2024-09-23T16:02:12Z
2 Likes
Looks at the components (cardboard, plastic, small wooden meeples)
Looks at the price: ÂŁ125.
I’m sorry, but that’s absolutely ridiculous. And it was a Kickstarter, so it got money up front. Ridiculous.
This review feels all over the shop to me.
It seemed like the opening criticism is “euros are done” and then they play a game where one player trounces them because she spotted a gap in the market that everyone playing boring euro autopilot missed. Then he says that it’s a game that gives back what you put in and it’s still some how duff? It’s one thing to criticise plastic inserts etc but surely that is acceptable in a game that gives you more the more you play? That is better than a fully cardboard one and done I think. If a game is meant to last over plays then I think nice stuff is acceptable (even if it’s plastic)
And then there’s a dog?!
I might be wrong of course.
1 Like
I agree that the review sounds confused.
The game sounds kind of interesting, in a way that Euros aren’t, but it also sounds like it all hinges on how well the game breaks up the obvious collaboration play, as he frequently stated it tries(?) to do. For example, can it ever work 3-player, or is the game guaranteed to become effectively 2-player and a frustrated observer? That seems like the kind of question they should have addressed, but maybe they just failed to get to the point where they could be confident of an answer.
2 Likes
Yeah there’s a comment in the YouTube video by the person who they referenced who said the third person was done in. What id have liked to know about is is this inherently broken or what the game plays like with this weirdness in mind.
The reviewer criticises Gallerist because brown is better than other things and his response from Lacerda is “play with this in mind”. Which suggests that wonkiness might be something you’re supposed to navigate as part of this game by both guarding against it (if possible) or actively exploiting it. But none of that is explored I think in that much depth.
1 Like
A rare youtube video review that I’ve watched now as the title was interesting. I agree with everyone else here about it all being a bit confused. My overriding impression is of a it being some sort of hybrid between a euro and a cube rails. This thing of navigating having to cycle money through other players feels like the temporary alliances you get in games like Chicago Express or Prussian/German Rails. You should be in for the ride with all the other players but looking for the timing to mess with that interaction to gain advantage for yourself compared to that player. I feel torn between finding the euro bonus engines intriguing as a complication in that calculation and wondering if it’s just faff that’d add admin to the central conceit. I will never find out as the size of the box was off putting even before the price reveal and there’s no way I’d buy it. Titan is an excellent game and @lalunaverde sold it on and I declined purchase as the box is huge. My guess is that game is better than this one but similarly an odd euro duck.
I think they’ve reviewed several cube rails, they did an 18xx overview video so it seems odd to me that they’re being wobbly around a shared incentives/temporary alliances game. Also I don’t care that they have a new dog. This really annoyed me as a waste of time at the end of the video.
1 Like
That’s what I was gonna say lmao
But from my impression, he only wanted to try different 18xx titles for their gimmick. So he’s your standard hobby board gamer: just puddle, no depth. To be fair, NPI isn’t alone in this regard.
1 Like
I mean, he does like Feast For Odin and Brass Birmingham and Carnegie (all of which are in the intro there) so I don’t think he’s entirely on one end of things.
And what I took from the review is the mix of Elaine’s experience in the game and the BGG reviewer: every cost / reward is tiny except for being paid by other players.
So there’s no long-term building, no strategy, it’s a negotiation game that doesn’t work at 3 (and might not work at 2, given that you’ve no incentive to help your only opponent). Wildly unbalanced negotiation games are not typically £125 eurogames.
2 Likes
Only Brass Birmingham I would be considered a “shared incentives” game.
I guess I would have to badger someone to play Pampero to see what it is about.
Calibration: I generally like Efka and Elaine’s work, though none of his top ten games are ones I even slightly like.
I think the review is pointing i different directions because that’s an accurate reflection of Efka’s feelings about the game—which is more useful to me than “I love/hate this”. If the “real game” is the negotiation, maybe the rules should say that?
The video seems a bit all over the place.
I was never going to be interested in Pampero. Or rather I was interested until I saw the table hogging prototype at SPIEL 2 years ago.
As an aside: I have also fallen out of love with gametrays. Initially I thought it was cool to get a really thought-through insert for a big game. Now it feels like gametrays just make games and their boxes and their prizes bigger than they might have been. It’s not even neessarily about the more plastic argument but about how unwieldy games can become and how I find myself disagreeing with the design choices of those inserts… I am now on my “it’s almost a red flag if the game offers gametrays for everything” phase.
Ah well, not every year can be 2016. A week out from SPIEL, this year’s selection seems to be a little on the weak side to me. It seems like that is also on Efka’s mind? Even though the new Feld does sound more exciting than some other years, while the new Suchy sounds pretty rote and boring, the new Rosenberg is a remake and the big Knizia well it’s a Knizia: we won’t really know until lots of people have experienced that and all those other games.
2 Likes
I think gametrays offer a promise that never really pans out. They have this kind of bubbly nature which makes me want to dump the pieces out so I can reclaim table space.
My great hope for this year is the Donald X game but literally no one is talking about it when though it’s out this year, probably after Essen which is a bit worrying?
That civolution does look like it has some cool parts to it.
1 Like
The only GameTrayz™ I have are in Project L, which has so much bonus Kickstarter material that it has a special box twice the size of the retail one. Do they work? Sure. Would plastic bags work very nearly as well? Absolutey.
2 Likes
The only gametrays I’m totally a fan of are the ones in Parks. Very helpful during play, but also minimise packing space in the box to the extent that it’s kinda impressive.
But Parks was 5 years ago, and the trend hasn’t got better since then.
1 Like
I agree Parks is pretty nice and well done.
But I’m always thinking of Dwellings of Eldervale and Voidfall for two examples that just cause bloat…
2 Likes