Nemesis also has co-operative rules, which I was a little surprised they didn't cover, and it's the only way I've played the game so far. It made it feel a bit like the Forbidden Island/Desert games. Except, you know, terrifying stabby creatures or the mutated dead (yay expansion) following you around instead of sands or floods. I really enjoy it! And compared to Lifeform, another Alien-themed game, it's way less fiddly. Every time I open the rulebook for Lifeform, I just... I just can't. I love the designer and his other games (Shadows/Gloom of Kilforth), but Lifeform tries a bit too hard to emulate the original Alien film.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
I actually got to play Nemesis last night with a friend who backed it! We played the regular mode and it was pretty fun. I also got to borrow it and am bringing it to another game night tonight to show a few other friends. We will probably try the full-blooded version tonight, then see if we want to read up on the co-op mode for another round.
Overall the game was really fun and made for some cool moments.
Also I had a doggo who explored for me, which was very useful.
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Has anybody played Empyreal?
I have my oh so crazy goal of bringing one unplayed game to table either tomorrow night or next Saturday, and right now I'm debating between Empyreal, Court of the Dead, and Grind House (loads of other options, sadly, but these are conveniently located and on my mind). In a perfect world, Court of the Dead would be the choice but I'm not sure if I have enough time to grok the rules before our gaming tomorrow night due to other commitments. Grind House is certainly the simplest, but also the least well-received. That said, it is extremely thematically appropriate for our gatherings where we play board games and drink for a while and eventually adjourn to enjoy a B-movie or two while sobering up. I he be torn.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Yeah ... I'm 34 and if this isn't the first time I've heard the song, it's the first time in over 20 years.
Also, this is the most "this has to be in Rock Band" song I've ever heard. Wikipedia says yes, it definitely was DLC once upon a time. :P
Back in the mid-90s, Companies would constantly ask for you phone number when buying anything. One of the nearby areas of town had a phone code of 897-xxxx. So anytime anyone would ask me for my phone number, I would always tell them: 897-5309.
Of the dozens of times I did it, only one person ever got it, and they had a small smile on their face and shook their head knowingly. Kind of a "well played sir" moment. My only regret is knowing that someone out there with that number may have been getting a lot of junk mail.
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
Back in the mid-90s, Companies would constantly ask for you phone number when buying anything. One of the nearby areas of town had a phone code of 897-xxxx. So anytime anyone would ask me for my phone number, I would always tell them: 897-5309.
Of the dozens of times I did it, only one person ever got it, and they had a small smile on their face and shook their head knowingly. Kind of a "well played sir" moment. My only regret is knowing that someone out there with that number may have been getting a lot of junk mail.
Oh they were getting a lot of junk mail and worse regardless of anything you did, I guarantee it.
I got a first play on my copy a few weeks ago. Most of the complexity is in the variety of powers that you can acquire through Spellcars and Specialists; mechanics-wise, the game is fairly straightforward. Still, you can expect the game to take significantly longer than the twenty minutes per player stated on the box (not that box times have ever been accurate). I think that game took about two hours, plus teaching time.
It's a game of tight efficiency, where small things build up over the course of the game. Despite me antagonizing my opponents using Bartok Kulle (Gesselheim) against Rayleigh Kerigan (Kerigan Transcontinental) and Runika Zenanen (Kings' Line), the final scores were still a fairly close-on-paper 35-33-30.
It can be a fairly ruthless game in the endgame, as players start to jostle with each other to snatch away resources before the others. This is especially true in a three-player game, when the number of resources that start on the board are exactly enough to fulfill all of the demand tiles.
I'm excited to try and find an opportunity to bring folks together to play another game, now that we've gotten the hang of it. I'd like to try it four-handed, since I suspect that has a really good dynamic in availability of resources to size of board. It is very worth noting as well that the game is a space hog, and I probably wouldn't want to try it at five or more players just to keep information load under some amount of control. I'd also like to try the variant where Specialist piles are hidden until someone first draws from them, so that when they get revealed, the owner / teacher can explain what each of them does, rather than the person drawing the specialist having to rely on searching the rulebook. While opening that information gives some advantage to later players about if they might want that Specialist type or not, the first player also gets the first pick as to which one they get.
Keypad on the exit door. We were told we had to follow a series of clues to ultimately get a number code to unlock the door and escape.
The theme of the room was the 80s.
On a whim, I typed in 8675309.
It worked!!! We got out. Thankfully, they let us reset it and run through the room proper.
Context?
EIGHT SIX SEVEN FIVE THREE OH NYYYYE-EE-EYE-EN
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 2020
Today I happily picked up the copy of Menara's Rituals and Ruins expansion that I had on order. Literally every module in the box is about making the game harder (except the perfect quality-of-life upgrade of a deck of all the tiles so you can more easily randomize the draw order ). From a glance though, it's not ... a small increase in difficulty. Like, all the new floor tiles have some sort of additional rule. At their simplest, you have to place columns in a specific order, or literally in preset pairs. At their most difficult, you have to use the column you're going to place to slide an existing column to another space on the tile before you can place the new one. Without using your fingers. Playing with any of the new floor tiles has you include additional construction cards, and there are a few new ones that seem devilish (fully complete two tiles in a single turn, one at a time, placing the new floor from completing the first one before starting a second).
Then there are two other genuinely cute modules that bend the rules to the game, and both of them could effectively see you starting a hard-level game with a minimum build height of 11 floors.
Personally I am enthralled for some of this bullshit and can't wait to mess about with it.
I want that expansion pretty bad, but not bad enough to pay $50-60 for it, which is the price I found for importing from Germany last time I looked.
Also news flash Aeons End is really a great game. We played it three times in a row at game night at night, which is unheard of for anything that's not like The Mind or Insider or whatever light filler.
Also news flash Aeons End is really a great game. We played it three times in a row at game night at night, which is unheard of for anything that's not like The Mind or Insider or whatever light filler.
Also news flash Aeons End is really a great game. We played it three times in a row at game night at night, which is unheard of for anything that's not like The Mind or Insider or whatever light filler.
How long did each game take your group?
60-90 minutes I'd guess, outside of setup/teardown
I got a first play on my copy a few weeks ago. Most of the complexity is in the variety of powers that you can acquire through Spellcars and Specialists; mechanics-wise, the game is fairly straightforward. Still, you can expect the game to take significantly longer than the twenty minutes per player stated on the box (not that box times have ever been accurate). I think that game took about two hours, plus teaching time.
It's a game of tight efficiency, where small things build up over the course of the game. Despite me antagonizing my opponents using Bartok Kulle (Gesselheim) against Rayleigh Kerigan (Kerigan Transcontinental) and Runika Zenanen (Kings' Line), the final scores were still a fairly close-on-paper 35-33-30.
It can be a fairly ruthless game in the endgame, as players start to jostle with each other to snatch away resources before the others. This is especially true in a three-player game, when the number of resources that start on the board are exactly enough to fulfill all of the demand tiles.
I'm excited to try and find an opportunity to bring folks together to play another game, now that we've gotten the hang of it. I'd like to try it four-handed, since I suspect that has a really good dynamic in availability of resources to size of board. It is very worth noting as well that the game is a space hog, and I probably wouldn't want to try it at five or more players just to keep information load under some amount of control. I'd also like to try the variant where Specialist piles are hidden until someone first draws from them, so that when they get revealed, the owner / teacher can explain what each of them does, rather than the person drawing the specialist having to rely on searching the rulebook. While opening that information gives some advantage to later players about if they might want that Specialist type or not, the first player also gets the first pick as to which one they get.
This is simultaneously much appreciated and somewhat disheartening, as my usual group is 5 players. I may save Empyreal for a night where someone can't make it and we're at 4 instead.
Also news flash Aeons End is really a great game. We played it three times in a row at game night at night, which is unheard of for anything that's not like The Mind or Insider or whatever light filler.
Before and after DnD today we ran through the first three missions of Aeons End Legacy, which is just great. Would work fantastically as an intro to the system, and is just generally really fun. It's a great game, and then there's fun legacy stuff with stickers and story and whatnot. Plus the box is big enough to hold all the Aeons End after we're done!
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Played more Aftermath tonight. It's becoming kind of a sunday thing for me and my bud. We did two missions tonight! The second one dragged a bit but that was coming down off the adrenaline of an earlier part of the encounter.
I really am going to sell this as a cutesy version of Kingdom Death: Monster. But... that also brings with it one major flaw that KDM side-stepped:
There isn't much variety in the baddies. The maps being the same? That's fine, it is cool that we are getting to know the terrain and how to get around it. But there are only 5 categories of basic baddies in the core game, and they use the same nomads for many of the early adventures. Because each enemy card is associated with a miniature (by base), this means the enemies are all more or less the same for an encounter, with slightly different events and setups.
Theoretically Plaid Hat Z-Man is going to fix this by releasing enemy packs. But so far none have been announced. So that is the big thing KDM has one Aftermath -- LOTS of encounter options available.
Oh my, War of Whispers is back to $99 on Amazon, $150 on BGG market.
I...think I'm gonna sell it.
The clever elegant stuff SU&SD praised just never materializes. Most games have a samey feel, and the cards are just too swingy and clunky to call anything about it elegant (I'd go so far as to say they're as clunky and pace-killing as combat in base game Rebellion). Almost every single aspect of the graphical design is wrong to the point that I couldn't intentionally design a worse one*.
None of us dislike the game, but none of us want to bring it out again after six plays. And who am I to say no to getting back twice what I paid for it?
on the samey/balance issue
2 colors have never done good in all the games we've played, while 2 have always been well-performing sure bets. Winners were always who most supported those same colors. Do all colors have an equal chance and it just requires super experienced players exploiting the system to its fullest in order to make them all equally viable? Maybe, but after 6 games of not seeing it, no one wants to try anymore. For context, your first game of Chaos in the Old World it seems like Khorne is unstoppable, but we figured out how to blunt him after ONE game.
There's also one action space on the board that is the clear, single best pick in the game. It allows you to monopolize the offenses of the best position in the game, and no one can ever kick you out of it.
The game is full of "how did this not come up in testing?" moments like this. There's two different threads on BGG pointing out this issue. When the best solution offered is "the meta will sort it out", you can be pretty sure you have a balance issue.
Another amazing layout blunder we noticed last night
The plastic insert. It's 6 different compartments, none of which fit any single one of the components. There's two card trays: one of them way too shallow to store all the cards, one way too deep to easily reach down. There's a weird circle/oval thing in the center which doesn't match/fit a single component in the entire game. There's 2 rectangular compartments, too small to hold the large player sheets, and too large to hold anything smaller without jostling around. Then there's one giant compartment too large to hold anything. It's almost like the insert was based on some prototype version with totally different pieces.
It's really amazing how the wrong decisions were made for all the art, color, and layout choices. It's like a work of art onion where you notice different layers to it every time.
The insert is so bad, it makes Fantasy Flight inserts look like a grandmaster game of Tetris.
MrBody on
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Definitely sell it. No question. It's clearly going to get more printings and you clearly don't enjoy it enough to sit on it. I probably wouldn't go for extreme gouging unless it's actually looking reliable per the BGG market history or whatever.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 2020
Oh, surprise today!
At Target, I found the latest Villainous expansion / standalone, Villainous: Perfectly Wretched
I actually almost missed it because it was in a Target "Exclusive" slipcover. So while I was mentally scanning for a red box, it took me a sec to realize there was a lone item on the shelf:
Now, no where on the box or in the box does it say what the exclusive game piece is, but I suspect it is the Cruella De Vil mover, which is a very unique two-tone mold of white and black with speckles.
That said, as usual the game components are gorgeous. And the way they tape the box sealed is horrendous, because you can't get it off without ruining the box.
Here you can see the movers, the outside of the player boards, and a thick Rapunzel hero card which I think means Rapunzel never leaves the board. Which is thematic.
Here are the locations. Pete needs to beat 4 hidden goals out of 5 (they can be revealed). Mother Gothel needs to earn 10 trust points, which is easier if Rapunzel is in the tower. And Curella needs to start her turn with 99 puppies captured.
Here's the individual tokens for each character, and how their decks come package. A very interesting tidbit: Pete's fate deck will be the first time that Mickey Mouse shows up in this game!
And finally, because they are stunning, here are the deck designs.
Edit: I guess street on this was March 1st. The special piece is the Cruella mover. In the normal edition, it's just molded opaque black/white plastic. The Target version adds contrasting black and white speckles.
At Target, I found the latest Villainous expansion / standalone, Villainous: Perfectly Wretched
I actually almost missed it because it was in a Target "Exclusive" slipcover. So while I was mentally scanning for a red box, it took me a sec to realize there was a lone item on the shelf:
Now, no where on the box or in the box does it say what the exclusive game piece is, but I suspect it is the Cruella De Vil mover, which is a very unique two-tone mold of white and black with speckles.
That said, as usual the game components are gorgeous. And the way they tape the box sealed is horrendous, because you can't get it off without ruining the box.
Here you can see the movers, the outside of the player boards, and a thick Rapunzel hero card which I think means Rapunzel never leaves the board. Which is thematic.
Here are the locations. Pete needs to beat 4 hidden goals out of 5 (they can be revealed). Mother Gothel needs to earn 10 trust points, which is easier if Rapunzel is in the tower. And Curella needs to start her turn with 99 puppies captured.
Here's the individual tokens for each character, and how their decks come package. A very interesting tidbit: Pete's fate deck will be the first time that Mickey Mouse shows up in this game!
And finally, because they are stunning, here are the deck designs.
Edit: I guess street on this was March 1st. The special piece is the Cruella mover. In the normal edition, it's just molded opaque black/white plastic. The Target version adds contrasting black and white speckles.
We played a 3-player game with just this box on Friday.
Rapunzel indeed never leaves the board; if you defeat her (no small feat when all your standard allies are strength 2 and she's strength 4) she just gets sent back to the tower (leftmost space). She moves one space to the right every turn and if she tries to move off the board you lose a trust point which is basically just a VP. Gothel has cards that give you trust points if she's sharing a space with Rapunzel, or if Rapunzel's in the tower space. Most of her allies are royal guards which are strength 2 but can drag Rapunzel around with them. Her fate cards are things like heroes that prevent you from moving allies, or just straight rob you of trust points.
Pete gets 5 goals (the rectangular pieces with victory conditions on them) and randomly picks 4 of them for his board. He has to clear all four goals to win, which notably doesn't have to be at the start of his turn. He has cards like Play A Game which mills you for 2 cards but you get power equal to their combined cost. IIRC Mickey is a strength 5 fate card and his text is just "You can't complete goals"
Cruella needs to collect 99 puppies, which seems like a lot but they all come in lots of 11 or 22. Her game loop is using cards that move puppy tokens from the face-down supply to her board and other cards that move the tokens from her board to puppy jail. Fate cards can un-capture puppies from puppy jail because they're really "labradors" and that coat is dalmatians or nothing.
It was very back and forth near the end but Pete ended up winning just through sheer force projection.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Yeah, going through the deck now. Mickey's a bonkers card, which is fitty. Donald, Minnie, and Goofy are no slouches either. But I was quite surprised to see Oswald the Rabbit!
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 2020
Arkham Horror 3rd just got its first big box announced!
It is called "Under Dark Waves," and Mother Hydra is very prominent on the cover.
Locations for Innsmouth and Kingsport are included as this will be waterfront type locales.
The scenarios will be going up to roughly 15 cards each to allow more branching game options and choices.
There will be 4 new scenarios, which sound like they'll be playing with the map layout among other things.
8 new investigators, including a brand new one - Stella, the mailcarrier! She looks awesome and I love her theme.
There is a new mechanic, "Terror," that will work kinda like Anomalies, but not really.
Their idea is that the small box expansions are "Content" expansions, adding more stuff to what's already been released, and the big boxes are mechanics expansions. They do have a roadmap for releasing the expansions. They wouldn't commit as to whether or not any more small box expansions are getting released.
And they are very well aware of the component creep in 2nd, and are working to fight that. For instance, each Arkham location is only getting 2 new cards this expansion for their location decks. (Yay two of my questions got answered!)
Images from:
... One of these days I need to actually get off my butt and update the AH thread here.
Edit: Hold up a minute... Is Stella transgender? It wasn't mentioned in the livestream, but reading through the fiction.. hot damn that is awesome if so!
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor horrors nor eldritch things nor unspeakable things nor tentacle nor elder thing nor armageddon nor signs of yellow nor otherworld gates nor anomalies nor Innsmouth look nor insanity nor thralls nor doom count stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
The art for Hydra and Dagon...the Pirates of the Caribbean movies would call that a bit cartoony and silly.
I'm hoping the scenario branches are less "choice, but still set on a fixed path", and more randomized stages like the adventure decks from Eldritch Horror.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor horrors nor eldritch things nor unspeakable things nor tentacle nor elder thing nor armageddon nor signs of yellow nor otherworld gates nor anomalies nor Innsmouth look nor insanity nor thralls nor doom count stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor horrors nor eldritch things nor unspeakable things nor tentacle nor elder thing nor armageddon nor signs of yellow nor otherworld gates nor anomalies nor Innsmouth look nor insanity nor thralls nor doom count stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Don't ask us about Mrs. Cake.
I automatically substituted "glom of nit" while reading that.
Fan project lifts all the assets from the Mansions of Madness app and allows users to create their own scenarios. There are dozens of fan scenarios available online, with plenty of reviews picking out the best ones.
I'm going to be checking them out. This is a godsend for someone like me who enjoyed the game but said nuts to paying $15 per new scenario (+ ton of unwanted plastic).
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Hot off the presses from GAMA: Asmodee is creating a new dedicated studio for ffg's RPGs. It is going to be called Edge, and it should be up by the end of the year.
Oh my, War of Whispers is back to $99 on Amazon, $150 on BGG market.
I...think I'm gonna sell it.
The clever elegant stuff SU&SD praised just never materializes. Most games have a samey feel, and the cards are just too swingy and clunky to call anything about it elegant (I'd go so far as to say they're as clunky and pace-killing as combat in base game Rebellion). Almost every single aspect of the graphical design is wrong to the point that I couldn't intentionally design a worse one*.
None of us dislike the game, but none of us want to bring it out again after six plays. And who am I to say no to getting back twice what I paid for it?
on the samey/balance issue
2 colors have never done good in all the games we've played, while 2 have always been well-performing sure bets. Winners were always who most supported those same colors. Do all colors have an equal chance and it just requires super experienced players exploiting the system to its fullest in order to make them all equally viable? Maybe, but after 6 games of not seeing it, no one wants to try anymore. For context, your first game of Chaos in the Old World it seems like Khorne is unstoppable, but we figured out how to blunt him after ONE game.
There's also one action space on the board that is the clear, single best pick in the game. It allows you to monopolize the offenses of the best position in the game, and no one can ever kick you out of it.
The game is full of "how did this not come up in testing?" moments like this. There's two different threads on BGG pointing out this issue. When the best solution offered is "the meta will sort it out", you can be pretty sure you have a balance issue.
Another amazing layout blunder we noticed last night
The plastic insert. It's 6 different compartments, none of which fit any single one of the components. There's two card trays: one of them way too shallow to store all the cards, one way too deep to easily reach down. There's a weird circle/oval thing in the center which doesn't match/fit a single component in the entire game. There's 2 rectangular compartments, too small to hold the large player sheets, and too large to hold anything smaller without jostling around. Then there's one giant compartment too large to hold anything. It's almost like the insert was based on some prototype version with totally different pieces.
It's really amazing how the wrong decisions were made for all the art, color, and layout choices. It's like a work of art onion where you notice different layers to it every time.
The insert is so bad, it makes Fantasy Flight inserts look like a grandmaster game of Tetris.
If you don't feel like selling on 3rd party, I'd be happy to buy - just don't want to eat your profits you'd get on amazon or ebay.
Fan project lifts all the assets from the Mansions of Madness app and allows users to create their own scenarios. There are dozens of fan scenarios available online, with plenty of reviews picking out the best ones.
I'm going to be checking them out. This is a godsend for someone like me who enjoyed the game but said nuts to paying $15 per new scenario (+ ton of unwanted plastic).
Well, so far I'm pretty pissed at The Edge.
I got this for all the advertised co-op modes but it turns out all the co-op modes are just the solo mode divided in half so only for 2 players. My group is 4 players minimum so 75% of the content I paid for will never get used. And why can't Darkness be played in the PVP Campaign? And why doesn't it have a boss for the Boss Mode? This is just some really sloppy, lazy design; I expected much better.
Posts
Solved a local escape room in ten seconds today!
Keypad on the exit door. We were told we had to follow a series of clues to ultimately get a number code to unlock the door and escape.
It worked!!! We got out. Thankfully, they let us reset it and run through the room proper.
Overall the game was really fun and made for some cool moments.
Also I had a doggo who explored for me, which was very useful.
Context?
I have my oh so crazy goal of bringing one unplayed game to table either tomorrow night or next Saturday, and right now I'm debating between Empyreal, Court of the Dead, and Grind House (loads of other options, sadly, but these are conveniently located and on my mind). In a perfect world, Court of the Dead would be the choice but I'm not sure if I have enough time to grok the rules before our gaming tomorrow night due to other commitments. Grind House is certainly the simplest, but also the least well-received. That said, it is extremely thematically appropriate for our gatherings where we play board games and drink for a while and eventually adjourn to enjoy a B-movie or two while sobering up. I he be torn.
...
Was going to make a "I need to see some ID" joke until I realized that you could theoretically be in your 30s and somehow never heard that song.
Still, though.
Also, this is the most "this has to be in Rock Band" song I've ever heard. Wikipedia says yes, it definitely was DLC once upon a time. :P
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
While pretty damn funny that sounds like a pretty badly designed escape room. Or maybe I'm right in thinking US and UK escape rooms are very different
Back in the mid-90s, Companies would constantly ask for you phone number when buying anything. One of the nearby areas of town had a phone code of 897-xxxx. So anytime anyone would ask me for my phone number, I would always tell them: 897-5309.
Of the dozens of times I did it, only one person ever got it, and they had a small smile on their face and shook their head knowingly. Kind of a "well played sir" moment. My only regret is knowing that someone out there with that number may have been getting a lot of junk mail.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Oh they were getting a lot of junk mail and worse regardless of anything you did, I guarantee it.
I got a first play on my copy a few weeks ago. Most of the complexity is in the variety of powers that you can acquire through Spellcars and Specialists; mechanics-wise, the game is fairly straightforward. Still, you can expect the game to take significantly longer than the twenty minutes per player stated on the box (not that box times have ever been accurate). I think that game took about two hours, plus teaching time.
It's a game of tight efficiency, where small things build up over the course of the game. Despite me antagonizing my opponents using Bartok Kulle (Gesselheim) against Rayleigh Kerigan (Kerigan Transcontinental) and Runika Zenanen (Kings' Line), the final scores were still a fairly close-on-paper 35-33-30.
It can be a fairly ruthless game in the endgame, as players start to jostle with each other to snatch away resources before the others. This is especially true in a three-player game, when the number of resources that start on the board are exactly enough to fulfill all of the demand tiles.
I'm excited to try and find an opportunity to bring folks together to play another game, now that we've gotten the hang of it. I'd like to try it four-handed, since I suspect that has a really good dynamic in availability of resources to size of board. It is very worth noting as well that the game is a space hog, and I probably wouldn't want to try it at five or more players just to keep information load under some amount of control. I'd also like to try the variant where Specialist piles are hidden until someone first draws from them, so that when they get revealed, the owner / teacher can explain what each of them does, rather than the person drawing the specialist having to rely on searching the rulebook. While opening that information gives some advantage to later players about if they might want that Specialist type or not, the first player also gets the first pick as to which one they get.
EIGHT SIX SEVEN FIVE THREE OH NYYYYE-EE-EYE-EN
Then there are two other genuinely cute modules that bend the rules to the game, and both of them could effectively see you starting a hard-level game with a minimum build height of 11 floors.
Personally I am enthralled for some of this bullshit and can't wait to mess about with it.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Also news flash Aeons End is really a great game. We played it three times in a row at game night at night, which is unheard of for anything that's not like The Mind or Insider or whatever light filler.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
How long did each game take your group?
60-90 minutes I'd guess, outside of setup/teardown
This is simultaneously much appreciated and somewhat disheartening, as my usual group is 5 players. I may save Empyreal for a night where someone can't make it and we're at 4 instead.
Before and after DnD today we ran through the first three missions of Aeons End Legacy, which is just great. Would work fantastically as an intro to the system, and is just generally really fun. It's a great game, and then there's fun legacy stuff with stickers and story and whatnot. Plus the box is big enough to hold all the Aeons End after we're done!
I really am going to sell this as a cutesy version of Kingdom Death: Monster. But... that also brings with it one major flaw that KDM side-stepped:
There isn't much variety in the baddies. The maps being the same? That's fine, it is cool that we are getting to know the terrain and how to get around it. But there are only 5 categories of basic baddies in the core game, and they use the same nomads for many of the early adventures. Because each enemy card is associated with a miniature (by base), this means the enemies are all more or less the same for an encounter, with slightly different events and setups.
Theoretically Plaid Hat Z-Man is going to fix this by releasing enemy packs. But so far none have been announced. So that is the big thing KDM has one Aftermath -- LOTS of encounter options available.
I...think I'm gonna sell it.
The clever elegant stuff SU&SD praised just never materializes. Most games have a samey feel, and the cards are just too swingy and clunky to call anything about it elegant (I'd go so far as to say they're as clunky and pace-killing as combat in base game Rebellion). Almost every single aspect of the graphical design is wrong to the point that I couldn't intentionally design a worse one*.
None of us dislike the game, but none of us want to bring it out again after six plays. And who am I to say no to getting back twice what I paid for it?
on the samey/balance issue
There's also one action space on the board that is the clear, single best pick in the game. It allows you to monopolize the offenses of the best position in the game, and no one can ever kick you out of it.
The game is full of "how did this not come up in testing?" moments like this. There's two different threads on BGG pointing out this issue. When the best solution offered is "the meta will sort it out", you can be pretty sure you have a balance issue.
Another amazing layout blunder we noticed last night
It's really amazing how the wrong decisions were made for all the art, color, and layout choices. It's like a work of art onion where you notice different layers to it every time.
The insert is so bad, it makes Fantasy Flight inserts look like a grandmaster game of Tetris.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
At Target, I found the latest Villainous expansion / standalone, Villainous: Perfectly Wretched
I actually almost missed it because it was in a Target "Exclusive" slipcover. So while I was mentally scanning for a red box, it took me a sec to realize there was a lone item on the shelf:
Now, no where on the box or in the box does it say what the exclusive game piece is, but I suspect it is the Cruella De Vil mover, which is a very unique two-tone mold of white and black with speckles.
That said, as usual the game components are gorgeous. And the way they tape the box sealed is horrendous, because you can't get it off without ruining the box.
Here you can see the movers, the outside of the player boards, and a thick Rapunzel hero card which I think means Rapunzel never leaves the board. Which is thematic.
Here are the locations. Pete needs to beat 4 hidden goals out of 5 (they can be revealed). Mother Gothel needs to earn 10 trust points, which is easier if Rapunzel is in the tower. And Curella needs to start her turn with 99 puppies captured.
Here's the individual tokens for each character, and how their decks come package. A very interesting tidbit: Pete's fate deck will be the first time that Mickey Mouse shows up in this game!
And finally, because they are stunning, here are the deck designs.
Edit: I guess street on this was March 1st. The special piece is the Cruella mover. In the normal edition, it's just molded opaque black/white plastic. The Target version adds contrasting black and white speckles.
We played a 3-player game with just this box on Friday.
Rapunzel indeed never leaves the board; if you defeat her (no small feat when all your standard allies are strength 2 and she's strength 4) she just gets sent back to the tower (leftmost space). She moves one space to the right every turn and if she tries to move off the board you lose a trust point which is basically just a VP. Gothel has cards that give you trust points if she's sharing a space with Rapunzel, or if Rapunzel's in the tower space. Most of her allies are royal guards which are strength 2 but can drag Rapunzel around with them. Her fate cards are things like heroes that prevent you from moving allies, or just straight rob you of trust points.
Pete gets 5 goals (the rectangular pieces with victory conditions on them) and randomly picks 4 of them for his board. He has to clear all four goals to win, which notably doesn't have to be at the start of his turn. He has cards like Play A Game which mills you for 2 cards but you get power equal to their combined cost. IIRC Mickey is a strength 5 fate card and his text is just "You can't complete goals"
Cruella needs to collect 99 puppies, which seems like a lot but they all come in lots of 11 or 22. Her game loop is using cards that move puppy tokens from the face-down supply to her board and other cards that move the tokens from her board to puppy jail. Fate cards can un-capture puppies from puppy jail because they're really "labradors" and that coat is dalmatians or nothing.
It was very back and forth near the end but Pete ended up winning just through sheer force projection.
It is called "Under Dark Waves," and Mother Hydra is very prominent on the cover.
Locations for Innsmouth and Kingsport are included as this will be waterfront type locales.
The scenarios will be going up to roughly 15 cards each to allow more branching game options and choices.
There will be 4 new scenarios, which sound like they'll be playing with the map layout among other things.
8 new investigators, including a brand new one - Stella, the mailcarrier! She looks awesome and I love her theme.
There is a new mechanic, "Terror," that will work kinda like Anomalies, but not really.
Their idea is that the small box expansions are "Content" expansions, adding more stuff to what's already been released, and the big boxes are mechanics expansions. They do have a roadmap for releasing the expansions. They wouldn't commit as to whether or not any more small box expansions are getting released.
And they are very well aware of the component creep in 2nd, and are working to fight that. For instance, each Arkham location is only getting 2 new cards this expansion for their location decks. (Yay two of my questions got answered!)
Images from:
... One of these days I need to actually get off my butt and update the AH thread here.
Edit: Hold up a minute... Is Stella transgender? It wasn't mentioned in the livestream, but reading through the fiction.. hot damn that is awesome if so!
I'm hoping the scenario branches are less "choice, but still set on a fixed path", and more randomized stages like the adventure decks from Eldritch Horror.
Don't ask us about Mrs. Cake.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I'm pretty tempted but I feel like I've backed a lot recently
I automatically substituted "glom of nit" while reading that.
https://github.com/NPBruce/valkyrie/wiki
Fan project lifts all the assets from the Mansions of Madness app and allows users to create their own scenarios. There are dozens of fan scenarios available online, with plenty of reviews picking out the best ones.
I'm going to be checking them out. This is a godsend for someone like me who enjoyed the game but said nuts to paying $15 per new scenario (+ ton of unwanted plastic).
The first campaign box for Marvel Champions is The Rise of Red Skull. Two heroes on the cover: Spider-Woman and Hawkeye. Also has Arnim Zola.
Any word on when they're going to get reprints into stores?
Not that I saw but I know that question is getting asked heavily.
If you don't feel like selling on 3rd party, I'd be happy to buy - just don't want to eat your profits you'd get on amazon or ebay.
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
There's a guy who's building a full campaign, with shops in the centre town post mission to visit for character upgrades and new rumours etc.
I got this for all the advertised co-op modes but it turns out all the co-op modes are just the solo mode divided in half so only for 2 players. My group is 4 players minimum so 75% of the content I paid for will never get used. And why can't Darkness be played in the PVP Campaign? And why doesn't it have a boss for the Boss Mode? This is just some really sloppy, lazy design; I expected much better.