that the game is ready to go to fund the retail release.  I played through the demo and it was challenging and fun, but not earthshattering.  The minis rival CMON. 

Dark Domains looks like a good game.  It is a placement game with a multiple tiered economy (the cost and benefit of actions changes upon game state).  However, we're in the last couple days of the KS and it looks like core features of the game are in stretch goals that will not be met (at around $85K, things that appear to be key features are in goals up to $145K - maybe $185K).  Unless they address this adequately, I'll have to drop - but I'll be a bit sad.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laboratoryh/dark-domains/description (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laboratoryh/dark-domains/description)

These newer companies need to learn how to do stretch goals:

* Don't make key mechanics of the game stretch goals.
* Any KS exclusives need to fall in the 'cool, but not essential' category.  Alt art/sculpts are good, as are nonserious expansions (Santa Claus figure, etc...)
* Organizers, card sleeves, etc... are also good additions.
* Allowing early bird awards for a cost as expansions is a good technique (and was used in Dark Domains).

Heh, and now I know what your kickstarter account is, considering the most recent comment is someone complaining about exactly this.

Don't know why you're pinning this on new companies. Stretch goals like this have been around as long as I've been backing things on kickstarter. The goals you seem to be complaining about here are just additional cards added to a deck already in the game. I wouldn't call that a new feature. It's just more variability for an existing feature. I think stretch goals like that are fairly stupid, as it's even more apparent that the milestones are arbitrary. It certainly wouldn't affect me backing the campaign one way or another though.

As for your list of good stretch goals, I've got plenty of quibbles, but not enough to comment on with the exception of "Organizers, card sleeves, etc". I *hate* seeing this as a stretch goal. Lots of people don't sleeve their cards. They change the play of the game absolutely not at all (barring things like Mystic Vale). You are giving me something I will promptly throw away, as the drawer that I was tossing all of the sleeves I didn't want filled up a long time ago.  Sleeves should always be an add on. It's practically the perfect definition of an add on, as it's something some people want quite a bit, and other people want not at all.

Organizers are often even worse. If you're a one box game and never have an expansion, then fine, maybe your organizer saves me a few plastic bags. But that almost never happens. What does happen is that you ship me a game, and then you ship me a bunch of kickstarter exclusives at the same time that do not fit in your stupid organizer, or you ship me your product in five separate boxes, each with their own organizers, and I promptly overflow my trash throwing all of those organizers away and compressing the contents of those five boxes down into a single box.

Anyway, rant done. As for Dark Domains itself, there's something about the art design of that game that is a huge turn off for me. I think it's mostly the spells. Biiiiiig art area. Teeeny tiny game play text. I don't usually care so much about this sort of thing, but for some reason it's really bothering me this time. I probably would have backed this pretty quickly before I finally admitted I was rapidly running out of space. Now, I just can't quite tell why I'd play this over Champions of Midgard other than "new and shiny"

i passed hard on dark domains

art is fugly

Their reponse to my comment was that the game works just as well with or without the 'extra' stretch goals.  Meh.  That doesn't inspire confidence.  You should be more controlled in game design.

The art - it is just tremendously dull.

I assumed those were fake stretch goals - because if you don't have them the Internet gets pissed - still wouldn't be surprised if they bundle them on anyway or sell an expansion. But hey, maybe be not.

Either way, more cards on a pile don't change a game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/247050/kickstarter-yikes

haha i did a thing that's gonna make neckbeards sweat

I wish I had gotten in on Omen earlier. The newest edition looks pretty awesome but I have so many games I just don't play, it seems silly to spend money on something else that won't get played.

You're not alone re: Dungeon Monster. I hated the one game of that I played.

While I'm posting anyway, get your wallets ready; It's a big week for new kickstarters. Spirit Island (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/162886/spirit-island) expansion going up tomorrow. Reprint of Level 7 Omega Protocol (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/137649/level-7-omega-protocol) up today, which has been out of print and a lot of people have been raving about on the boardgame reddit. Cloudspire (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/262211/cloudspire) is also meant to be up tomorrow, which is a new game by the people who did Hoplomachus and Too Many Bones. Barrage (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/251247/barrage) is meant to be up later this week by Simone Luciani, who did Grand Austria Hotel and Lorenzo Il Magnifico, which are great euros. Project Elite's (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/256999/project-elite) reprint kickstarter is later this month

Lots of good stuff.

ok but how many are ACTUALLY good

edit: i just looked at level 7 omega, what part of it is fun exactly?

Honestly, not entirely certain. It looks like a pretty typical one vs. many dungeon crawler except alien themed. I passed on that entire series when they released, but this one seems to have been getting pretty positive grassroots word of mouth since. I'm backing it for now, but might drop after I do my due diligence and read the old edition of the rules. It seems to be trying to fill the Descent/Imperial Assault niche. Probably nothing you need to own if you already have one of those. It's the one I have the least information/knowledge about.

As for the others though, Spirit Island is the best game ever, and the new expansion is great as well (I'm in the playtest, so that's not just me assuming based on past performance). I haven't played anything by Simone Luciani I haven't liked, so if you like euros, Barrage is highly promising as well. Project Elite is a good game that was hamstrung by really poor management on the kickstarter. For the most part, I hate CMON, but even they'll be able to do a better job actually getting the game released with decent looking minis than Artipia did. And Too Many Bones and Hoplomachus are both just very solid games in their respective categories. I've got no reason to expect Cloudspire won't be the same.

I finished my goofy ass Geeklist thing. I'm not sure what's going on with Kickstarter, there's some shit missing that I absolutely backed like Cards Against Humanity. I have to assume I had a different Kickstarter account at some point.

I looked over the rules for Omega 7 and am planning on keeping my pledge. It is basically a Descent/Imperial Assault type game, complete with dice driven combat (blech), but it's got some mechanics that seem interesting. There's a give and take between the alien and marine side where the number of actions the marines take in a turn determines the resources the alien player has to activate abilities. I've generally liked this sort of mechanic when I've encountered it in the past. It also seems like just a general step up from those games in terms of what's going on. There's facing, which is a plus. Plus I'm getting a bit of a Space Hulk vibe from it, and that tickles my nostalgia in a pleasant way.

Also, this one seems designed more as a single shot game sort of deal than the campaign nature of D2E or IA. Generally I like campaign experiences, but less so for PvP games than pure coops. Campaign mode for head to head games always makes for weird feedback loops and balance complaints.

Cloud Spire is tempting me because I gravitate to highly competitive two player games. Getting an actual group together is too much effort. I read your spirit island post and ehhhhhhhhh

Yeah, if you strongly prefer head to head, maybe Spirit Island isn't for you. It's definitely a co-op in the traditional mode, without even the minor personal goal tweaks that Gloomhaven has that might cause you to work against the common interest. It's just that it's the *best* pure co-op. If you're at all interested in having your mind potentially changed, I'd love to  address why it doesn't sound appealing to you.

As for Cloudspire, yeah, it looks pretty decent. Feel like it might be a bit fiddly running the AI during the onslaught phase, but I really don't know how they'd avoid that while still going for a MOBA style gameplay.

Probably not worth their own threads, but the (possible) hits keep coming. The Barrage kickstarter is live now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/craniocreations/barrage (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/craniocreations/barrage)

I'm pretty excited about this one. Simone Luciani has done a lot of really solid euro games. Probably the best known is Tzolk'in, which he was the co-designer on, but he's also worked on Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Grand Austria Hotel, Voyages of Marco Polo, and others. The game itself seems like an interesting combo of mechanics: some sort of Ora et Labora-ish resource disk, some pseudo-route building with the flow of water between dams, which should make this a lot more than multiplayer solitaire, the obligatory and ever popular worker placement. Plus that kickstarter exclusive 3d board looks pretty cool.

Phoenix Syndicate dropped today also: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmadigames/phoenix-syndicate (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmadigames/phoenix-syndicate)

I've been following this one for a while because the designer of this was the developer on Spirit Island, plus a core playtester on Innovation and Glory to Rome, which is a decent enough gaming pedigree to get me to auto-back. Mostly posting this one selfishly because it's not shiny and glitzy and getting lots of buzz, and I want it to fund. The game itself is space themed network building with upgradable techs. There's a pretty good run through of how it works on the kickstarter page.

trying real hard not to convince myself to get fucking Cloudspire atm.

Edit: I can immediately and confidently say that I have zero interest in either of those. lol

Yeah, this group seems to hew more towards ameritrash than euro in general. How about this then: Wild Assent (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1449412950/wild-assent-survive-the-arena-and-tame-the-wilds)

This project is weird. It's trying to be both some sort of KD:M type "Hunt the monsters and make things out of their parts" game and a PvP skirmish game. Not sure why you wouldn't just split that into two separate games, but enh. Trying to figure out how compelling I find the KD:M clone side of that equation. Also, man do I hate that name. If you're going to make up silly names for your characters, maybe don't pick an actual word, or if you do, pick one that makes some sort of sense in context.

I only have like three ameritrash games on my entire shelf now, it's just a dead genre to me for the most part

I just went to do a late pledge on Terrors of London simply because I like dead builders and this one is oozing theme. It looks like a solid 7 of 10 based on the rules. Anyway, I don't give a shit about that, not trying to convince you. More importantly, they had Omen on the late pledge thing, so I looked it up. Lo and behold,

https://app.crowdox.com/projects/kolossalgames/the-omen-saga

Exact same price as the Kickstarter. $90 to get everything under the sun for Omen is a steal.

Damn, Terrors of London looks good. I might have to buy it, I ultimately gravitate towards deckbuilding. Thanks for the mention on that.

Narrator: He did buy it. :) Early birthday present.

i did this now too: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/247242/games-butts-semi-butts-not-butts-all

That geeklist does not exist

i had to remake it because apparently there's no politics talk on bgg and half the posts said vote for beto or andrew gillum and then some trumpy moron chode came in with some nonsense about beto pandering to spanish people and i let the little shit have it

anyway

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/247362/games-butts-sequel

You can take schild out of f13, but you can't take the f13 out of schild, apparently.

i would've preferred to write it here but we don't have a geeklist function so

Yeah, was afraid of that when you started making the political jokes.  I don’t even blame bgg.  We keep all political talk locked away in the politics forum, and it has still bled over into the rest of the forum multiple times resulting in drama and bans.  And then Trump got elected.

Politics equals death seems the only sound strategy these days for moderating non-politically focused web pages.

Do you remember what the game was that guy mentioned as a more balanced version of A Few Acres of Snow?

Hands in the Sea

I backed that.  Shit show of a campaign.  Game seems fine.  But major fucked campaign with missing and wrongly printed cards, usually delays by half a year.  Cards sent later.  But yeah, needs a reprint with a real publisher.

Doesn't seem important enough for a new thread, but semi relevant here.

http://www.tabletopwire.com/cmon-reports-losses-stock-continues-slide/

It seems making shit kickstarters with dice and miniatures isn't as profitable as it looks.

Yea, they make bad things.

Sooo...Who else backed "Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon" (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/awakenrealms/tainted-grail-the-fall-of-avalon) ? (campaign ended a few hours ago). I caved in and went for the "Kings" pledge. What are your expectations? (if there is some interest we might follow the post-campaign news via a dedicated topic)

I decided not to. They'll probably deliver, but I don't like when people promise the moon and aren't Poots.

I backed it. Awaken Realms is a damn good company IMO and my copy of Nemesis is arriving any day now. (I mean that seriously, shipping notices are going out as we speak.) I also watched some preview playthroughs and it looks quite fun. My only true concern is replayability since it is so narrative heavy.

I did. I've backed all of the big Awaken Realms projects thus far, and have been happy with all of them (though the pocket skirmish CCG thing they keep throwing in all of their shipments as a freebie doesn't seem terribly interesting) Should be a solid game. They've proven that they can do decent narrative with the This War of Mine board game, so I expect a mash up of that and 7th Continent, except this seems to have a more compelling game at its core than 7th Continent did. Also, a more focused one. And Dark Souls Arthurian/Gaelic theming is an order of magnitude more interesting than the Age of Exploration vibe 7C has.

I waffled, but decided not to back it.  Just not n the budget... and IIRC, the exclusives were not that exciting.  It was one figure or something.... I'd rather wait on this one and buy it on sale somewhere down the road considering I still have a wall of games that I need to get to the table for the first time, and many walls of games I want to get back on the table. 

Suburbia collectors edition...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tedalspach/suburbia-collectors-edition

Every other city building game always makes me think 'OK, but I could be playing suburbia'.

Suburbia is amazing.  Even still, I wouldn't normally bother upgrading from a board game I already have to the collector's edition, but I don't have any of the expansions and this includes all of them plus a new one so... I'm in.

Interesting.  If you guys vouch its a good game, guess I'll back that.

Of the 4 expansions, the first is great; the second is bad except that it comes with green player pieces and green is the best colour; the third is actually just a promo with a handful of overpowered tiles that the game is better without; and the 4th is new - I know nothing about it.

But I'm probably getting this anyway.

I think that I have generally decided that I am going to try and limit my kickstarter stuff to limited editions of games that are popular (because they can be sold, if I'm not enthused about them, for generally a fair price) or for reprints of older games.  That's a little risky as they always seem to redo some rules in the reprints, but I'm excited to get my copy of Endeavor.  I picked up kickstarter level copies of Lisboa and Vinhos because I like Lacerda's stuff and I missed those.  Honestly, though, the kickstarter thing is getting a little thick to wade through.  I think the games are better produced, generally, but the quality of the actual game mechanics may not be all that great on a lot of these.  Haven't seen one in a while I needed to back that is new.

So many kickstarters seem to perpetually forget that Chinese New Year exists. The amount of mails I get that tell me things got delayed because of the lunar New Year's celebrations is entirely too high.

I don't think anyone is in danger of mistaking these people for being fortune 500 corporate geniuses.  Quite a few of them are running (intentionally or not) very well designed ponzi schemes.  Any excuse will do.

I don't think any of these are Ponzi schemes. Hell, many of them probably result in a net loss.

It's just people that want to make a thing but don't really have any business making things.

Yeah, after diving deep into Kickstarter for the last few years, almost none of the fuck ups are intentional.  It’s just literally a platform that lets any passionate super nerd have the opportunity to make the nerd thing of his dreams.  And it turns out nerds know nothing about buisness, finance, or manufacturing logistics.  Hell, was just following one game recently that funded well past its goal, but with two days to go canceled.  They admited that people had pointed out a ton of things they were doing wrong, and found out they had fucked up other things when reaching out to printers, so canned it before taking any money.

Or as Martin Luther Abraham Lincoln Confucius once said: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Not intentionally, but they are ponzi schemes.  They are using future kickstarters to complete/pay off their first kickstarted projects, which leads to their ultimate demise or serious financial problems, e.g. Sodapop/Ninja Division. 

May update for Terrors of London seems to be on track for home delivery in June.

just in time for them to ask for another $10 to cover tariffs

I think the rule is anything that has left port when the tariffs come into effect isn't hit by them.  Only if they haven't shipped yet.  Looks like they plan on getting the game to the boat next week, so should be good.

Also, if these even happen at all, looks like July at earliest now.

It appears Terrors of London is now shipping; a BGG post shows someone received their copy. So start watching your doorsteps.

Dude lived in Australia. Boat might not even be in America yet.

One small card game already decided to ship with manufacturing flaws rather than run into tariffs (they're saying they are facing 25% tariff if they delay).

A ton of hubbub has been made about the 25% tariffs but i'm just not seeing it. Especially for majority card-based games. It's a 25% hike on manufacturing costs. Most of these games cost actual dollars to produce. It shouldn't effect Kickstarter pricing, but could snowball a little bit on the retail side.

Sounds to me like that small card game is being headed by lazy, greedfolk.

So you don't think a sudden 25% bump in manufacturing cost just before fulfillment would be an issue?

Interesting.

Shit. I didn’t even think to check that. What a bummer I was hoping to play soon.

I've been helping a couple people out with their Kickstarters. The manufacturing price of boardgames is comically low. One of the ones I've been working with has hundreds of cards, tons of specially cut chits, more than THREE double-sided full-sized boards

total cost?

~$6.50.

The price jumping to $8 eats a bit away at their margin but doesn't really make much of a difference otherwise.

Edit: To be clear, sure, it's possible some places are planning like 10,000 unit print runs and using Kickstarter profit to do that. Those places are stupid and don't understand how to properly utilize Kickstarter.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the infoes! Old farts can still learn stuff.

Um... that's like... not how things work man... margin is margin. If businesses could make things work on lower margins to begin with then they would be doing that already...

The vast majority of these companies aren't working under reasonable or sane business practices. They're doing a sort of rinse/wash cycle on Kickstarter abusing the fact China has cheap labor, but the price of games isn't exactly going down. They're cutting out the distributor margin and the retail margin on top of that to flip something that costs $5-$15 into something that costs $50-$100. Which is great, but that 25% its getting hit with on what is manufacturing cost (as the cost listed coming from China) ain't really moving the needle much if it's not going to have a traditional retail release.

And no, as a guy running a business pretty successfully the last six years, I will flat out tell you that you go for the absolute highest margin the market can bear.

Edit: Now, the fact most people lose money on Kickstarter is their own damn fault. But there's nothing "normal" / "how things work" about it.

We're using different words but saying the same thing.

If the manufacturing cost isn't significant, what is it? Shipping? Can't be artwork and advertising... (well it can be, they're idiots running these campaigns after all)

So one of the guys I'm helping out did all his shit correctly. He got every cost nailed down (from art to manufacturing to shipping to warehousing to split-shipping to backers, etc) before deciding his cost. But he's also not putting *anything* into retail channels. So if he charges $50 and prints what he needs, he's going to be pure profit on every unit provided he doesn't have too much shit left over besides replacements for fucked up things.

I'm not sure what a lot of these people are doing wrong, but somewhere shit is breaking down. And these tariffs shouldn't hurt NEARLY as much as people are claiming.

I think the big mistake Kickstarter folks make is doing more than the minimum run required, some sort of illusion of grandeur in terms of massive retail distribution. I'm not sure.

I just got tracking info in Terrors of London. Should be here Saturday.

Kinda wishing I had gone in on Altar Quest now, they unlocked a serious amount of extras.

Altar Quest will almost assuredly have late pledges.

What he said. Their previous games have had this option. No reason they'd stop with the infrastructure already in place.

Terrors of London is decent so far. The box fell apart on me and I had to glue it back together. The box is cool though and is built like a book. The card stock is a bit thin and sleeving it really was the only option. Otherwise the product quality seems fair.

We both had a bit of trouble building decks big enough that horde action could be used more than a few times. The game seems over before a solid deck is built so that feels somewhat unsatisfying. I think I prefer this art and theme over Shards of Infinity. However I really prefer the mechanics of Shards.

ToL is decent though, no regrets.

the box is garbage, my bottom is just coming off. I'll probably get a custom box made by Game Crafter though which I've done with every other card-based game I have.

and yeah, Kolossal cheaps out about 20% too much on card stock

Haven't played yet.

Picking up a copy of Sol: Last Days of a Star tomorrow though

Let us know how Sol goes. I hadn’t heard of it until now and it looks so aesthetically pleasing. The graphic designer did good work.

Question about Omen: do you feel any of the stand alones function better than the base game? Or do you play with all expansions added? (I’m assuming you have them all)

So, I have EVERY card ever released for Omen. Hell, like six copies of every card. My final box is actually a cube built out of that. I feel like there's 3 reasonable ways to play:

1) The Base Game with nothing added
2) The Base Game with everything added
3) A defined mix with all the boring cards taken out

The former is John's original vision. The second is he ended up. The latter is a less tight more swingy mess of a game but it makes every decision super important.

I wouldn't recommend building a cube unless you're also the type to house rule life totals down 20 or 30 points in something like Dice Throne.

It's sad to hear Kolossal's components haven't improved.  After my experience with Western Legends I've avoided almost everything they're making.  I did jump on Mezo because Clowdus and I love the theme; hoping that one is an improvement.

So CMON is partering with some folks to make a hybrid physical/digital platform. Some good ideas in there, I doubt this iteration will stack up to much but I like the concept and hope it's enough to get more traction for this kind of thing. Multi-game platform, first game is a Zombicide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBm3OzOSsA

Getting rid of card management, resolving rolls, adding interactive story elements...I think there's a lot of promise in the concept.

you can buy it and tell us how bad it is

Clowdus seems to be done with Kolossal already so, lol

I think I heard rumblings of Kolossal being snagged by Asmodee. Not 100% sure on that.

Personally, the Mansions of Madness app thing is about as far into tech I want to bring my board games. Nothing wrong if you like this, the idea is neat. I like the feel of wood, paper and cardboard though.

Asmodee grabbing Kolossal would be a ridiculously bad purchase

so, sure, falls in line with their normal behavior

Not sure about technology in board games where I am actually sitting at a table with friends. I mean, I am obsessed with Dark Tower, but that's because I was 8 years old and because it was "dark". This thing from Mr. Pong Nolan Bushnell is equally curious but probably uninteresting as a board game if you ask me.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/18/nolan-bushnell-reveals-alexa-powered-murder-mystery-board-game-st-noire/

I'll take things that will never happen for $100, Johnny

of course it won't, that's how everyone will approach it. People will buy it, but they are fools.

Getting rid of card management and such is getting rid of the board game. Let's all sit around the table and look at our phones is already a free game.

Anyone remember in the late 90s when you could sign up for a “game” that would text and fax you? It was like some Illuminati murder mystery or something. For some reason this reminded me of that.

EA's Majestic. Basically my favorite thing ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_(video_game)

I'll give you that one, to a point. But it depends on the game, we're not talking about card games, this looks focused on mini-based games. So for something like Zombicide, I'd say it's a decent feature.

But the dice resolution is pretty nice, especially if it's smart enough under the hood to do multiple types of rolls and tables (cough KDM), it would reduce some confusion and overhead if I could just roll the appropriate dice and have it spit out the results on a screen. I get the visceral dice rolling thing but also the benefit of video games doing the heavy lifting beyond that.

However, I think the interesting stuff is in the scenario engine. And maybe in offloading some of the AI stuff in games that have cumbersome mechanisms for co-op.

Terrors of London is offering free sleeves: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kolossalmikro/terrors-of-london/posts/2570372?ref=bggforums

QC messed up, card quality isn't what it was supposed to be based on the KS.

Import/Export - the fancy edition

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jordandraper/import-export-definitive-edition?ref=user_menu

Carl Chudyk game that isn't by Carl Chudyk.

This is good of them. My playmat has issues and the cards are indeed garbage. Glad to see they're taking this seriously.

Do you like it? People keep saying this is like Glory to Rome, only you can buy it?

I was talking about Terrors of London. I don't have Import/Export, but I'm buying it and selling my Glory to Rome Blackbox because it's topping $300 and I've never played it.

Is this the appropriate thread to shame yourself for spending $235 on a Marvel CMON Kickstarter to play with the kids - someday?

game looks like shit

I love Marvel but hate chibi so

I got the cmon cthulhu game and it's fun but I probably would've been good with the base set, I'll burn out on it way before I finish the content.

I was going to buy the rest of the content for Massive Darkness, because it's a fun solo diversion, but they ham-fisted the Time Machine KS and the one thing I wanted most was sold out immediately (the Hellephant box), so I never looked further.

Frosthaven, the sequel to Stormhaven, is coming to Kickstarter March 24th.

http://www.cephalofair.com/2020/01/thoughts-on-the-new-year-2020.html#more-2719

Based on that picture alone looks like are sticking with the theme of bad art.

oh yeah the art is absolutely shit

Yes.  MArvel United artwork/miniatures are disappointing.  The game play seems a bit simplistic, but they left enough room we might be surprised by a decent game under the theme... but likely not.

However, my 4 year old will be 5 when this thing delivers (maybe 6) and should be just perfecly aged to play it with me for a while.  I should have just one the $60 or $90, but he loves Thor, Spider-man and a few of the others in expansions.  I'm going to enjoy the Dark Tower and Ankh ... but this one was for the family.

Pax Pamir 2nd Ed is back on kickstarter. And available basically nowhere else.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1243243962/pax-pamir-reprint?

Yeah the card decks are wayyy too small. More KDM style games = yes. But you can't give the bad guy a super simple 12 card deck and the good guy a 10 card deck and not think its going to get very boring very quickly surely? I didn't even see a lot of wild/zany rng elements to keep it from feeling samey after a few runs.

if anyone's wondering

fucking buy this

It is not highly rated on BGG (the first edition) - why do you like it so much?

Only the 2nd Edition, which largely obsoletes the first edition.

The game walks a knife's edge of balancing future board states against current board states and the market while trying to sway things just slightly enough in your allegiance's direction to gain you points upon dominance checks.

That is to say, every time you do something, it's to advance something in the margins. Very few plays are big splashy plays - so much so that if you have one or two of them in a short time frame you actually end up just ending the game early (if someone has 4 or more points than the next closest player at a dominance check, the game just ends).

It's one of the most tense and subtly cutthroat games I've ever played.

Sold.

I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess there will not be many new KS worth backing in the next 3 months.

The new season of Pandemic will be lit af tho

It isn't getting great reviews.  Apparently, they thought it would be a good idea to transition it into a LARP and release it in open Beta.  People are not happy with it.

Some people decided to house rule the hell out of it, dragging the game session out forever

Pandemic season 1 was bottled lightning. Daviau is done. Leacock has like one good idea every 3-5 years. He used it up with Era: Medieval Age last year.

While I absolutely do not get it, there is a decent number of people that liked Season 2 more than 1.  Regardless, both were worthwhile and I am looking forward to eventually playing Season 3 (although it has nothing to do with Kickstarter) when it is released muuuuuuuch later than initially anticipated.

Good news! You can now pay CMON more money to get your game at the same time it'll be available at retail in August. Otherwise you will have to wait till April to get it :awesome_for_real:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/marvel-united/posts/2786035

Yeah, if you go through the comments you might note me bitch slapping them for deceptive practices.  They were reported by many for this one.  If not for Caronavirus, something might have actually happened to them.

For those not in the know, after the KS, they announced that they were ging to ship the core game in August when it went to retail and everything else next year.  They told us, again - after the KS closed - you could pay more to get your core game in August, or just wait until everything was ready sometime next year.  So, either get your entire bundle way after most non-KS people get the core game, or pay a hidden fee. C'mon has some shady marketing techniques, but this is the first time I'd call the Queen Games level unethical.

Wasn’t CMON the Phoenix company for New Wave Games, an earlier company known for unethical online sales practices?

Yup.

Last day for Chronicles of Crime II - The Chronicliser.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/destinies/chronicles-of-crime-the-millennium-series

It looks like it addresses my main dislike of the original - which was that it was ugly.

The middle one with the escape room style puzzle theme will go down especially well I suspect.

Shit like when a game goes to retail vs when I get my KS version matters zero point zero to me. It is funny when people all up in here getting vapors about that when you know CMON is just a pre-order with bonuses when they're on KS. They've already got the core stuff lined up for production and it's stupid to hold that up while they finish off the KS stuff, and it's also stupid to expect them to eat an extra shipping charge because of it. Do you even capitalism?

Everything on KS is either a preorder, or a preorder with bonuses.

To be fair I see fewer people getting mad about it these days.

Then you're unlike the vast mojority of people.  Most of the people out there get pissed when you tell them they had the honor of paying first, but getting their product last.If they were upfront about it, or had a history of this type of misleading shit, then I'd agree.  This was a new misleading move they pulled.  When people lie and mislead about their product, their customers stop believing them when they make claims and start to turn their back on them.  There are a lot of established brands that have gone out of business because people slowly realize the one popular brand was synonymous with crap.

This really isn't much different from how it's all gone down in the past.  Zombicide: Invader hit retail months before pledges started delivering.  If anything, in this case they're at least giving people the option to pay more if they want the retail portion earlier.  All you have to do is look at CMON's past to see that retail is delivered first for all of these projects.

These days, I don't kickstart anything unless it's an exclusive, I'll have trouble getting it later because of limited quantities, or there are exclusive extras that I want.  Everything else will eventually hit retail and it'll probably be cheaper than what I would've paid on Kickstarter.

Well, I was wrong.

Frosthaven Comes (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frosthaven/frosthaven)

Yeah I mentioned that at the top of the page.

Yeah - on March 6th.  A lifetime ago.  I expected them to delay the release.  A lot of the people that would back this thig may be watching their jobs go away - and if not, they may be watching their savings dwindle while furloughed.  That has to hurt sales.

$4,189,090
pledged of $500,000 goal

Never stand in the way of bad decisions and luxury habits.

...and we'll never know how much they'd have done without the virus released on the world. 

sure

but we'll never know if this is even HIGHER because people are stuck at home with their board games

Unlike KDM, there's no actual reason to preorder this except for a *potential* headstart.

The venn diagram of boutique board game enthusiasts and people who make enough money to ride out the economic problems (or think they do) is practically a circle.  Board gaming is not a cheap hobby.

Kickstarting will definitely slow down but Childres is a known quantity.  This thing has more pledged in a day than Gloomhaven's second printing had in its entire campaign.

I've known a lot of people that spent far more than their disposable income on board games.  A lot.  Of people.  And a lot more than their disposable income.

But yeah, this is a special kind of KS,  If the nukes were flying, Godzilla raging, and an asteroid on a collision course...it probably would have hit $4M in day one.  Despite the fact that most people that played Gloomhaven to completon burned out towards the end.

Yeah, Gloomhaven was a lot of game.  It was my solo game for about three years until I finally considered it finished.  Then I moved on to Street Masters, which I figure will last me until this comes in.  If I were to do the math though, the number of hours I spent playing Gloomhaven compared to the amount of money I spent purchasing it would lead to pennies on the hour.  It's one of the most economical sources of entertainment I've ever spent money on.  Looking at it that way makes this kind of a no-brainer.

i built my gloomhaven organizer, which turned me off of playing the game completely lol

Opinions on the Kemet 2.0 KS next month? I never got around to playing the original, wondering if this one looks worth it.

Probably.

Kemet is the most popular of the series and is good.

The changes described so far look sensible - though I'm not the biggest fan of the new board art.

Few hours left and frosthaven is on 9.7M.

So that is a thing.

Looks like it'll pass KDM or already did too lazy to look it up. That's a lot of people not playing frosthaven.

80,000 backers.

Right now I'm tempted to give him a dollar so I have until November to decide whether to buy and then barely play frosthaven.

It finished a shade under 13 million, which is indeed the biggest boardgame kickstarter ever.

I'm happy for the guy. This being the biggest ever feels good. Even if I won't ever play it properly.

Why would people not play these games if you like the design?  You may not finish it, but even if you play just 4 or 5 sessions.... well worth the cost.

In case you ever played a super sleek and elegant roll and write about nice trains and simple roads. But thought, wow I hope this game gets 20 expansions, and more complex rules, and an epic game mode on a gigantic board in a kickstarter....

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/horribleguild/railroad-ink-challenge/description

I'm backing regardless of how absurd this is because I would really like a copy of plain old railroad ink blue and can't find one anywhere.

This year has been hard on the pocketbook for KS games.  A lot of good, and expensive, ones.

i'm the opposite, this year ain't done shit for me. Bought way more locally than I have on KS.

Yeah, not much on Kickstarter has excited me this year and what has isn't necessarily board games.

I backed Ptolus, because it was the best campaign setting I've ever used and wanted a 5th edition version
Frosthaven
A little expansion for High Frontier
Scale75's contrast paints that they call "Instant Colors."  Pretty sure this is the only way I can work through my backlog of miniatures that need painting

Three of those were a little pricey, but nothing like years past.

on the flipside, Blood Rage digital is out soon as well as Root theoretically

and uh, Wingspan I guess

Slimes Capture the Flag  (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2139148164/slime-skirmish?ref=project_link)features a bunch of round, adorable slimes in various costumes.  I’m tempted to buy a few and paint them up like Polandballs.

Looks like a physical version of Gumballs & Dungeons.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/postcurious/the-emerald-flame

Emerald flame. Sort of amped up escape room. Looks like a ridiculously overproduced 'Exit' game.

Exit games are massive hit in this household so an easy one to back.

Shame you missed out on the Wilson Wolfe affair (or did you not?).

https://simulacragames.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/176329

Looks like they have a few of the fancy versions left. It is tempting....

It's one of the most ambitious designs I've ever seen and apparently the care in the product is incredible. That said, I didn't buy it. It felt like something we'd get halfway through and proceed to never finish.

I'm going to go in on this. Looks like their have priors. I like the concept but have found previous exit games crap.

Can you recommend any good ones?

That looks interesting, thanks for the link. Has anyone checked out her other work? I'm also wondering if the game will be available commercially after KS, but I guess they won't say at this point.

There are some views and reviews on their previous game on bgg. https://bgg.cc/boardgame/254125/tale-ord

Tbh, if you didn't like the Exit series I doubt any of the mass produced boxes would suit you. Personally I think Exit are head and shoulders above Unlock, which the other widely available series. The Death on the Orient Express and the Catacombs one are probably the two we enjoyed most, also hearing good things about Theft on the Mississippi. Generally speaking the later boxes are better than the earlier boxes, and be aware that the 'difficulty level 2' boxes are fairly simple.

If you like your puzzles less abstract, Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective is pretty good. Chronicles of Crime is also supposed to e good though I haven't played it.

I don't think any of them really work with more than 2 people. Tbh I wouldn't recommend any of them for any number other than 2.

I only played one Exit game, but I found it quite boring because the narrative was poor, and the puzzles were repetitive. Not a lot of variety between mechanical, code, word, etc. I might have just got a bad one.

I owned Consulting Detective too

Exit doesn't really do word puzzles or codes - it's German translation so I don't know how easy it would be to internationalise, and there is definitely no meaningful narrative in most boxes - the death on the orient express one has a bit more than the others.

You might want to try an Unlock box. They make a bit more effort on narrative certainly.

I bought Escape Tales for the SO and me to play. I'll share what it's like once we've had a chance to go through it. She just bought us Exit: Catacombs of Horror so hopefully we get to go through that soon too.

Did anyone see this for "Quest"? I generally try to avoid KS but I'm a sucker for Werewolf type games: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/quest-avalon-deluxe

Updates on Escape Tales: Awakening and Exit: Catacombs of Horror.

Exit: Catacombs of Horror - I think this is the longest Exit game available, as it's designed as a 2-parter. We found the puzzles hit and miss, and the hint system isn't great, especially with longer, more complex puzzles. Lots of pixel peeping necessary. By the time we reached the final puzzle we wanted it to be over with. There's a clear theme in the game, but no real narrative.

Escape Tales: The Awakening - Probably the escape game we've enjoyed the most so far. The puzzles are OK, but there's a robust hint system to help. It is narrative based, though the puzzles aren't always tied to the narrative. The story is passable, it's enjoyable in the context of the game.

I have a small stash of solo-able (generally co-op) games that I enjoy, so seeing Darkest Dungeon kind of got me excited...except it's Mythic Games.

Yeah it's gonna be bad. On the other hand I've heard good things about Frostpunk.

I just dropped $200 out of my budget for fun stuff to cover what I expect to be coming in the next few weeks: A slew of demands from the KS I backed for more money to cover shipping. 

1860/Wight is hitting kickstarter on January 26th from AAG. It will go into production immediately after the KS ends. Afaik this is the *only* good 2p 18xx and one of the best 3 player ones. The KS box includes the expansion.

I had the all in triggered for Darkest Dungeon, and then came to my senses and realized it was just going to be another shitty dungeon crawl designed to showcase miniatures.  I have a backlog of those that would take me probably 3 solid months of gaming every night to get through.  I ended up giving them a dollar. 

got the second wave of tainted grail stuff in

jesus

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm done with "all in" style pledges for stuff.  I never play expansions, too many games, too little time.  And now, too little storage space. 

I'm just pledging for less overall rather than less individually. This package is just absurd.

I just got the link to the Pledge Manager for Darkest Dungeon.  Please help me not do something stupid....... :why_so_serious:

Based on the short game reviews thread, nothing can stop you.

This is true.  Don't look at my boardgame geek profile.   :awesome_for_real:

DD board game looks like a shitty cash grab. Models don't even look very good.

Shipping has landed a crit on CMoN. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/marvel-zombies-zombicide/comments

I like the IP and their zombicide minis, so I went in deep enough to feel this one. I think my single wave shipping was $90 and the 2-wave (fall 2022/summer 2023) was ~$135 (for a hungry level pledge). KS doomcasting incoming heh.

Of course, shipping has been irresponsibly cheap for far too long, but wow.

https://gamefound.com/projects/bd-games/assault-on-doomrock-ultimate-edition?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvLOTBhCJARIsACVldV2zvj6dpmpNC979KQWYnHGEWG4L5VNIjeMLz7ezb2oAe9VtHK2yOwMaAqrqEALw_wcB

Updated doomrock crowdfunder.

Doomrock is absolutely my favourite dungeon crawler system. Better than gloomhaven, which I think works better as a PC game. The key is how it completely dumps movement grids and just says every object is either near (melee range) or far from every other object. The result feels more cinematic than anything I've played elsewhere, Legolas never had an issue that he could only shoot something 4 squares away.

It is, unfortunately, much much uglier than even gloomhaven. The art is possibly the worst I've ever seen from anything I have been willing to play.

that's funny because I think Gloomhaven for its budget and money has shit art and doomrock at least tried.

Anyway in a world of Circadian, I can't really be angry about this art.

But I am a little miffed about the garbage ass price. I'm not sure I'm backing it even though I've heard nothing but good.

Got in my Massive Darkness 2 stuff. Much like the original, I enjoy this game. Very simple to play, and the rules make sense. In my initial session I only had a single question about rules and made my best guess...and guessed correctly (which was also the case with the original). Classes work way better and far less fiddly, definitely going to upgrade the original box as I don't miss any mechanics from it. Having the conversion box and the crossover box for Zombicide fantasy stuff (and also the slew of KS stuff) means tons of variety for dungeon crawling.

Playing vanilla core box at first, then plan on adding the MD2 content, then the expansion stuff, then port the original, then bring in the Zombicide stuff. I may even leave the fantasy zombicide stuff converted and stored with the MD2 stuff, as I prefer the moderncide much more.

No regerts on snagging all the gameplay extras, I missed a couple boxes from MD1 that are hard to find now. Even stoked about the insanity of the MLP/Carebear expansion. What else can you do after defeating the Dukes of Hell and then the 4 Horsemen? Take on true evil!

Glad it's for somebody.

CMoN has a cool Iron Maiden character set coming out (3 boxes + 1 promo) that looks like it works across most of their mini games.

Price is 66.60 (clever, and $20/box is not outrageous in cmon land), but shipping from GA to NY is $23 for these small, light boxes.

Shipping is going to strangle CMoN. They have another Cthulhu DMD box coming out on KS soon, and that game is pretty cool...but shipping will likely be in the $100 range again.