So did anything come out of Gen-con this year as about to be released hotness?
Letter Jam by Vlaada Chvatil maybe? Or Mental Blocks?
Nothing got consistently raved about or recommended by other con goers I talked to, and I didn't come away really excited about anything this year. I played a fair number of totally fine, fun games but none that I felt like I had to own.
Reading through the games written up by Ars, only a few really caught my attention.
Parks: Looks pretty, but need to play and compare to Tokaido.
Bargain Quest: Probably a game I'll enjoy but will never hit the table with my group.
Point Salad: Will probably be enjoyed by all in my group.
Going to be looking for all of these at PAXU to try out. I think my collecting has definitely hit a plateau in where I have a game for most any situation, so any new games have to be significantly better than what has already been released for me to spend money? Plus there's a lot of older games I still don't own that are considered great, and so they may get a purchase first before an unknown.
I think Bargain Quest is pretty digestible coming from either end of the spectrum. It might be too heavy if your group won't go past something of Ticket to Ride or Catan complexity, but it's not much more complex. If your group is into heavier stuff, it may not be enough for a main game, but for a shorter session or something to start/end with it's good. I really want to play again, this time following the rules right.
Reading through the games written up by Ars, only a few really caught my attention.
Parks: Looks pretty, but need to play and compare to Tokaido.
Bargain Quest: Probably a game I'll enjoy but will never hit the table with my group.
Point Salad: Will probably be enjoyed by all in my group.
Going to be looking for all of these at PAXU to try out. I think my collecting has definitely hit a plateau in where I have a game for most any situation, so any new games have to be significantly better than what has already been released for me to spend money? Plus there's a lot of older games I still don't own that are considered great, and so they may get a purchase first before an unknown.
Point Salad is bizarre. TBF my only game if it so far was 2P, which we both felt was far from ideal.
Letter Jam seemed to have the most buzz out of the kinds of games I follow (medium to light, Euro/family). Of my purchases, that one is the most likely to have a lot of staying power, along with Time Chase. Mental Blocks is great but I will not be surprised if it is more a flash in the pan.
0
Options
HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
I'm genuinely curious if publishers are shying away from big boxes full of wood and cardboard right now because of the uncertainty around tariffs on Chinese goods. It really seems like the new releases this year have trended toward smaller box experiences with fewer components, and I wouldn't be surprised if Asmodee and other publishers are doing that intentionally to give themselves room to maneuver if a 10-30% surcharge per game suddenly appeared .
I'm genuinely curious if publishers are shying away from big boxes full of wood and cardboard right now because of the uncertainty around tariffs on Chinese goods. It really seems like the new releases this year have trended toward smaller box experiences with fewer components, and I wouldn't be surprised if Asmodee and other publishers are doing that intentionally to give themselves room to maneuver if a 10-30% surcharge per game suddenly appeared .
Maybe it's the oversaturated market. It's easier to overcome a 20 dollar game not making it then a 60 dollar game.
I think that question might be better asked by looking at kickstarters since so many of the bonuses you get from backing a KS are added Chinese made stuff.
Got money burning a hole in your pocket? Well youβre in luck! Tim Fowersβ Burgle Bros 2 just went live on Kickstarter!
$50 gets you everything, including stretch goals. The game has been up for a few hours and already funded, alongside hitting half of the stretch goals.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
+5
Options
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I donβt know anything about it though, what is it and why do I want it?
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited August 2019
I was introduced to Burgle Bros via my local store having this really impressive wooden scaffolding that fit the game. It used to be up in the demo area a lot. I don't think I actually got around to playing it.
In other news, Space Base: Command Station is out! I don't know if this was released for GenCon, but AEG is definitely stepping up their game these days.
As the tin says, this is a new storage solution for Space Base as well as an expansion. That said, there are things in here that address some of my "biggest" issues with one of my favorite games.
IT INCLUDES SLEEVES! Holy shit. 350 of them - it's like they are spilling out of the box. This was something I thought would never happen, and I'd be resigned to having a pretty beat up copy.
It adds a 6th and 7th player. To accommodate this, they introduce new, faster starting rules to jumpstart your engine a little more. It also recommends using the final module of the Shy Pluto expansion in bigger games.
Of note: It actually doesn't spoil the campaign! The one page that goes over said module's rules (for completeness) marks them as spoilers. Now, some of the advanced mechanics that get introduced early in the campaign (during the ramp-up part) do get spoiled, but I assume the expansion's cards use those too.
It includes a unique pair of dice for each player! This is huge, as passing around the single set from the base game can slow things down significantly. Again, small quality of life upgrade.
The rulebook seems much more in depth on examples and notes about how the various mechanics work. It doesn't have a card count guide or the original book's probability matrix, but it does have an index in the front and "Arrow reward" explanations on the back - which is good, as those are the most frequently confused rules.
All in all, this looks like a really nifty expansion!
Edit: Oh, huh. There are actually no new level 1/2/3 cards in this expansion. Just the 2 new player colors and the "predeploy" cards - another thing to help in larger games to speed up things.
Edit 2, for those stumbling across this in the future. When I was done sleeving everything except for the saga 1 "stop" cards, I had 57 sleeves left over. That odd one is due to the first player card. So that should cover expansion 2 pretty easily when it gets announced. If there's an expansion 3, that might be a harder sell.
Can I get a pic of your Waterdeep map? My DM keeps wanting to have everything represented by minis and to scale (Whenever I DM, I lean heavy on theater of the mind) and he's always dreamed of doing stupidly huge cities in D&D. Now that we gots a large gaming table, that seems more in the realm of plausible.
i don't actually know what their stretch goals are but I guess i should back this because i love the original and the case to this one is a 2 floor table setup useable with both games
Burgle Bros 2 looking pretty fly. I love the first one.
I'm loving the new Burgle Box. It's a custom box that transforms into a multi-level play surface for the game? And it works with the original?! Holy crap.
I donβt know anything about it though, what is it and why do I want it?
Burgle Bros 1 is a quick to teach, easy to set up cooperative game that creates complex puzzles with a set of fairly simple rules (there are only four different distinct actions). I have played this with both my relatives (not the biggest into the hobby but will tolerate Catan) as well as my usual board gaming groups and both have had a blast.
The game is set up into three floors consisting of 4 X 4 sets of grids making up rooms and pieces of wood between them to represent the walls. Depending on how you set up the walls the game can be made easier or harder depending on skill level. Each tile does something (usually something bad you have to work around) and you're looking for two special tiles (vault and stairs) on each floor. Each round one player can do four actions usually moving from tile to tile but after that the guard will move in a mostly predictable pattern. The objective is to avoid them moving onto a tile with the players while exploring the tower. In order to win you need to crack all three vaults and go through the roof.
The really brilliant bit is how much information they give you and how easy it is to take in everything at a glance. There is always enough to talk about better or worse ideas, but there is some hidden you just have to hope for the best on so turns don't devolve into exercises in AP. Pretty much everything is on those 4X4 grids; guards paths, players locations, hidden tiles, visible tiles. Each type of room has its own distinct color and there is enough similarity that the color alone gives a sense what will happen, but there are some nuances that do impact how things should be handled.
The art design is colorful and fun, the different characters offer their own charms and strengths. It really feels like a cooperative game too, you might spend a turn running around setting off alarms to make the guard turn around right before they would have moved into a room containing the other players, or pass along some cool tool to help your buddy crack the safe. Maybe one person sits on the safe prepping to crack it, another tries sneaking past a guard to find the combination while a third looks for the stairs up to the next floor. Every game has been a different puzzle based on the configuration of walls and coordination of the room tiles and which characters you bring in.
This might be the only game I would recommend to anyone regardless of skill/interest level in board gaming. It also helps the box is small.
Edit: I imagine Burgle Bros 2 is more of the same but I have yet to play it but have pledged. I can't imagine it would be a pure replacement, but just different.
Bluecyan on
+7
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Yeah, BB1 is one of the most accessible games for its level of complexity Iβve seen
Itβs great
I just hope they also make a sequel to the app
+2
Options
jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
I love finding new gems, but I keep being surprised about finding old gems, even in my own collection.
We needed a short, late-night game to play with family, all adults. Somebody saw Zooloretto and said, "That looks about my speed right now," which was fine with me, though I had only played it with kids. Surprisingly fun and actually quite funny! There's this light cruelty you can inflict by "poisoning" somebody's perfect "truck", and there's just enough "special rules" for some surprising plays. In our game it was down to the wire between my wife and brother-in-law, and it all came down to a special rule decision, whether a fertile animal pair spawns an offspring during an "exchange" action if there's no room for it (it does, it gets sent to your barn).
Then another night I got my brother-in-law to try my copy of Tides of Madness, which I was planning on getting rid of, because I had never been a fan of Tides of Time (too boring). But the madness tokens add a much-needed risk/reward component, especially in the cards you keep from round to round. Very short but clever 2-player game.
Once again, games with some opportunity to "punish" the other players, even in small ways, really creates engaging social occasions.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
+2
Options
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Wow. In 3 days I've racked up 10 plays of Ganz SchΓΆn Clever. It's goooood.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
+3
Options
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I played Concordia for the first time last night and I really enjoyed it. It is very simple to learn and I like that you aren't really stressed out about how well you are doing compared to everyone else. I couldn't get a second merchant card though and I think that and some other poor choices (Wine Minerva card seems like a lot of work vs the weaver Minerva card) led to my loss but I can't wait to play again.
I've played a couple of games of Watergate which is a fun little 2 player card driven strategy game. You have a crazy conspiracy corkboard where the editor wins if he connects two informants to Nixon and Nixon wins if he captures the momentum marker 5 times or if the games runs out of momentum markers. Then you have a little tug of war section of the board where 3 evidence tokens, the momentum, and initiative markers go. The player who has initiative gets 5 cards and gets to play first, the other player only gets 4 cards. Cards can be played either for their value (move a token or evidence X spaces on the tug of war track. After all cards are played you take whatever is closer to you than the middle.) then discarded or their event which removes them from the game. So you have to balance your deck by trying to keep your 4 and 3 value cards in your deck and culling the 1 and 2 power events. The evidence is used to pin to the conspiracy board and the editor pins it faceup to connect to informants, while nixon pins it facedown to block the editor's path. Both decks have unique cards and 7 shared cards, the informants. Playing an informant for the event puts that informant on the board faceup for the editor, and blacked out for Nixon.
Its a nice short 30 minute game but it feels a bit easier on the Nixon side. Taking initiative is huge and feels good, but the editor also needs to get evidence to win, and while the momentum doesn't win the game for the editor he needs to keep it from Nixon to prevent losing. And there aren't enough cards to win everything.
Cute and fun board game Bargain Quest is both cute and fun, news at 11!
I have played more mechanically interesting games but it has some meat to it, it also nails the theme and is great for the shallower end of the experience pool.
The black market expansion was also the good kind of expansion, adding (much needed) variety and options but not really length or complexity. Nuts to Mimics though!
Anybody played any of the HEXplore It series? Valley of the Dead King, Forests of Adrimon? They've got a new one up on KS, trying to see if anybody's played them and how they feel about them
Cute and fun board game Bargain Quest is both cute and fun, news at 11!
I have played more mechanically interesting games but it has some meat to it, it also nails the theme and is great for the shallower end of the experience pool.
The black market expansion was also the good kind of expansion, adding (much needed) variety and options but not really length or complexity. Nuts to Mimics though!
I still haven't played my copy, so you've made me feel a lot better about the acquisition!
+1
Options
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Anybody played any of the HEXplore It series? Valley of the Dead King, Forests of Adrimon? They've got a new one up on KS, trying to see if anybody's played them and how they feel about them
A friend of mine owns Valley of the Dead King, and we've played a handful of times with a number of player counts. I will lead off by saying "I've had fun with it", but...
I, personally, have mixed feelings about the game. It's fine, but also feels like it's trying very hard to be "D&D without the DM"*. I also greatly dislike that the rules have a certain unspecific slackness to them; I seemingly have at least two or three rules questions per game, usually resulting from some non-straightforward interaction of character vs. monster abilities in the combat portion of the game; the game and FAQ usually fail to address my questions. My sense is the game depends on the players to just figure it out on their own, which feels bad. The theming, art, and production values feel pretty good for what it is, but it doesn't feel very "tight" from a rules perspective.
*As my social circles' almost-always DM, I'm always left with the feeling that we would have had more fun with just me running a quick one-shot RPG game than playing HEXplore it.
Picked up Sheriff of Nottingham and TomatoTomato. I've liked what I've heard about SoN but I've always been put off by the art, so this oughta be fun. I probably wouldn't have given TomatoTomato the time of day but I heard ActualLoL say something mildy postitive about it so whatevs.
Cute and fun board game Bargain Quest is both cute and fun, news at 11!
I have played more mechanically interesting games but it has some meat to it, it also nails the theme and is great for the shallower end of the experience pool.
The black market expansion was also the good kind of expansion, adding (much needed) variety and options but not really length or complexity. Nuts to Mimics though!
The game looks interesting because it has an novel theme but I already have 7 Wonders and Sushi Go which fill the drafting niche. Would you say it qualifies as a gateway game?
Cute and fun board game Bargain Quest is both cute and fun, news at 11!
I have played more mechanically interesting games but it has some meat to it, it also nails the theme and is great for the shallower end of the experience pool.
The black market expansion was also the good kind of expansion, adding (much needed) variety and options but not really length or complexity. Nuts to Mimics though!
The game looks interesting because it has an novel theme but I already have 7 Wonders and Sushi Go which fill the drafting niche. Would you say it qualifies as a gateway game?
I'd say so, rules can be explained in about ten minutes and a full game is only about an hour long. They symbology is simple and makes things pretty easy to recognize, heroes can equip items that share atleast one of the same symbols, likewise offense and defense symbols are very obvious. Most the phases go by quick, and there is usually very little downtime.
Compared to Sushi go or 7 Wonders, its probably different enough to justify its existence. Drafting is only one aspect of the game (four card hands so less choice and pretty much no tableau building), the big part of the game is trying to attract the hero you want to the store. There is one hero per player and they are not all equal. Some might have more money, some might have neat abilities but most importantly, the items you have in store will be better suited to some. This gives the games a bit more direct player competition, since you have to try and guess how expensive your display item has to be, knowing that you won't be able to sell that one. Go too cheap and someone might out dazzle you for your hero, go too expensive and you won't make as much from the hero.
That said, I'd probably bring out Bargain Quest in the same situations as 7 Wonders (I don't actually own that, but it's a common one to show up at our tables). I think BQ has more flavor in its theme, and there are a lot of nods to other fantasy/video games/roleplaying stuff that if your group is at all into that, they will enjoy it. As an aside, my parents were most confused about what a Cleric was, they kept calling them clerks and wondering why number keepers were running around with heavy objects in armor.
Oh sweet, Burgle Bros 2 Kickstarter is up, let's take look....
Wait, what happened to that $50 that was in my wallet?
I need to check with my store on backing it. The kick starter says it won't go to distributors, but I know my local store heavily pushed the original and the owner has a rapport with the game's designer. So if I can back the kick starter through the store, that is what I'm gonna do.
Wait are Kickstarters not taking money from stores now? That seems obnoxious.
Smaller print runs makes sense to me, from an indie perspective. Costs less on your end, and it also means if you do a later printing for mass-market release, stores aren't sitting on stock already.
I'm not entirely sure how Fowers games works. I think they just don't work with the major distribution chains but will fulfill orders with stores. When I was working at an LGS I'm pretty sure we ordered direct from them so we always had all of their games and every once in a while someone would freak out because they could never find those games wherever they normally shopped
That's just Fowers' MO isn't it?
His games are available from his website and conventions, and that's about it?
ArcSyn on
+8
Options
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Yeah. I got clarification from my friend, who is also the manager of my LGS. They don't distribute normally. He doesn't know if the store is going to back it or not, or any of those details, so maybe I put the bug in his head by asking about it.
In other news, we played Star Trek: Chrono-Trek from Looney Labs tonight. It's a reskin of another of their games, where you do things to the timeline and affect it, trying to gather a win condition for your hidden character.
Don't play it at 2 players. Holy cow, there's no way for the fun stuff to really kick in, and the game ended in like 4-5 turns both games we played. But I can see it be really fun at higher player counts!
Posts
Letter Jam by Vlaada Chvatil maybe? Or Mental Blocks?
Nothing got consistently raved about or recommended by other con goers I talked to, and I didn't come away really excited about anything this year. I played a fair number of totally fine, fun games but none that I felt like I had to own.
Parks: Looks pretty, but need to play and compare to Tokaido.
Bargain Quest: Probably a game I'll enjoy but will never hit the table with my group.
Point Salad: Will probably be enjoyed by all in my group.
Going to be looking for all of these at PAXU to try out. I think my collecting has definitely hit a plateau in where I have a game for most any situation, so any new games have to be significantly better than what has already been released for me to spend money? Plus there's a lot of older games I still don't own that are considered great, and so they may get a purchase first before an unknown.
Point Salad is bizarre. TBF my only game if it so far was 2P, which we both felt was far from ideal.
Reavers of Midgard, Cloudspire, Abomination, and Era: Medieval Age all look big and chunky.
Maybe it's the oversaturated market. It's easier to overcome a 20 dollar game not making it then a 60 dollar game.
$50 gets you everything, including stretch goals. The game has been up for a few hours and already funded, alongside hitting half of the stretch goals.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
In other news, Space Base: Command Station is out! I don't know if this was released for GenCon, but AEG is definitely stepping up their game these days.
As the tin says, this is a new storage solution for Space Base as well as an expansion. That said, there are things in here that address some of my "biggest" issues with one of my favorite games.
IT INCLUDES SLEEVES! Holy shit. 350 of them - it's like they are spilling out of the box. This was something I thought would never happen, and I'd be resigned to having a pretty beat up copy.
It adds a 6th and 7th player. To accommodate this, they introduce new, faster starting rules to jumpstart your engine a little more. It also recommends using the final module of the Shy Pluto expansion in bigger games.
Of note: It actually doesn't spoil the campaign! The one page that goes over said module's rules (for completeness) marks them as spoilers. Now, some of the advanced mechanics that get introduced early in the campaign (during the ramp-up part) do get spoiled, but I assume the expansion's cards use those too.
It includes a unique pair of dice for each player! This is huge, as passing around the single set from the base game can slow things down significantly. Again, small quality of life upgrade.
The rulebook seems much more in depth on examples and notes about how the various mechanics work. It doesn't have a card count guide or the original book's probability matrix, but it does have an index in the front and "Arrow reward" explanations on the back - which is good, as those are the most frequently confused rules.
All in all, this looks like a really nifty expansion!
Edit: Oh, huh. There are actually no new level 1/2/3 cards in this expansion. Just the 2 new player colors and the "predeploy" cards - another thing to help in larger games to speed up things.
Edit 2, for those stumbling across this in the future. When I was done sleeving everything except for the saga 1 "stop" cards, I had 57 sleeves left over. That odd one is due to the first player card. So that should cover expansion 2 pretty easily when it gets announced. If there's an expansion 3, that might be a harder sell.
Can I get a pic of your Waterdeep map? My DM keeps wanting to have everything represented by minis and to scale (Whenever I DM, I lean heavy on theater of the mind) and he's always dreamed of doing stupidly huge cities in D&D. Now that we gots a large gaming table, that seems more in the realm of plausible.
Burgle Bros 1 is a quick to teach, easy to set up cooperative game that creates complex puzzles with a set of fairly simple rules (there are only four different distinct actions). I have played this with both my relatives (not the biggest into the hobby but will tolerate Catan) as well as my usual board gaming groups and both have had a blast.
The game is set up into three floors consisting of 4 X 4 sets of grids making up rooms and pieces of wood between them to represent the walls. Depending on how you set up the walls the game can be made easier or harder depending on skill level. Each tile does something (usually something bad you have to work around) and you're looking for two special tiles (vault and stairs) on each floor. Each round one player can do four actions usually moving from tile to tile but after that the guard will move in a mostly predictable pattern. The objective is to avoid them moving onto a tile with the players while exploring the tower. In order to win you need to crack all three vaults and go through the roof.
The really brilliant bit is how much information they give you and how easy it is to take in everything at a glance. There is always enough to talk about better or worse ideas, but there is some hidden you just have to hope for the best on so turns don't devolve into exercises in AP. Pretty much everything is on those 4X4 grids; guards paths, players locations, hidden tiles, visible tiles. Each type of room has its own distinct color and there is enough similarity that the color alone gives a sense what will happen, but there are some nuances that do impact how things should be handled.
The art design is colorful and fun, the different characters offer their own charms and strengths. It really feels like a cooperative game too, you might spend a turn running around setting off alarms to make the guard turn around right before they would have moved into a room containing the other players, or pass along some cool tool to help your buddy crack the safe. Maybe one person sits on the safe prepping to crack it, another tries sneaking past a guard to find the combination while a third looks for the stairs up to the next floor. Every game has been a different puzzle based on the configuration of walls and coordination of the room tiles and which characters you bring in.
This might be the only game I would recommend to anyone regardless of skill/interest level in board gaming. It also helps the box is small.
Edit: I imagine Burgle Bros 2 is more of the same but I have yet to play it but have pledged. I can't imagine it would be a pure replacement, but just different.
Itβs great
I just hope they also make a sequel to the app
We needed a short, late-night game to play with family, all adults. Somebody saw Zooloretto and said, "That looks about my speed right now," which was fine with me, though I had only played it with kids. Surprisingly fun and actually quite funny! There's this light cruelty you can inflict by "poisoning" somebody's perfect "truck", and there's just enough "special rules" for some surprising plays. In our game it was down to the wire between my wife and brother-in-law, and it all came down to a special rule decision, whether a fertile animal pair spawns an offspring during an "exchange" action if there's no room for it (it does, it gets sent to your barn).
Then another night I got my brother-in-law to try my copy of Tides of Madness, which I was planning on getting rid of, because I had never been a fan of Tides of Time (too boring). But the madness tokens add a much-needed risk/reward component, especially in the cards you keep from round to round. Very short but clever 2-player game.
Once again, games with some opportunity to "punish" the other players, even in small ways, really creates engaging social occasions.
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
I've played a couple of games of Watergate which is a fun little 2 player card driven strategy game. You have a crazy conspiracy corkboard where the editor wins if he connects two informants to Nixon and Nixon wins if he captures the momentum marker 5 times or if the games runs out of momentum markers. Then you have a little tug of war section of the board where 3 evidence tokens, the momentum, and initiative markers go. The player who has initiative gets 5 cards and gets to play first, the other player only gets 4 cards. Cards can be played either for their value (move a token or evidence X spaces on the tug of war track. After all cards are played you take whatever is closer to you than the middle.) then discarded or their event which removes them from the game. So you have to balance your deck by trying to keep your 4 and 3 value cards in your deck and culling the 1 and 2 power events. The evidence is used to pin to the conspiracy board and the editor pins it faceup to connect to informants, while nixon pins it facedown to block the editor's path. Both decks have unique cards and 7 shared cards, the informants. Playing an informant for the event puts that informant on the board faceup for the editor, and blacked out for Nixon.
Its a nice short 30 minute game but it feels a bit easier on the Nixon side. Taking initiative is huge and feels good, but the editor also needs to get evidence to win, and while the momentum doesn't win the game for the editor he needs to keep it from Nixon to prevent losing. And there aren't enough cards to win everything.
I have played more mechanically interesting games but it has some meat to it, it also nails the theme and is great for the shallower end of the experience pool.
The black market expansion was also the good kind of expansion, adding (much needed) variety and options but not really length or complexity. Nuts to Mimics though!
I still haven't played my copy, so you've made me feel a lot better about the acquisition!
A friend of mine owns Valley of the Dead King, and we've played a handful of times with a number of player counts. I will lead off by saying "I've had fun with it", but...
I, personally, have mixed feelings about the game. It's fine, but also feels like it's trying very hard to be "D&D without the DM"*. I also greatly dislike that the rules have a certain unspecific slackness to them; I seemingly have at least two or three rules questions per game, usually resulting from some non-straightforward interaction of character vs. monster abilities in the combat portion of the game; the game and FAQ usually fail to address my questions. My sense is the game depends on the players to just figure it out on their own, which feels bad. The theming, art, and production values feel pretty good for what it is, but it doesn't feel very "tight" from a rules perspective.
*As my social circles' almost-always DM, I'm always left with the feeling that we would have had more fun with just me running a quick one-shot RPG game than playing HEXplore it.
The game looks interesting because it has an novel theme but I already have 7 Wonders and Sushi Go which fill the drafting niche. Would you say it qualifies as a gateway game?
I'd say so, rules can be explained in about ten minutes and a full game is only about an hour long. They symbology is simple and makes things pretty easy to recognize, heroes can equip items that share atleast one of the same symbols, likewise offense and defense symbols are very obvious. Most the phases go by quick, and there is usually very little downtime.
Compared to Sushi go or 7 Wonders, its probably different enough to justify its existence. Drafting is only one aspect of the game (four card hands so less choice and pretty much no tableau building), the big part of the game is trying to attract the hero you want to the store. There is one hero per player and they are not all equal. Some might have more money, some might have neat abilities but most importantly, the items you have in store will be better suited to some. This gives the games a bit more direct player competition, since you have to try and guess how expensive your display item has to be, knowing that you won't be able to sell that one. Go too cheap and someone might out dazzle you for your hero, go too expensive and you won't make as much from the hero.
That said, I'd probably bring out Bargain Quest in the same situations as 7 Wonders (I don't actually own that, but it's a common one to show up at our tables). I think BQ has more flavor in its theme, and there are a lot of nods to other fantasy/video games/roleplaying stuff that if your group is at all into that, they will enjoy it. As an aside, my parents were most confused about what a Cleric was, they kept calling them clerks and wondering why number keepers were running around with heavy objects in armor.
Wait, what happened to that $50 that was in my wallet?
I need to check with my store on backing it. The kick starter says it won't go to distributors, but I know my local store heavily pushed the original and the owner has a rapport with the game's designer. So if I can back the kick starter through the store, that is what I'm gonna do.
Smaller print runs makes sense to me, from an indie perspective. Costs less on your end, and it also means if you do a later printing for mass-market release, stores aren't sitting on stock already.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
His games are available from his website and conventions, and that's about it?
In other news, we played Star Trek: Chrono-Trek from Looney Labs tonight. It's a reskin of another of their games, where you do things to the timeline and affect it, trying to gather a win condition for your hidden character.
Don't play it at 2 players. Holy cow, there's no way for the fun stuff to really kick in, and the game ended in like 4-5 turns both games we played. But I can see it be really fun at higher player counts!
Now to see if we bring that bacon home in the second half of the year
668 points!