I had someone try to sell me on (Classic) Traveller with “You can die during character creation!!”, and to be fair that did make me play it.
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It was intended to be a universal sf game the way d&d was universal fantasy, and grew a canonical background almost by accident. It’s more mired in its 1950s sf assumptions than people like to admit. (E.g. computers are huge and necessary but not very useful.) But it’s a substrate that works well for a lot of different styles of game.
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Orbitstar: Expedition To Darwin IV update #3 links to a new design diary and also discusses the game’s solo mode – which I hadn’t paid any attention to, having only played it at 4p, but as a semi-coop game it makes sense that it supports solo, and “a 10-scenario campaign that introduces additional win conditions for players looking for a bigger challenge” sounds like a nice way to spice that up.
I haven’t backed it on Kickstarter because Arkus Games is based in Wellington and so they always have a stand at Wellycon where I’d be able to pick it up for zero shipping costs, and I figure they’ll have some stock of the fancier components available and I’d be able to make a judgement call as to whether I like them enough to want to pay extra.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: “Oy!” “Wut?” Just chat (The Return of)
The KS for this isn’t until Spring 27, but the algorithm knows me very well:
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So backed this one off the back of Sol and because I enjoyed the few online games I played with you lovely lot.
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Is it Sol with fighting?
I like Sol a lot, but I don’t love it.
But I’m getting preemptive FOMO already!
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Haven’t played it in a while but it’s a bit of a tactical abstract type game.
This was @mr.ister ‘s rather succinct description:
“In this game every play has an organism which consists of three components: eaters, growers and movers, and each one does what you would suspect it to do! Each turn you choose to eat, grow or move, and activate each of the respective elements. You to this to score points, either by moving up to and successfully contesting other players’ pieces or by holding the middle and scoring points each turn (a la King of Tokyo or Twilight Imperium). There’s an alterate win condition, if you manage split your organism into three separate survivable entities.”
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Yes indeed, if it weren’t in the US I’d probably back this. (And if he weren’t an AI user. Yeah, not in the board game itself but all over the web implementation.)
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Well they reached a stretch goal and might make it to a second, but I’m pretty sure that’s a disappointing outcome for them. I honestly think they dropped the ball on this campaign in a huge way. I spent time looking at the book after I first played the game, and you couldn’t ask for better source material for making a thematic video full of spectacular art and descriptions from the book of the expedition to a literally otherworldly, mysterious, alien planet, which they could have blended with scenes of relevant gameplay from the game. I think something like that would have hooked so many viewers on both the game and the book, and at least inspired them to take the time to look further.
I bounced off the video they actually used, and I’ve played and enjoyed the game.
Are the Garphill Games campaign videos similar to this one in their approach? They’re very successful, and Shem Phillips is involved enough in Arkus that I’d think he would have provided input/advice for this Kickstarter campaign. Not that I’m any kind of marketing expert, but given that doing justice to the book via the gameplay was of huge importance to the designer, I’m really perplexed that they didn’t lean harder into the source material for marketing.
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Backed two Kickstarters today, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitewinggamesnick/baba-is-you-the-board-game
Love both videogames, Baba is You and Party House, so bought them both (not super deluxe, the neoprene doesn’t even fit in the box which would wind me up). Also really pleased to see videogame adaptations which are wholly appropriate and don’t try to fit everything from the videogame into a little box
And https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alleycatgames/chocolate-factory-remastered?ref=discover_saved_projects&category_id=34 because I played it a year ago and really enjoyed it. Not much quite like it out there either.
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On another note, I’ve updated the online tutorial for Latitude. Would massively appreciate any further eyes on it, but I’ve already had loads of great feedback from here so no worries if not
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I was looking at baba is you and it seems like it requires both players to be geniuses. In the “before you play” video it seems like wins come from oversights in not seeing the matrix of the game.
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That made a lot more sense to me and felt like the theme and scoring came through more.
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