Battlecon: Unleashed

[Goldenmean]

Can't recall seeing any conversation about previous releases in this series, but the final BattleCon set is up on kickstarter, including all in versions that get you everything printed for the game in a preposterous deluxe box: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/level99games/battlecon-unleashed-the-ultimate-battlecon-edition

There's also a (sort of roughly implemented) online version of a subset of this that's free to play on Steam, so you can try before you buy to see if you like the mechanics. https://store.steampowered.com/app/792570/BattleCON_Online/

The elevator pitch is that the game is a Street Fighter style fighting game in a box. Each player secretly plays a pair of cards and then simultaneously reveals them, then the effects of the cards are executed in priority order. Effects of cards range from moving around the board and simple strikes to reaaaallly weird stuff. There's pushing 100 fighters at this point, and while you can group them into broad archetypes, there's space in the design for a lot of nuance. There's no randomness (you always pick cards, you don't draw them), and it has perfect information, in that you're always aware of what your opponents options are, which makes it one of the most strongly themed pure strategy games out there.

This isn't a miniatures money fest, and there's so much content for it at this point, that the price probably seems prohibitive for some, but it's a pretty solid system.

[schild]

They didn’t make enough Perfect Collections. Fools.

[Goldenmean]

I'm guessing it's not worthwhile to them to reprint the old stuff just for that pledge level, so they probably limited that tier to what they still had left in the warehouse. I've already got all the previous releases, so I just went for the continue complete.

I think most of the older releases are still available at online retailers, so one could almost certainly get an "almost perfect collection" for less than that pledge level by just buying the released stuff piecemeal and then getting a continue pledge. You might be missing some stray promos or the like.

[Teleku]

It's as you said, they had to limit the amount of Perfect Collections because they only had so many copies of certain expansions left.  But they've created a new tier that has almost everything except those rare expansion and some promo's.  600 copies of that tier are available.

Not sure I need this since I backed Street Fighter (which, to be fair, is going to be a coin flip on being good or shit).  And while it may be cost prohibitive considering the amount of fighters, I sort of feel you need some sort of impressive miniature to represent your fighter on the table if you are going to play such a thing as this.  A card board token doesn't really cut it for this style of game.

[Goldenmean]

The expansion that's limiting that tier (Light & Shadow) is sort of fun, but not in any way necessary. It gives high powered versions of some fighters so you can play 2v1 or 3v1. I haven't tried it, but I've heard some people say it's got sort of questionable levels of balance.

Hard disagree on the miniatures front, but I used to play Space Marine in high school with slips of paper that said "I'm a Hive Tyrant" on them, so clearly my opinion on such things can't be trusted. Like you mentioned, it's a bad idea economically speaking. They'd need to have almost a hundred miniatures at this point, and you'd only ever use two of them at a time (in most modes). As someone who doesn't have time (or skill, or inclination) to paint miniatures, I'd much rather have a colored cardboard cutout than some bland grey lump of plastic as my avatar.

You could always buy this and then use your Street Fighter miniatures for it though =p Even if Street Fighter turns out non-terrible, I'd place money on this being the better game.

[Teleku]

I liked the game play vids from Street Fighter.  Fast action bluffing game.  But again, its hard to say how well things will balance out and its longevity.  But if they actually manage to pull off quality miniatures, wont care.

And I do not fault you at all for just wanting cardboard.  I was never able to get into any Warhammer games as a child because it was impossible for me to afford a full unit of basic infantry for anything, but I couldn't bring myself to just substitute the figures.  But again, for me, if you are going to play a table top game, the visual element of it all is important.  I know this makes me sort of a shallow gamer, but I'm well beyond the point of moving square plain chits around a grid while I imagine what they might be.  I mean, I kickstarted a custom token set for Splendor where instead of gem tokens, you have full plastic replicas of each gem, plus replicas of the metal coins to play with.  Don't think I could play that game otherwise.   

Having said all that I'll probably Kickstart this because I hate money but like collecting useless shit (my challenge coin collection is always ever growing also).

[Teleku]

Snagged a Perfect Collection slot.   

Still not sure if this is actually a thing I should get. 

[Goldenmean]

Still not sure if this is actually a thing I should get. 

The F2P steam implementation is an easy enough way to figure that out, unless you just really want the thrill of throwing money at something you might not like.

[Teleku]

Still not sure if this is actually a thing I should get. 

The F2P steam implementation is an easy enough way to figure that out, unless you just really want the thrill of throwing money at something you might not like.

Don't look at my Kickstarter profile.

[Goldenmean]

I'm over 750 projects backed at this point. You're not going to see any stones coming from the direction of this particular glass house.

[schild]

I'm over 750 projects backed at this point. You're not going to see any stones coming from the direction of this particular glass house.

Link (make your list unprivate you butt)

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/schild

Here's mine so it's fair.

[Goldenmean]

Sure. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/goldenmean

[schild]

Glanced on my phone but I think you've funded every boardgame on Kickstarter

[eldaec]

Sure. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/goldenmean

This post cost me 100usd when I discovered that deluxe Snowdonia is a thing that exists (in the future).

[schild]

i wanna see how he stores all these games

[Goldenmean]

i wanna see how he stores all these games

The short answer is "poorly". It's floor to as high as I can reach on every wall in my office. Two fairly large closets are basically just solid cubes of cold-storage board games I probably should just get rid of because they're highly inaccessible, and what used to be a random pile of stuff that was in heavy rotation by the dining room table has now spread to fill one of those walls also. And naturally with so much flux, it's impossible to keep things in any real order, so to find anything I maintain some sort of bizarre memory palace of "When did I last play or buy that game?" which helps point me towards which strata of gaming it would be in.

[schild]

I think it's time to purge, sir.

[schild]

i wanna see how he stores all these games

The short answer is "poorly". It's floor to as high as I can reach on every wall in my office. Two fairly large closets are basically just solid cubes of cold-storage board games I probably should just get rid of because they're highly inaccessible, and what used to be a random pile of stuff that was in heavy rotation by the dining room table has now spread to fill one of those walls also. And naturally with so much flux, it's impossible to keep things in any real order, so to find anything I maintain some sort of bizarre memory palace of "When did I last play or buy that game?" which helps point me towards which strata of gaming it would be in.

Ok now that I'm at my computer - serious question - what is your criteria for choosing a game. Because with something like 20% of all games ever on kickstarter, right now all I can come up with is "is it a game?" And surely there's more to it.

[Goldenmean]

With 40,631 projects in the games category, it's more like 2%, which admittedly, is still pretty ridiculous considering how many of those projects are just "Hey, look, I put a picture of a half naked elf on a pack of playing cards" or "Lulz, I made an edgy party game using Trump quotes".

Anyway, that's a pretty broad question, and it's not time invariant. I'm pickier now than I have been in the past, and eventually my purchasing will plummet wildly when I accept the fact that I need to do some sort of one in, one out system. In the broadest possible terms though, my criteria is "Does this have something that seems interesting to me?". I enjoy studying the hobby. I like watching systems evolve over time. I like observing the cross pollination of different mechanics and design philosophies. As such, I treat my board game collection more like a reference library than anything else.

Just like anyone else, I've got my own pet mechanics also. I've always been a sucker for campaign driven things, despite the fact that those are often meshed with mechanics I dislike such as dice driven combat. I bought a copy of Werewolf Legacy just because it's a Legacy game and I find those fascinating, despite the fact that I hate social deduction games in general and Werewolf in particular (and honestly, I don't think all that much of most of the Legacy games on the market at this point, though it's still a mechanic with a lot of promise). I don't tend to care overly much about theme, but I'm still more likely to toss money at something in a fantasy setting than something set during WW2, for example, so that plays a part in the decision making process also.

Like I said, it's a pretty broad question. I could go back and tell you why I backed individual things if you really care. Don't really know how much more detail I can go into at a bird's eye view.

[schild]

i mean, i still want pictures and not a description, that's a stunning number of games and obviously doesn't include non-kickstarter games. I don't even think I could fit 700 games on this floor of the house

[schild]

Goldenmean, I just got superbacker status. Does it.... do anything?

[Goldenmean]

Goldenmean, I just got superbacker status. Does it.... do anything?

Not as far as I know, but despite dumping a lot of money there, I don't really engage much with what passes for its feature set beyond clicking the "Back this project" button.

[schild]

Yeah, that's where I'm at.