I have CoM with all the expansions. It’s fun, but it has so many BITS. Umpteen card piles to shuffle, then all the dice and Valhalla tokens. If everyone is involved in set up it isn’t so bad, but I’ve had a few cases where everyone else STOOD UP AND WALKED OFF FOR A CHAT while I set the game up. That was a drag. Set me off in a bad mood from the start.
I do find myself leaning towards the heavier side of games now. CoM is fun, but not so satisfying? It’s very single minded in its objectives, so there’s not quite that engine building of interlocking mechanics that I enjoy. Don’t think I’ll sell it just yet, but it’s definitely on my “want to play more to see if it has legs or not” pile.
Trickerion isn’t so bad really. The bells and whistles (action selection with ability cards, workers worth points) make it seem a lot more complex than it is, and then the trick system is that wafer thing mint that tips people over. A lot of the systems have been simplified quite a lot to counterbalance that (e.g. materials are never used up). I love it dearly, but finding people to play can be a challenge.
I’m hoping my gamer group can meet more regularly after all this passes. We’ve all had various things on so it’s only a few times a year. I’m surprised how having less regular games changes up everything about what we play. A lot less variety because every session feels too valuable to waste on a gamble. When we met up weekly I didn’t really care what game we played since there’s always next week. Now it’s like a thing in itself deciding what to play! Hoping by playing regularly I can get some of these games out into play.
Back on track though, watching the Rahdo video on how the worker placement works, it does look more interesting. I’m just not sure if it has that special X factor that will hold up against everything else in my collection.
Oh I haven’t heard the final thoughts, just watched the run-through to see what a turn involves. There’s a lot more to it than the campaign page suggests. Rahdo’s opinions are disposable.
@KIR2 That’s another concern I have. I enjoy CoM but it already is a bit to setup, and that’s without expansions. I worry that having even more would just mean it gets set aside.q
As far as Perseverance, I get that argument. I currently only have 3 WP games (CoM, Raiders of he North Sea, and Viticulture EE) with Anachrony on the way. I really enjoy the genre, and feel I have room for another one or two that mix things up, especially because I feel CoM may be close to hitting the trade/donate pile, once we have other options.
I think either way, I’m likely to only go in for $1 for now and think on it for a few months. I did the same for Anachrony.
@VictorViper Yeah, he’s overly positive. I think he can still make some valid points, you just have to really listen, lol.
I’ve heard his month end round-up gives a better idea of how he really feels, based on how he ranks things, but I’ve never watched them.
Haha, good to know I’m not alone in being amazed at how uninformative his given opinion of a game is. His videos have useful information but when he gives a game high praise it’s almost meaningless.
However, I have to admire his enthusiasm, he seems to be doing what he loves. And there’s a market for videos making near-universal positive conclusions, often for those looking wanting their own opinions affirmed. I don’t think that’s a problem - if you’ve got a game and you enjoy it, it feels good to hear someone else praise it. In the end I think it leads to people enjoying their games more, which is fine.
I see Rahdo, MvM, Quakalope, Slickerdips etc as purely PR advertorials. The idea of presenting personal opinion is only there for the pretense of being personable and relatable as a brand. There may be the odd video about their general love of boardgames (well, maybe not MvM…), but by and large they are only there to hype kickstarters. I understand the whole idea of not covering games by mutual agreement if they don’t like the games, but by covering almost every big game they’ve shown their standing. Their inability to speak critically - save for a feeble 'If I had one complaint about this game…" as a backhanded compliment - really instills no trust in the audience.
It’s clear at least some of them (Rahdo and Slickerdips in particular) got into the game because of their love of games, but if they’re not being paid it’s clearly not worth their time.
I don’t really have any interest in videos that are just someone’s review of a boardgame, especially if it’s being linked on a Kickstarter page (where obviously they won’t be selecting people who didn’t like it). I have a much better sense of if I’d like a game watching someone play it (or trying a demo on a virtual tabletop or whatever) than the context-free opinions of someone I don’t especially know and whose tastes are probably very different. I’ve seen enough SU&SD now that I have a sense of Matt and Quinns’ tastes (and used to have a sense of Paul’s), but if they were just one of the boys talking at a camera and occasionally showing the game, I’d probably have bailed long ago. The jokes are what keep me watching.
Boardgame playthrough videos, on the other hand, are real helpful.
I ended up bailing on Riot Quest already. Costs were a bit of a concern but in looking more deeply, I’m not really sure I need to fall down this rabbit hole. I may still end up grabbing a starter box at retail though, it just looks too damned fun.
In other news, Rallyman Dirt just got a rallycross expansion confirmed, and let me add: savvy move, Holy Grail Games; suddenly I don’t need to make a choice anymore, I just need to have both games. You buggers.
Riot Quests campaign is really confusing. What’s up with loot boxes?!? And then with the early bird all in pack you can choose one extra mini? Why aren’t those in the game to begin with? Is that some crossover skin or an entirely new character?
Just list what’s the base pack, the all in pack, and individual add ons. How hard can it be?
That’s a big part of what me realize what I was getting into. Structures like that feel inherently predatory to me and it’s not unique to this game. In their defense, remember this is a “true minis game”, meaning aside from a few dedicated expansions, it’s all about the minis, and you’re usually buying them piecemeal. Almost no one aside from the rich or dedicated will own everything for it.
My issue with that approach is it presumes there’s going to be a large community fostering the game. Saying “there’s no need to own everything” is pointless when you’re not going out there finding other people with different sets to see new and interesting things. The FLGS isn’t going to be hosting Riot Quest tournaments!
The idea that you and a buddy need to both buy a game “because thats what mini games do” is laughable. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! It’s a board game, so use the board game model.
Have you seen the components? This is definitely not in the board game space. Your starter kit comes with minis, tokens expected to be replaced with minis, and a crummy paper map (and cards). Much more akin to the kind of product you’ll find at a Games Workshop.
[EDIT] Still not defending the approach to sales, I find it incredibly scummy and manipulative, and I’m already fed up with long-running predatory sales practices in the video game space.
Yeah this one is more of an anarchic arena brawler, with teams of heroes - the conceit is that you can make up a team and just get playing with buddies on a budget, but the options are there to go nuts with extras. Of course that comes back to the whole point: do you have anyone else going in on it? For me, the answer is a definite no.
The one aspect I do listen to as far as Rahdo’s opinion, is when home discusses player count. He seems to be fairly genuine when he talks about a game working or not working at 2, which is important to me as someone who games at 2 99% of the time.
Beyond that, if he seems truly excited, it’s enough for me to look deeper and at other discussions happening. I don’t think I’ve backed/purchased a game based on his feedback alone, unless I was already a mouse click away and just needed that small confirmation…though at that point I’ve usually decided if I’m honest.
I knew there was something along these lines in the queue, but this is more than I expected. In particular the Auto Tour format looks like an interesting setup for a themed game day.
(Usual disclaimer: I do some work for HGG, so I’m not paying full price for this. Though I did for GT.)
The problem there is that he always seems excited. Like, holy shit cut the caffeine excited. I find him useful for his runthroughs but every second I have that guy on my screen is another new clump of grey hairs for me as I constantly await the mid-video heart attack.
