Let's Talk... Funkoverse

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2607519/article/37093761#37093761

There's a new 2-pack coming with Alice and the Queen of Hearts, of Wonderland fame. Not only do both characters look excellent (the Queen's base ability is "Let's Skip to the Part Where I Lose My Temper") and not only does this open up the door to more Wonderland characters, but it also includes a new game mode: Croquet, where you challenge the ball through wickets to score points (in addition to trying to knock each other down/out.)

There was a small slowdown in output for this system, but with the introduction of 4-player scenarios and boards with the GoT and Nightmare Before Christmas sets and now the croquet game with this one, it looks like Funko may be ramping up again. Like ubarose, I've found this game/system to be kind of remarkable in its simplicity and replayability, although I've mostly played "within spheres" (e.g. we tend to play just Harry Potter or just Jurassic Park or just weird extras (Jaws, etc.)), as the whole "figure out super combo teams" is not interesting to me at all (Been there, done that with other games, like X-Wing.)

The new set is absolutely adorable. I don’t want it.

Funkoverse died an ignominious death here. I liked it at first and had everything up through the second round of starters, Aggretsuko, Kool-Aid Man, etc. but then I looked at how this game took up Cthulhu Wars levels of shelf space -and- wasn’t nearly as good as Unmatched or Wildlands so off it went.

It’s OK. But it never seems to get any better than that. The figures are cute but also annoying, the maps are uniformly boring, and the game types are pretty stale. The cool down system is fun and thoughtful, but the action just never feels all that compelling.

It’s a novelty...once the thrill of Ian Malcolm with a giant mallet squaring off against Joker and Morty wears off, you are left with small Funkopops and an OK board game to play with them. That takes up way too much room.

Riffing on what uba said, I can see where it might become a problem if you want to pick up every set, but I don't have that issue (the next release, Darkwing Duck, has precisely zero interest for me.) My current collection takes up less room than Cthulhu Wars by far. I also don't own either Wildlands or Unmatched and have no interest in shelling out the money to try them, since this fighting game works for me already. and is easy to introduce to non-gamerz, who will take a much bigger shine toward things like Harry Potter than they will otherwise-nameless factions from Wildlands. I also find the maps to be one of the best visual attractions of the whole game since, again, they're references to the IPs involved and most of them create interesting movement/placement issues that change with different scenarios. Plus, like I said, with new game modes being introduced, the possibilities are expanding without having to spend one dime on another figure, since you can usually adapt a game mode from one board to another pretty easily.

Wildlands struck me as too close to things like Mordheim or Necromunda, which I just don't want to return to, and Unmatched looks simpler in execution than Funkoverse (completely constrained paths for movement, etc.) so I'm OK with what Funko/Prospero Hall is producing for this kind of game. The only others I have like it are Tiny Epic Tactics and Ultimate Warriorz (with the latter pretty close to the trade block), so I'm content with things as they are.

Y'all encouraged me to get it.
I got it.
And then some.

I agree with some of MB's points; this can quickly eat up shelf space, and Unmatched is just a better game.
I disagree with MB on other points; the boards are pretty fab.

I find the plastic shards positively stupid. I wish they were any other size.

I'm on the fence about keeping or not keeping. As Unmatched ramps up it's production schedule, I feel I'm more inclined to invest in those expansions. Time (and gaming) will tell. I can't imagine I'll keep both.

I'll admit that the shards are kind of a clumsy method of scorekeeping. However, they're also quite eye-catching (this is back on that Eric Lang topic of a game being visually appealing) and it's kind of entertaining that they come in the wide variety of colors (Blue for HP, red for Jurassic Park, green for Rick and Morty, etc.) However, the semi-downside to that is that you end up with a significant excess of material that you don't need, since every box is designed to play by itself. So if you pick up all three boxes of HP stuff, you'll have way more dice and shards and whatnot than you'll ever really use. But I get what they're trying to do with that design/marketing approach.

I'm still sitting on a considerable amount of Funkoverse stuff, but I'm not playing it and given my feelings about GOT, HP and NBC, I have no interest in being a completionist.

It's one of the few Prospero Hall games with real legs though. It's like this, Pan Am, Villainous, and I'm finding Back To the Future to hold up very well. The team building without points is genius, as is the simple yet effective cool down track.

BUT....

I had greatly underestimated Unmatched when I first played it. It's a more subtle game, but once the strengths of it really sneak up on you and set their claws in, there's just no going back. It's a deeper, faster, smarter game with much more tension. Funko's greatest strength is the easy team building, but Unmatched is still even easier to get on the table and I don't feel like I'm missing out without that extra layer of customization.

They're both space hogs, but I already know which one is earning that space and which one is headed for the door.

I guess I'll have to find someone local with Undaunted and give it a try (once, you know, we can all get together and play games again...) I think one of the more difficult parts about Funkoverse in comparison may be the variety of abilities on each figure, plus those provided by items. Absorbing all of that and figuring out how to play it efficiently is probably the first major hurdle for most new players. I occasionally see conversations on BGG about "ultimate combos" with this or that item plus a particular trio of characters. I have to say that that kind of mindset really kind of repels me at the moment. I don't want to do the equivalent of MTG deckbuilding with this game, even though it's obviously built to support that. In that respect, I guess I'm not taking advantage of everything that it offers.

People really coming out of the woodwork to talk about how good Unmatched is and it's staying power. Was pretty under the radar... charlest has a great roundup of a bunch of releases ( playerelimination.com/2021/02/12/560-day...d-battle-of-legends/ ) and it seems to have staying power with him too.

If you're down with Tabletop Simulator, the official FREE mod is excellent.

I tried the Harry Potter base set a couple of times with the kids, but it just never clicked for us. Maybe we should have tried with an extra "real" character proxied in (we used the death eater/auror characters with no special abilities as the third ones), but even when looking at Ron and Malfoy it didn't seem like there was a lot of new stuff. Range and movement is pretty short, so it seemed mostly like a waiting game where at some point the teams would be close enough to "fire" on each other and then it would come down to the luck of the dice. Not that I mind rolling a lot of dice, but honestly I couldn't see much room for tactical finesse and synergies.

Maybe it's just me being stupid or maybe we just don't like skirmish games that much. But I hope we do since I really want to try (and like) Unmatched Buffy.

It's kind of a brawler, so positioning is important, but it does frequently come down to the two sides closing on each other and slugging it out. As I mentioned above, there is a learning curve to figuring out how to coordinate your team and maximize their use of abilities and the timing of them (what tokens will be on the CD track for how many turns, etc.) It's also scenario dependent. Is it wiser to get more bodies into the control area to score those points (and prevent your opponents from scoring them) or is it more important to take a token off the board (scoring a point and preventing your opponents from doing so)? For that matter, is it more important to ignore scoring with your acting figure and simply try to knock down (or out) a figure that hasn't acted yet for your opponent, ensuring that they either have to spend their whole turn standing up or not be on the board at all? There are a number of significant decisions to make on each turn and those often depend on how you can use your abilities and/or items.

superparent.com/article/2436/marvel-funk...to-the-tabletop-game

Marvel comes to the Funkoverse. The Avengers set continues the trend of providing 4-player scenarios, with 4 different color tokens. Also, Black Widow's abilities are pretty badass. The Thanos set is just him, but it adds a many vs one scenario, where opposing players battle Ultimate Thanos™

ubarose wrote: [The game is pretty "meh" with the generic third character. That's the bullshit thing about Funkoverse - you have to buy that expansion to play the actual game. I think they really shot themselves in the foot with that marketing strategy. If it weren't for the fact that I had attended a demo with all real characters at their booth at a con, I would have tossed the base set and never looked back.

I had this experience recently as well. It wasn't even a generic third character - they're now selling the game in sets with one figure and one generic character and the play is entirely worthless. In every scenario it's basically run to grab guaranteed victory points, then whoever rolls the first knockdown wins.

I slated the thing in a patreon review because it was a terrible experience. Then had a playtester come back to me saying exactly what Shellie said - the game was designed with three full characters per side, and testing showed it was poor without the full complement. Which makes you wonder what on earth they're doing by putting out purposefully crippled sets for people to buy?!

Because the thing is, skirimsh games are a crowded genre with a lot of excellent contenders. Funkoverse is in the ring with Unmatched, Wildlands, Warhammer Underworlds and others and a bad first impression is going to sink it like a stone.