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Discover: Lands Unknown (new FFG “unique” game)

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25 Sep 2018 16:38 #282251 by Gary Sax

charlest wrote: I'm cautiously optimistic about this still. I plan on tackling this one from the unique angle of playing through two separate boxes and comparing my experience. Really curious how far the two sets will diverge from one another.


Oh, that's a great idea! Excited to read about it.

I'll probably preorder a box, it is just too close to my gaming partner and my jam. I get why others are skeptical, though.

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25 Sep 2018 18:22 #282263 by Michael Barnes
Loving the illustrations.

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25 Sep 2018 19:33 #282266 by SuperflyPete

charlest wrote: I'm excited to try this, but I'm disappointed that it looks heavily influenced by 7th Continent.


Asmodee: “Hey, how do we make a board game more Legacy like while also making it a sort of “collectible” game?”

Director of Creative: “Take 7th Continent, break it into a thousand pieces? The OCD Gamer crowd will eat that shit up!”

BRILLIANT

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26 Sep 2018 09:04 #282296 by Legomancer
This is strange to me because it's a game where the whole gimmick is outside of playing it. A person who just walks into a game store, doesn't follow discussions, and picks it up will get some kind of adventure game where the main "hook" is something that person will never know about. So their edition is different from others? So what? And I feel like this will be the case for most players. That seems like a lot of effort for what I think most people won't even notice.

For those that do, what kind of decision do they think will be made? Buy another copy? Is the gameplay going to be that compelling that this will happen? For how many people?

I guess they're trying to crack the nut of both (1) game groups where many people play but only one buys and (2) video gamers who can get this kind of experience easily, but I don't see it happening. For one thing, the kind of people who would be most "interested" in this have a large intersection with the kind of people who play any game at most three times before moving on to whatever is passing by on the conveyor belt now. They'll barely scratch even one copy of this much less multiple ones.
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26 Sep 2018 15:31 #282337 by ChristopherMD
I'm still surprised anyone is interested in supporting a blind box sales method but here we are. Hopefully we don't start seeing Collectible Board Games take over the hobby.

1) I'm not sure how much I should trust reviews since the copy they played might be completely different from the copy I get.

2) It seems better to buy it used so you have some idea of what you're getting. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

3) Do we know if there will be rarer cards/tiles or will the distribution be completely even?

4) If somehow hobby consumers allowed this to fail do you think FFG would release box sets that aren't totally blind? Like Arctic-themed, Jungle-themed, etc?
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26 Sep 2018 19:15 #282349 by mtagge
I totally don't get it. The cost of putting a full set of cards in the box has to be pretty close to the cost of randomizing cards. Could I just pay $10 more and get a full game?

This would be like buying Arkham Horror and only being able to play it once without it repeating.

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26 Sep 2018 22:30 #282353 by Dr. Lao
If a “complete” set of this game is every bit as soupy as Talisman I have no interest. I’d rather haven it broken up and focused.

My gut doesn’t think that they take every card and randomize them. To pull this off they need to focus the groups of components. Otherwise it turns into a soupy mess without cohesion.

They could take the six or so catagories they list in the article and come up with a half dozen or dozen groups to pull chunks of components from and have thousands of mixtures. But mixtures with cohesion.

That would be way more engaging for me than coming across a dragon, vampire, traveling merchant, imp, orc, priceless artifact, ape, bag of gold...and whatever else Talisman wants to throw at you.

I’d rather be exploring a land of desert and mountains inhabited by dwarves and hunt oversized insects for food and use their exoskeletons as roof tiles on my shelter.
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26 Sep 2018 22:37 #282354 by Dr. Lao

Legomancer wrote: This is strange to me because it's a game where the whole gimmick is outside of playing it. A person who just walks into a game store, doesn't follow discussions, and picks it up will get some kind of adventure game where the main "hook" is something that person will never know about. So their edition is different from others? So what? And I feel like this will be the case for most players. That seems like a lot of effort for what I think most people won't even notice.


If that situation happens then FFG has majorly failed on their marketing and branding. “Unique Game” is on the front of the box, this we know. And if a person flips over to read the back of the box and it doesn’t mention anything about each copy of the game being unique then that is a major oversight on FFG’s part.

And if a person buys a game knowing nothing and doesn’t even read the back of the box then they really don’t care about what game they get and deserve whatever experience they bought blindly.
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27 Sep 2018 08:10 #282360 by Legomancer

Dr. Lao wrote:

Legomancer wrote: This is strange to me because it's a game where the whole gimmick is outside of playing it. A person who just walks into a game store, doesn't follow discussions, and picks it up will get some kind of adventure game where the main "hook" is something that person will never know about. So their edition is different from others? So what? And I feel like this will be the case for most players. That seems like a lot of effort for what I think most people won't even notice.


If that situation happens then FFG has majorly failed on their marketing and branding. “Unique Game” is on the front of the box, this we know. And if a person flips over to read the back of the box and it doesn’t mention anything about each copy of the game being unique then that is a major oversight on FFG’s part.

And if a person buys a game knowing nothing and doesn’t even read the back of the box then they really don’t care about what game they get and deserve whatever experience they bought blindly.


But again, who cares? I go in the game store and browse, and pick up a box with "Unique Game" on it, where the back of the box tells me this copy in my hand is different from all others. So what? How should this affect my purchase at all? How is this game any different from the other games on the shelf that aren't boasting this "feature"?

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27 Sep 2018 09:07 #282364 by Shellhead
The gimmick only works if a given player has access to more than one copy of the game. FFG is pitching this product at three potential markets:

1. Collectors. By now, everybody here understands that there are people who are buying games that they never get around to playing, and some of them will likely buy at least two copies of this game.

2. Groups. Normally only one person in a steady boardgame-playing group will buy a given game, and then the others will always play that person's copy of the game. In theory, this game might induce multiple players in the group to buy it, and then take turns playing each copy for some variety.

3. FFG Fans. There are plenty of players who are automatically interested in anything that FFG publishes.

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27 Sep 2018 09:16 #282365 by charlest
I think this game is specifically designed for communal discussion. It's for the hobbyist crowd, for people to have running threads talking about *their* game and people to analyze differences.

To me, it's a very different thing than KeyForge because Discover Lands is about content discovery and the subsequent discussion.

KeyForge is more about playing others and interacting with someone else's unique deck while avoiding netdecking.
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27 Sep 2018 09:51 #282370 by DarthJoJo
I’m curious how much of this is targeted toward new gamers. It looks a bit more complex than your classic gateway games, but considering the setting and art? Invited in by pastel cartoon art and a theme of exploration and survival? This is a game I could probably get my parents to play. But the unique format seems very much geared toward multiple buys and trading.

I’m very much interested in how this sells and with whom.

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27 Sep 2018 09:58 #282372 by Dr. Lao
The game was specifically designed to give each group their own set of components in an adventure and exploration game to Discover. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.

Any analysis, assumed nefarious boardroom conversations, concern over some BGG outliers being exploited to collect every single card sounds like an English Lit 101 teacher trying to give meaning to every passage, color or item in a book when sometimes the teapot just happens to be green.
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20 Oct 2018 00:22 #283401 by mtagge
www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/...ory-of-unique-games/
More information coming out.
Looks like there is approximately one fifth of the unique components in any given box. The weird part is they admit that they lose production efficiencies by the smaller print runs of the "unique" components. They additionally incur additional costs by requiring additional management and "algorithms" to generate and sort the unique boxes.
Their unique claim looks unlikely as well unless they have a print run of less than 3000. Even then chances are still low.

I totally don't understand this at all. I honestly don't believe it would cost any more just to put the full game in every box. If they just want a simpler game to store and setup, well isn't this FFG we are talking about?

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20 Oct 2018 07:10 - 20 Oct 2018 07:32 #283628 by Gary Sax
Yeah, the way it's panning out is like... you created a kickstarter game by designing 5 expansions into a base game and then... you're not going to sell them separately?

Corey is a great designer, so I'm still going to get a copy if the game looks at all interesting, but the distributional model is not a draw. I also don't have strong completionist on it either so it's not like I'm pissed if I buy it and miss some stuff. It does frustrate me that if people aren't into this I'll have lost a big chance at *finally* getting a real outdoor backpacking/exploration/survival game that isn't sci-fi, which is a bit of a grail theme for me. And it could go down with the unique game ship.

edit: Also, I see on twitter that Matt got a copy? Curious about it!
Last edit: 20 Oct 2018 07:32 by Gary Sax.

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