Recently at the local game group we have had an influx of new blood. We have pointed all those people to TableTop and they've come back hungry for more the next week.
I'd say they are doing a good job of luring and keeping the interest of new people.
I was able to play test my game a bit last weekend, and it went well. I hand an epiphany while dropping a friend off at home after the testing. I figured out a mechanic, which as far as I can tell, hasn't been fully utilized in a Deck Building Game. I am very excited to try it out!
The Emperor's New Clothes - This is quite possibly the worst gaming Kickstarter I have ever seen. The shitty part is, I'm only going to speak my mind about it here because the guy running it is one of my editors at Wired. Not worth publicly trashing it (plenty of others are doing it for me).
It's meant to be a joke, but it's not a very good one. The project is a play on The Emperor's New Clothes. You get a board game called The Emperor's New Clothes, but the rules are all blank white pages, and all of the cubes, cards, and other bits are all just plain white pieces. The Kickstarter has a whopping 10 minutes of video that all plays along with the "joke" but never actually tells you what you for sure what you are really getting. If I didn't personally know the guy and want to figure out what the fuck he was selling, I would have closed the page after 30 seconds.
I was left scratching my head wondering if there was an actual game in here or not. So I talked to him last night. There is no actual game. For the price of $25 to $500 (!), you do indeed get a bunch of white board game pieces with a gag box. That's all.
The project is meant to be an interactive story (?) that he is trying to tell, and will update once per day to show more. Some people have pointed out that the project ends on April Fool's Day, but he's already firmly stated that the project is real and will not be cancelled.
He already has $2,500 out of the $5,000 he is seeking. What the hell is wrong with people.
Anyone want to make a trade? I have Settlers across America and looking for the Map and Destination cards for Ticket to Ride USA. Box would be nice as well but not required.
You do know that Days of Wonder just started selling replacement cards for TtR, right? Dunno what their price is but I can't imagine it's equivalent to cost of another game (unless you really don't like that game).
But the quality of the art and the game design is amazing! I've never seen such a fulfilling game before. And it's so intuitive and entirely skill based, completely scalable, and plays in any amount of time. And it's so easy to clean up and then continue the game from where you left off before!
I really hope you guys wouldn't buy this for game parts and write/draw/paint on any of it. Tell your friend to ship a copy with you to PAX freeplay and I'll show you how to play it like a boss.
I've got the germ of an idea for a board game eating away at my brain this week. Maybe I'll even stay focused enough to prototype it this time. I've been trawling boardgamegeek trying to find out it's already been done, but so far, so good.
Content-free post FTW?
It's sort of Mystery Mansion, in space, with airlocks, and fire, and a card deck, and hookers.
I'm just shit talking here, but I want to combine Eclipse and Master of Orion race building in the style of Risk Legacy.
A 4X board game with Risk: Legacy persistence would actually be pretty great. Here's how it could work.
Have some MOOII-like game mechanics streamlined like Eclipse. Everyone starts with one planet, and 4Xes as best they can. However, there are Antarans or space monsters who sweep in. Maybe they kill everyone, or maybe the players evacuate. Whoever scores the most points before the end is the winner. When you play again, the previously destroyed civilizations leave behind their spoils on the planets they once inhabited sort of like how in Amun-Re phase 2 the pyramids are left behind. Also, if you use the run away/recolonize storyline you can have the races be persistent from game to game as well.
Very easy backdrop for that setting: Mass Effect. That's pretty much what the Reapers did.
That is a license I do not think has been applied to a board game that would definitely make it sell.
Another thought. The planets that were very well developed have a lot of stuff on them, but probably don't have many natural resources left. Or maybe they have different kinds of natural resources based on how the previous inhabitants treated the planet.
I'm just shit talking here, but I want to combine Eclipse and Master of Orion race building in the style of Risk Legacy.
The systems in Endless Space would work alright for that. For example, the Card-based combat system is practically tailor-made to be ported into a board game.
I saw someone else complaining about the Emperors New Clothes. I hope this is incredibly obvious, but here is how you actually play the game:
Someone just bought the newest hottest "board game" that's better than all the rest. The problem is, only a really true gamer can actually differentiate the pieces, the rules, or the board. You are apparently not one of these gamers. So you play the game out, not knowing any of the rules or anything, and attempting to bluff as if you do. Nobody ever admits to not being able to tell what's actually going on, and everyone always complements and hams up the game and how fantastic it is.
It's essentially a roleplaying exercise framed around a board game.
Now if you hate it in spite of that, alright. I don't exactly want to pay money for this. I'm just not offended, annoyed, or disturbed by this. I even know how to have fun with it if people wanted to play it. It's a meta joke in a couple different ways. It's a joke about kickstarter, board games, gamers, role-playing, improv, etc.
As someone that's a role-playing gamer first, it's pretty easy to see how I could have fiasco-like fun with the idea. We are cooperative story-telling a game. The best game ever, with the most incredible perfect system of rules we've ever seen. It's flawless, amazing, and we can all obviously see it because we are good enough to... right?
He's trolling everyone on Kickstarter that is giving him money. At the end of The Emperor's New Clothes (the story), all of the emperor's entourage that swore his clothes were awesome, and egged him on, were made to look like fools. Now, this Kickstarter appears, and all of the people throwing money at it and playing up the joke are going to look like idiots in the end.
Oh he's definitely sending all of the blank pieces. Although people keep saying you've got to be an idiot not to realize what you're pledging for, I've seen numerous people make an assumption that it's all a joke now, but he'll reveal some actual game at the end of the campaign, and they'll get the game. That is not going to happen.
Comments
I'd say they are doing a good job of luring and keeping the interest of new people.
It's meant to be a joke, but it's not a very good one. The project is a play on The Emperor's New Clothes. You get a board game called The Emperor's New Clothes, but the rules are all blank white pages, and all of the cubes, cards, and other bits are all just plain white pieces. The Kickstarter has a whopping 10 minutes of video that all plays along with the "joke" but never actually tells you what you for sure what you are really getting. If I didn't personally know the guy and want to figure out what the fuck he was selling, I would have closed the page after 30 seconds.
I was left scratching my head wondering if there was an actual game in here or not. So I talked to him last night. There is no actual game. For the price of $25 to $500 (!), you do indeed get a bunch of white board game pieces with a gag box. That's all.
The project is meant to be an interactive story (?) that he is trying to tell, and will update once per day to show more. Some people have pointed out that the project ends on April Fool's Day, but he's already firmly stated that the project is real and will not be cancelled.
He already has $2,500 out of the $5,000 he is seeking. What the hell is wrong with people.
MY BRAIN FUCKING HURTS WHY ARE PEOPLE BACKING THIS????
If you want to build your own prototypes you could get your own blank bits for cheaper. Oy.
Content-free post FTW?
It's sort of Mystery Mansion, in space, with airlocks, and fire, and a card deck, and hookers.
OK, forget the hookers.
Have some MOOII-like game mechanics streamlined like Eclipse. Everyone starts with one planet, and 4Xes as best they can. However, there are Antarans or space monsters who sweep in. Maybe they kill everyone, or maybe the players evacuate. Whoever scores the most points before the end is the winner. When you play again, the previously destroyed civilizations leave behind their spoils on the planets they once inhabited sort of like how in Amun-Re phase 2 the pyramids are left behind. Also, if you use the run away/recolonize storyline you can have the races be persistent from game to game as well.
Another thought. The planets that were very well developed have a lot of stuff on them, but probably don't have many natural resources left. Or maybe they have different kinds of natural resources based on how the previous inhabitants treated the planet.
Someone just bought the newest hottest "board game" that's better than all the rest. The problem is, only a really true gamer can actually differentiate the pieces, the rules, or the board. You are apparently not one of these gamers. So you play the game out, not knowing any of the rules or anything, and attempting to bluff as if you do. Nobody ever admits to not being able to tell what's actually going on, and everyone always complements and hams up the game and how fantastic it is.
It's essentially a roleplaying exercise framed around a board game.
Now if you hate it in spite of that, alright. I don't exactly want to pay money for this. I'm just not offended, annoyed, or disturbed by this. I even know how to have fun with it if people wanted to play it. It's a meta joke in a couple different ways. It's a joke about kickstarter, board games, gamers, role-playing, improv, etc.
As someone that's a role-playing gamer first, it's pretty easy to see how I could have fiasco-like fun with the idea. We are cooperative story-telling a game. The best game ever, with the most incredible perfect system of rules we've ever seen. It's flawless, amazing, and we can all obviously see it because we are good enough to... right?