Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps

The genre and IP may be tired, but if anyone can pull it off it's GF9. Color me interested.

Msample wrote: The genre and IP may be tired, but if anyone can pull it off it's GF9. Color me interested.

I don't think we can give GF9 the benefit of the doubt anymore, their entire design team left to form Monster Fight Club. The designer of this game , Andrew Haught, was responsible for their Dr. Who game (which had mixed reactions here and mostly ratings of mediocre eslewhere).

@Charlest

What is Monster Fight Club working on, do you know?

Tentacles.

www.monsterfightclub.com/post/it-was-nev...go-back-in-the-water

Yeah, they just unveiled that at New York Toy Fair. I think they've also hinted at some kind of miniatures game with a fantasy theme, but that was only a single promo shot recently.

charlest wrote: I don't think we can give GF9 the benefit of the doubt anymore, their entire design team left to form Monster Fight Club. The designer of this game , Andrew Haught, was responsible for their Dr. Who game (which had mixed reactions here and mostly ratings of mediocre eslewhere).

Not trying to split hairs because it's a valid point, but it wasn't the whole design team, right? IIRC, it was Kovaleski, the founder, their officer manager, and (the most important part) Aaron Dill, who was lead on Spartacus, Firefly, and Star Trek: Ascendancy. Dill is obviously the key there, since those are probably GF9's best releases, but I don't think the studio was totally gutted.

I’m still curious about this, but not like I was when it was announced a year ago. I think the main force driving my interest at this point is whether or not GF9 can rebound. The Doctor Who game was a misstep, but the real trouble started in Firefly Adventures, a fine game with cool ideas, but it’s in desperate need of an editor and feels like development was abandoned somewhere in the homestretch. I’m not hearing terrific things about Vault of Dragons, either.

Jackwraith wrote:

charlest wrote: I don't think we can give GF9 the benefit of the doubt anymore, their entire design team left to form Monster Fight Club. The designer of this game , Andrew Haught, was responsible for their Dr. Who game (which had mixed reactions here and mostly ratings of mediocre eslewhere).

Not trying to split hairs because it's a valid point, but it wasn't the whole design team, right? IIRC, it was Kovaleski, the founder, their officer manager, and (the most important part) Aaron Dill, who was lead on Spartacus, Firefly, and Star Trek: Ascendancy. Dill is obviously the key there, since those are probably GF9's best releases, but I don't think the studio was totally gutted.

If you look at the design credits on all of their games of the past (besides Dr. Who), Kovaleski, Dill, and Sweigart are the listed designers. Sweigart passed away, and Dill and Kovaleski have left as you noted.

Peter Przekop is the other person who left. He handled PR, demos, kind of jack of all trades. He also handled playtesting (he was lead on that) and wrote their rulebooks I believe.

I'm sure there's some behind the scenes people that were there before still plugging away, but I hardly think that should breed confidence. The trio of designers for all of their hits are gone.

I'm still excited for this game by the way and not trying to be overly negative, I'm just issuing caution.

Gale Force Nine hasn't been the same since Sweigart died.

Josh Look wrote: I’m still curious about this, but not like I was when it was announced a year ago. I think the main force driving my interest at this point is whether or not GF9 can rebound. The Doctor Who game was a misstep, but the real trouble started in Firefly Adventures, a fine game with cool ideas, but it’s in desperate need of an editor and feels like development was abandoned somewhere in the homestretch. I’m not hearing terrific things about Vault of Dragons, either.

I'm going to make some assumptions here, so don't take this as gospel. When Brigands and Browncoats was announced, they said there were other ideas kick around for firefly: The game and this was one of them. Swiegart is listed as a designer on the bgg page for this. So, maybe they took his unfinished ideas and made this game. It would explain a lot.

I think that both the Doctor Who and Firefly Adventures games were works in progress when Sweigart died. That seems like the turning point in terms of quality.

Is someone credited as Developer? The more I look the more I find that that's the role that seems to be critical to success on bigger games. A good developer herds the ideas, and points out the problems before they go to press.

I think I've only played one Gale Force 9 game -- Firefly -- and not with all the expansions. Seemed like a very good time to me. But I sure ain't an expert on their stuff.

Shellhead wrote: I think that both the Doctor Who and Firefly Adventures games were works in progress when Sweigart died. That seems like the turning point in terms of quality.

Unless I'm mistaken, Sweigart (and the other designers) had nothing to do with Doctor Who. They're not credited and it looks like they never worked on it.

While I know very little about this game, I suspect it will have a hard time beating Nemesis at its own game.

Peter Przekop reached out to me to clarify some things and he OK'd me sharing this:

"Hi Charlie

I saw the thread regarding GF9's forthcoming Aliens game on There Will Be Games. I wanted to chime in with my own two cents.

My main role in games development was getting our work approved by our licensing partners, I also coordinated some our playtesting in our Virginia studio, but Aaron also coordinated playtesting from his home in Georgia and the other other Battlefront offices in the US, UK and NZ also contributed to playtesting.

Rulebooks were written by Aaron and Sean.

You are correct that no one from our studio did any work on Doctor Who and Aliens.

Battlefront, Gale Force Nine's parent company has studios both in New Zealand and the UK. The NZ studio is responsible for the development of Battlefront's miniature games, they also handled the development of Doctor Who and Aliens (and coordinated the graphic design of Tyrants of the Underdark which was designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson from Wizards of the Coast). Our small team developed the rest of the boardgames beginning with Spartacus.

Monster Fight Club has two boardgame designs that we are currently working on as well as a miniature project. Tentacle Town is the first of those boardgames and we'll be talking about that more next month. We're also doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff, working with other entertainment and game companies, helping some with design and production or just doing general consulting for others.

We're all proud of all the work that was done at Gale Force Nine and we're excited to see what they will be doing in future."

Gosh, I was looking forward to this one. Purely as a concept (i'm not a as big a fan of the movie as I once was) I just love the whole claustrophobic setting of a team trapped and confronted with an unbeatable nemesis.
I tried the leading edge game, and while the rules were a lovely read, full of fiddly detail, the actual gameplay worked better using the online flash-version than as an actual boardgame, at least for me. For years I was hoping someone would snatch the license and offer us a streamlined experience based on this movie.

And here we are. A full co-op game with what looks like a smart card mechanic on offer (based on some detail shots of cards found elsewhere over the net). And yet I feel a bit reluctant to be hopeful for a worthy Aliens game.
Somehow the bland tiles, space hulk-blips and generic overall look doesn't scream freshness to me.
That, coupled with the fact galeforce is not galeforce as we knew it, makes me a bit lukewarm on this release.

And still...I am pretty sure I will grab a copy as soon as it hits my local flg. Maybe out of nostalgia for the past. Those glorious days when the movie hit theatres and we were all sitting back and experiencing this rollercoaster trip. I was just the right age for this movie to be both exhilirating and scary. And yes, there is still a craving for a cool Aliens game.
I hope this game will simulate the feeling of dread, moving inside these tight corridors with an invisible enemy approaching...not knowing when it will strike. An aspect the leading edge game did quite well (in a charming oldskool kinda way) through random spawning on the board.

Time will tell...

Wasn't there just an aliens tactical mini game? The IP is an instant win for me but how many times can we re-fight LV426? I need something that expands the IP. Get some of that Arcturian poontang!

Who even controls this IP anymore? Some lawyer at Fox? Cameron? Disney at this point?

The expansions' names seem, like the Colonial Marines themselves, trying too hard to be cool. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have some problems with either publicity or FLGS shelf presence. Mayhap they will reconsider.

This was an interesting preview, thank you! I've linked your work in my article about the game: alkony.enerla.net/english/the-nexus/boar...game-base-set-review