…no.
There’s no order 
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Same. Mine are entirely organised based on fitting them on the shelves. A few “series” are grouped together (like SH:CD) but that’s more because they have the same sized boxes.
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All the bits of a game go together, but otherwise it’s whatever fits. I shifted a whole bunch of RPG books that I don’t use any more into the attic recently but the games shelves are still nothing like presentable.
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Just heard about this on SVWAG. Closes tomorrow.
(Disclaimer: I demo for Indie at Essen, though not this year.)
Looks interesting…
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I do love this one. I think I sold it on because I end up explaining every single card every time we play it because it’s either people forgot or there’s newbies on the table.
Great 1vsALL. I feel evil when I play as the creature. I feel helpless when I play with the team.
EDIT: Not sure if this is a flaw. But something I notice in the game. There are 10 locations. 5 of them are not accessible at the start. You can only access one of them for the rest of the game (by you only) if you go to the Rover. Which is one of the starting cards. You gain access to the others by repeatedly going to the Rover.
The Rover is the game’s bottleneck and determines how the game will go. If the team failed to accumulate enough no. 6 to no. 10 cards, then they’ll likely lose.
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Not Alone is one of those games I really wanted to like, but never quite hit the mark in practice. I don’t know whether to sell on or buy into the expansions to see if they push it over the edge into something great.
I probably wouldn’t be so forgiving with a full size game, but it’s such a dinky box it doesn’t get in the way.
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Up to a point. But if the Creature always squats on the Rover, the team can spam the Beach and the Creature will lose; I’ve seen this happen.
I certainly wouldn’t call myself an expert player, but I think the Creature needs more than anything else to be unpredictable.
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True. Players can also use the lair to copy the Rover’s power if the creature squats there.
I’ve not played in person, but my son and I played Not Alone 2 player on BGA during lock down. I’m not sure I’d enjoy it as a 1vMany, but as a 2 player kinda sorta hidden movement? It was decent fun.
I’ve considered picking it up, but I’m just not sure. Will have to see how my boy feels. I will say that I do t see the value in the KS, especially with shipping to Canada.
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I love Not Alone for reasons outlined above (specifically, I play a lot more games than almost any of my friends, so when I win nobody is upset or surprised and when I lose people get a real sense of accomplishment… even if I kinda suck at the game. ^_^)
I have really throttled down on Kickstarters as of 2019 and into 2020. Some of that is money related, but mostly it’s a realization that 99.8% of all the games I want to get on Kickstarter eventually come out in retail, and sometimes even earlier than KS backers get 'em. And since I work at a game store to pay for my writing, I am now a firm supporter of Vassel’s Law (“If it is good, it will get a retail (re)release. If it is not good, it will not”).
That stated, I have 6 KS I am waiting for:
Merchants of the Dark Road
War of Whispers
Frosthaven
Oathsworn
Infinity Defiance
NewSpeak
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I’m getting quite excited for this. The inclusion of mazes is… odd, but I have a good feeling combat will be something special.
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I am a bad KS-receiver… after I confirm my address and make sure the payment has gone through, I ignore absolutely everything until it shows up. Basically, I throw money into a void and at a later, totally unrelated date, free stuff shows up at my home as a very pleasant surprise!
Oathsworn looks neat. The models are gorgeous, the story-snippets seem interesting, and the bits and pieces I read before backing all seemed promising, but since clicking the button I have learned nothing new.
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I can see where working at a retailer would really tilt the balance on that. For me I don’t really care if it comes out in retail, it’s much easier to just drop some bucks at Kickstarter time and have free goodies eventually turn up at my doorstep than it is to keep track of when/whether it’s hit retail, realize this during the window in which stock actually exists, find someone who’ll ship to me without charging six infants and my left kidney, make sure to corral all the various sold-separately bits together, etc. I’ve picked up a few things at retail that I missed or decided to skip when Kickstarted, for sure, but, for example, if I’d backed Sword & Sorcery’s first campaign on Kickstarter, I’d have a few Kickstarter exclusives, I wouldn’t have had to figure out their baffling like four stage retail delivery and keep track of it, and I wouldn’t have had to buy like 8-10 add-on characters separately at $15 a pop. I’m glad I caught the second one.
Why I’m trying to cut back on Kickstarters isn’t that I don’t still prefer it as a vehicle for getting games, but simply that I will absolutely need to both expand my boardgame storage and get rid of some of my games just to accomodate what I’ve already pledged for. And of course, COVID isn’t exactly helping get those games played, or getting that storage, or emptying what I’ve got. (I’m playing at least as many boardgames, and sometimes more, thanks to Tabletop Simulator and the occasional solo game, but many of my Kickstarted games don’t have modules and we’re playing other stuff, like King’s Dilemma and Imperial Assault.)
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Same here. I’m not as convinced by the retail release thing, because often I like a game that the market doesn’t (at least the UK market) and it never makes it over here in quantity.
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Yeah, the UK market doesn’t always match up so well, especially when it comes to publishers selling promos and smaller expansions in retail after the KS. With so many US based publishers (plus the BGG store), the shipping is a big hassle for the simplest things in retail. That often tips me into backing. If it’s questionable whether I’ll be able to find it after, I’d rather have the certainty.
If I don’t care enough, I’ll take the risk on waiting for retail, but then I start to question whether I care enough to buy the game at all. Usually if I wait it’s because it’ll likely come to retail and be much cheaper (if I don’t care about the KSEs).
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To be fair, I’m also a completist - for example I have everything for D-Day Dice 2nd edition. I’m aware of this tendency in myself; so if the retail game is ¤40 and the full KS game is ¤100, I’ll probably think “the game isn’t worth ¤100” and not buy it at all, because I wouldn’t be happy with just the retail edition.
(¤ = the generic currency symbol)
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and it’s even worse in the German language markets. Many games don’t get translated and many shops don’t carry foreign language games.
I’ve got a couple of webshops that carry English games and seem to be doing retailer pledges for selected Kickstarters… but I have no control over what they pledge and so I keep scouting Kickstarter for interesting games that will most likely never be available in Germany outside of the Kickstarter or sometimes SPIEL.
In a way I am lucky that I went on my large KS spree this year because there is not going to be much 2020-SPIEL-shopping. (I haven’t checked out their digital event offering yet). But I’ve noticed a tendency that I am starting to back either 2nd editions, or expansions (and then buy the base game with the expansion) or ordering established games through another KS instead of going for “shiny new no one has played this before” games.
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Yes, the majority of my recent KS pledges are games I’ve played or at least played an earlier version of. (I wouldn’t have pledged War of Whispers without that excellent TTS mod and games with people here.) The only real exception is Gladius which was fairly cheap and looked like fun.
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If I don’t know the creative team/company I most commonly wait for an expansion/reprint/second edition, yeah. Though these days it seems pretty common for them to link to Youtube playthrough videos, which I find do a lot to tell me if I’d like the game or not. If not whether the company will actually be able to handle logistics, budgeting, etc.
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Alex Hague and Wolfgang Warsch are back! It’s basically Fuzzy Jenga, but you can get Wavelength and Monikers if you missed it.
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