What are your weak spots?

Boardgames
21

This is where I feel like SU&SD’s criticism of the price of these giant expensive Kickstarters falls down for me. Maybe I could buy 10 games for the price of, I dunno, Planet Apocalypse or Tainted Grail or Nemesis all-in. But I’d rather have one game that’s nice and that I enjoy playing (and, ideally, can be expanded while condensing those components into existing storage), because I have limited space and…okay, some of these games take up a lot of space, but less than ten cheaper games, probably!

(I’m probably also more likely to enjoy those big expensive games, frankly, because my tastes run towards lengthy, complex and cooperative games and that just doesn’t seem to be the main appeal for the SU&SD staff.)

4 Likes
22

Art and theme are two obvious weak spots for me. Quite often the theme doesn’t even need to be important if it’s enough to make something seem more interesting. Welcome To is such a nice piece of paper to look at which drew me in initially, while I opted for Barenpark over Patchwork purely because it had bears instead of a quilt. I was sold on Imperial Settlers over 51st State due to art AND theme.

I think another weakpoint is when novelty meets functionality. By that I mean when a designer might do something slightly different, but it actually works. Chronicles of Crime’s QR codes and Taverns of Tiefenthal’s jigsaw-like player board spring instantly to mind.

As I play mostly with my girlfriend, I also have a weakspot for two-player only games. So I opt for 7 Wonders Duel over 7 Wonders and Agricola ACBAS over the other versions. Targi over any other off-puttingly beige looking game.

2 Likes
23

Yeah, the biggest issue I have with SUSD is they’re very geared towards the life of reviewers. As much as they try to cater of newcomers to the hobby, I can’t help but think their views are still driven by the flow of new games constantly passing by. Sometimes they sound downright exasperated with the number of games they have to play, which is totally understandable.

I think the sort of games I would like/keep would be totally different if I knew I’d be playing a bunch of other quite similar games in the future. Why bother owning a solid but fairly generic worker placement game, when you know you’ll also have to play a bunch of similar if not quite as good games in the coming years? And I’d probably appreciate the respite from playing lighter games amidst trying to hold all these rulesets in my brain!

(I can say this now I’m not on the official website :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: . Felt a bit rude to say in their own internet home)

2 Likes
24

Agree. But I think the reasoning is based on the assumption that the viewer is new to board games and want to try new stuff. Emphasis on “I think”.

Alas, we are all old seasoned veterans now.

2 Likes
25

I’ve found modern game designs are, in general, too convoluted. Anybody that came up to me and said, “I just learned about these awesome new boardgames! Can you teach me how to play <Kickstarter game du jour>!?!?!?!?!?”, I would reply, “Sure, but how about I show you <older game that uses a fraction of the mechanisms in order to teach worker-placement/drafting/deck-building/etc> first?”

All of that said, I think SUSD has given a fair amount of attention to older games (maybe just not recently).

3 Likes
26

My main weak spots are either Splotter or a prefix of an 18 currently.

2 Likes
27

Drat, that appears to be true for me as well.

2 Likes
28

Looks over at all his space games. Nope, not a weakness for me at all. Haha.

4 Likes
29

Here’s something that isn’t always true, but happens enough to irk me: why is Sci-fi more commonly approached from a strategy and tactics angle (or alternatively a grand, economic/negotiation angle, or all of the above), while Fantasy is usually focused on Character development (and associated talents/feats) and narrative?

A recent example for me is between Galaxy Defenders and Sword & Sorcery. These are two games that share the same basic ruleset and engine to drive it, yet stand so far apart you could justify owning both. And of course that means each offers something the other does not.

Galaxy Defenders leans heavily on the maneuvering game, with tight, hex based positioning (putting greater emphasis on things like line of sight and range), weapon and armour upgrades, and an enemy that really exploits poor positioning. It contains a campaign, but the narrative elements are basically just there to link scenarios and lend conceit to why you started this round with a bazooka. It is satisfying in a way that’s similar to a good crunchy tactical wargame.

Sword & Sorcery, meanwhile, expands the formula to include adventuring, branching paths, traps, a comprehensive levelling system including stat boosts, weapon and item upgrades and improvements, random loot, side quests, variable enemies with complimentary attack patterns, several special boss events… the list of improvements and indulgences is comprehensive and often bewildering. But it all comes at a massive cost: the game board is reduced to large areas with little “X’s” to mark basic line of sight, removing a significant and enjoyable (and frankly game defining) element of Galaxy Defenders in the process. Positioning still counts, but it’s diminished to little more than your typical front row/back row JRPG for practical purposes.

Sword & Sorcery is unequivocally the better game in my opinion (it’s why I’ve got it now, and not Galaxy Defenders), but that’s not really the point. The differences between the two really exemplify what I see as a pretty common pigeonhole for each of the genres.

TL;DR, I find myself far more attracted to Sci-Fi on basic “coat of paint” appeal, yet still get roped into otherwise far less thematically appealing Fantasy titles for their gameplay loops.

5 Likes
30

I think it is a matter of technology. On a sci-fi (or even modern days) war game, there will be a predominance of ranged weapons, and it is more believable that communication will make a big set up or a space battle more likely to be organised and arranged strategically. On Fantasy we always will have the dungeon crawl group or band, where there is a lot more tendency towards hand on hand combat; even though there are ranged weapons, they still aren’t so easy to use as in a later period (medieval like fantasy, I mean) so only well trained (archers or magicians-sort) or heavily and slow devices (crossbows) tend to be able to use them.
So in that aspect, they might be sort of realistic…

1 Like
31

I think that can work both ways. In an SF game with tech at least something like the present day I can be thrown out of my suspension of disbelief if something works really weirdly; on the other hand, because I have real-world knowledge to anchor on, I enjoy it more if it does feel more or less right.

(The higher the tech, the more it becomes magical, and the more it feels like magic - I can’t tell you your dimensional portal to the heart of the sun shouldn’t work like that, but similarly I’m less engaged…)

2 Likes
32

I described 504 as “Patrick bait.” I knew it would be flawed, but I could not not get it. I loves me modularity.

I am weak to new editions/reprints of games that I had wanted and failed to get the first time around.

I am also weak to expansions and promos. I do have a completist streak.

Sometimes these combine, such as the Kickstarter for Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black. I didn’t own the base game (dodged the initial bullet), but couldn’t resist the new expansion.

For RPGs, I can avoid anything that’s over $20. For everything else, it has to grab me, intrigue me, or just match something I’ve been pondering recently. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.

3 Likes
33

For me relatability is a big thing. If a guy comes along saying “hey, I’m making games in my garage! Help me have fun!” Then I’ll back it; if it’s just some big company, I know they’ll be fine without me, and I’ll pick it up super cheap second hand.

As far as the actual game goes, I always want anything involving exploring/conquering space, or anime! :heart_eyes:

And anything listing off mechanisms is going to put me off, especially "tableau building’ :nauseated_face:

Also I love nice things, even if it’s worthless as a game, just to decorate with. Hence most of my KS purchases are just dice and cards.

3 Likes
34

I identified so hard with every single thing you said in those first two paragraphs, and I think I just discovered 2 other weak spots.

2 Likes
35

As somebody who prefers writing for Steve Jackson Games to self-publishing, I hope not too many people think as you do; it would diminish my royalties, which are my reward for doing the best work I can.

36

I currently have Sleeping Gods, Roam, Empires of the Void 2 and The Ancient World 2nd ed. ordered to be delivered at various times.

I think there may be something there…

2 Likes
37

My weak spot is area control or area majority/influence as BGG now calls it… I am not even necessarily good at it but give me some form of this (favorite examples from my collection include Inis, Root, Terra Mystica & Gaia Project, Spirit Island, Dune and at least 6 of my yet-to-arrive kickstarters also fall into this category) and I will want this game; for bonus cravings combine with unique player powers and/or a hand of beautiful cards and I will hand over the money without hesitation. There are very few of these that I played and didn’t like (but there are)

Sadly, my partner does not enjoy this as much as I do, so it takes a lot of convincing to get these games to the table–even the few coop variants that exist are a hard sell (Spirit Island & Root coop are the only ones I know) and the rest of my local gaming circle aren’t fans either…

But that’s not enough to keep me from backing/buying games that promise to allow me to spread out over a map with my markers, meeples or minis.

5 Likes
38

Have you tried El Grande?

2 Likes
39

I have. It’s been a few years though–like 15 or so… I believe I enjoyed it but had no idea what I was doing or so. I recently tried to convince the friends who own El Grande to play on TTS but failed to deter them from trying El Dorado instead :wink:

2 Likes
40

Nature theme
Pulp anything
Shiny gems that you can hold
Legacy elements
Anything at all related to the book Dune

Absolutely terrible Vampire the Masquerade cash-in games that nobody believes will be any good but I immediately click Buy anyway even on the most expensive kickstarters for the chance that they could recapture even 1% of Vamp 2nd ed.

2 Likes