Given the dimensions, I’d imagined it as a standard TTR box.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It’s actually about 50% larger than that in both directions, making it easily the biggest game I own, even discounting the fact that it’s made of wood.
Here you can see, it’s about 1.3 cm (admittedly it’s footprint is quite small, and it repeats everything in English, Italian, French and German). But there is an additional pamphlet thing for the lore. So yeah.
I don’t expect to ever play this and never did, it’s pretty much purely as a display piece, documenting two golden ages: that of Airships, and that of Kickstarters
When I first saw this I was intrigued: cute characters and art and hex fields and spells and custom dice. But then I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled… through Kickstarter exclusives and those aren‘t just deluxe components but a lot of extras that every other campaign would have as stretch goal (and even that I dislike these days). It feels like if you just back the base game and not the Kickstarter Exclusive version you are getting half a game. So next I looked up pricing:
VAT not included
Shipping meh
30€ for the incomplete basic game
50€ for some additional cards and hexes and…
it goes up to 250€ for the super collectible Collectors‘ Superedition (isn‘t it ridiculous to offer a collector‘s edition for an unknown game?) with collectible Collectibles?
I looked up what else they did: Here to Slay. Which I have seen everywhere and mentioned nowhere. So widely available and yet I have not heard anyone who played it?!
How does this game get 20k backers? Is it really on the presentation alone or did they all check out the rules and go „this is going to be soooo awesome“. I admit I have not checked out the rules.
This is the kind of thing I want to back so badly because it ticks a lot of boxes but the parade of red flags on the KS… … so I backed and unbacked it 30 minutes later. Anyone else confused like me?
The first rules thing I see is “at the start of your turn, you roll dice to get resources”. And I think about Alien Frontiers, where you similarly can’t make any plans for how you’ll take your turn until your turn actually starts, and how much that drags if a player is at all AP-prone.
I’ve played Unstable Unicorns and it’s all right as a play-once amusement. I don’t intend ever to play it again.
Kickstarter-exclusive gameplay content is a bit of a black mark for me as well.
I mean, points back on for having an axolotl, but that only gets you so far.
And with all these extras you still only get 5 dice even in the super-duper vinyl figures edition? So you have to pass them round the table?
The only people who get photos rather than cartoon representations are two white dudes. (Granted, if I designed a game it would also have a photo of a white dude.)
Lots of emphasis on all the stuff you get, very little on the gameplay.
No indication in the rules that they’ve done anything about the “A and B fight, C wins” problem. (Mind you not every game can be War of the Nine Realms.)
Very little that’s positive for me here. It smells of having had a Kickstarter-advertising person in charge.
Thanks this is really helpful in preventing any further „attempts“ on my part.
Since I am really trying to have as few games as possible that I simple own to own them, this would make for a frustrating experience I am sure.
→ Rolling for resources with a single set of dice, that‘s a two big gripes. I mean we got miffed with the 2 dice for Space Base and those are regular D6 and there are extra dice in the Command Station…
The shipping think has really turned me off kickstarters. Whatever price they show feels as much in shipping and tax which makes me think what is the real benefit of this act? I’m not sure really anymore.
There are kickstarters that have reasonable shipping rates but yeah a lot of them have rates that feel inflated even beyond the shipping issues that came with the pandemic and are likely here to stay.
By the time I am done calculating VAT and shipping and VAT for shipping, the prices that are listed on the pledge levels feel like a lie…
Recently, I backed a game via crowdfinder for the first time. I will find out next year how that works out. I still have to pay some shipping but I assume that they use their normal rates for that.
An olgs located in Belgium that probably—from the name —started out organizing group pledges and this they still do.
Besides that, they have a good selection of games, offer KS versions and have great service. Their webpage is pretty clean. The prices are usually ok. Overall can recommend if you live somewhere around Belgium.
Not so much crowdfunding as crowd sourcing…
Did you notice there is no meeple emoji yet? Here is a Twitter thread by Greg Pool @HaoleBoyGames
He is looking for help to get a meeple emoji in the next round of the Unicode consortium additions. A simple thing you can do is search using the word meeple.
What if? Right. Hear me out. Instead of us individually shipping games from China. Instead, right, a third party shipped them in bulk. But, hush now, it cost them significantly less per unit. 'Cos bulk, right? And we, listen, paid them slightly more than that. But! It was still less than the cost of us shipping it individually. That way, right, everybody wins, right? Right?
(Kickstarter backers have unlocked: Economies of Scale)
As a post-script, I’m not knocking kickstarter backers, but it seems increasingly like a terrible way to buy games. It’s been a good three years since I looked at a project and thought, that is a better deal than just waiting for retail (and even then, you didn’t take on the same risk).
The thing is kickstarter games do this. At least in the UK I’m getting two kickstarters that are being delivered in bulk to spiral galaxy who are then sending them out locally. This feels much like what a shop does. If anything it should be cheaper because instead of Publisher—> distributer—> sup it’s jus Publisher—>Distributer
I think I’ve said it before on this thread, but if I’m paying into a KS then:
I’m helping you get your game made
I’m doing it before any reviews of the definite final product exist
You will then go to retail and sell more
It could be a year or more before I receive the game
There’s a risk I won’t get the KS rewards at all
Now yes, I could pick the game up at retail for 0 transport costs or I can buy it from halfway around the world and pay a huge postage fee, and that’s not in the control of the developer. But since that’s the case, the KS reward levels must not be the same as the eventual retail price or anything close to them.
I get that profit margins are razor thin on games, but for all the reasons above the KS price needs to be absolutely as low as possible. At cost, if possible.
If the maths I’m doing is
“retail price minus a tiny bit but + £50 postage”,
or
“full retail price + £0 postage after everyone’s had a chance to play it and tell me if it’s actually good”
then I’m going to pick option 2 a LOT of the time.
KS prices need to plummet. They need to be a “get the game made” step before you go to retail, that you don’t make much profit on.
And if the production costs ARE nearly the retail cost because that’s the industry, then there needs to be a reason why backers would take all the disadvantages of crowdfunding rather than wait for retail at nearly / the same price.
(KS-only is a good reason, and I am waiting for Nemo’s War Big Box, but generally I’ve stopped with crowdfunded boardgames completely. I do sympathise with creators that it’s a viable way to get games made and production costs are sky high).
I actually get cheaper shipping even paying for what is typically the second most expensive tier Kickstarter shipping than via retail, a lot of the time.
Not that I use Kickstarter much, but the reason I have done so in the past is because it is often cheaper for me.
Yes, when you leave far away from the main hubs of North America and Europe, KS/Gamefound can be actually not that overprized on the shipping as one would think.
I think with crowdfunded games one has to be very careful with what is the value/price ratio. Most plastic bonanza KS games can be a good deal through KS if that is what you are into, but for the majority of games that are going to make it to retail, like everything, patience can be the better ally here.
There are games that are cheaper this way (Everdell big box comes to mind, or look at what has happened with Frosthaven) but they are the exception rather than the rule.
“Get the game first” doesn’t seem to be a good lure any more - even when nobody messes up, usually the thing’s hitting retail pretty soon after the KS deliveries. (And I don’t generally get so wildly enthused about a game that I must have it in April rather than May.)
The opportunity cost of a wait matters too: if I pay my £50 now, I don’t have it immediately available to spend on something else between now and a year’s time.
I mean, you say you can just wait for retail. I haven’t been able to find anything for Lords of Hellas at retail. Managed to find a base box + stretch goals on Facebook Marketplace for an okay price but if I’d backed the KS I would have done better and I’d have more of the expansions. Nemesis? Apparently it’s been at retail but I’ve never seen it available and I got my reprint through the Lockdown KS instead. Tainted Grail? Nope. Etherfields? Nope. The Edge: Dawnfall? In the sense that I paid a literally 100% markup for a KS pledge the Game Steward made on that KS, yes, but obviously I’d have been better off pledging myself. Okay, that’s Awaken Realms, they’re not really primary distribution fodder. but they also make some of my favorite games. How about 7th Continent, which supposedly did a post-KS retail version? Not listed. The Bullet expansions, which skipped the crowdfunding process entirely? Not listed. Folklore? A bit cheaper than the KS I suppose but half the things they actually sell for it aren’t in stock at Miniaturemarket and CSI doesn’t have any of it in stock. Champions of Hara? Not in stock or in some cases even listed. Valeria: Card Kingdoms Darksworn? Not in stock at CSI. MM has it but not about half of the rest of V:CK. I did recently pick up KS game Atlantis Rising at CSI and spent probably an hour trying to find things they actually had in stock to go with it to fill out a $100 order. Some of this will turn up eventually, but it’s like playing whack a mole. Frankly, I’m more than happy to pay a slight premium to get it without having to worry about it, even if I didn’t also usually get bonuses for doing so.
(PS: Except for the Bullet expansions, these are all things I either crowdfunded (most of them) or did find at some point at retail, so you don’t need to track them down for me. I’m just making a point about how much better an idea just crowdfunding them was for me or would have been, if I didn’t. I really hope those Bullet expansions turn up at some point because I want them but the preorders on L99’s site were a terrible deal.)
