CO-TRASH-DOME!!! Robinson Crusoe vs Eldritch Horror!

So, both games have came out for quite a while.

Both are pretty involving co-op games, with RC being more characterful and EH being more streamlined.

Robinson Crusoe. If you're going to simplify and gamify Arkham Horror into something less sprawing, that works a high percentage of the time, you might as well instead go all the way and get a game that is a very tight euro that nevertheless tells 80% of the story Arkham Horror does.

Eldritch Horror.

I was never a huge Arkham fan, but EH is slick and fun.

I'd rather watch the Swiss Family Robinson movie from Disney than play RC again. The movie has ostriches and TECHNICOLOR. Also according to imdb the water surrounding the isle is magical:

When Mrs. Robinson is swinging onto the raft, she's dumped into the ocean and soaked. In the next shot her hair is perfectly dry.

Eldritch Horror is an overlong, boring Cthulhu Pandemic clone. I've never played Robinson Crusoe, but it can't be worse han EH.

Vote: Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe definitely. More tense, more colorful, and a much more coherent narrative. Also, much less downtime and boredom.

Eldritch Horror, without question.

Question. I had a game of Eldritch Horror where I had literally no choices to make for 40 minutes due to being detained, then cursed, then lost in time and space (and immediately lost again upon return due to a card event) just using my time to crank the game's engine along. No game should ever make someone feel so utterly shite for sitting down at it. Win or lose, "miss a turn" mechanics can go fuck themselves.

I still own it, I 'm trapped in an abusive relationship with it, telling myself that maybe next time it won't betray me.

Robinson Crusoé, no questions asked. The base set has a lot more replayability than Eldritch Horror with its anemic decks where you end up reading the same cards in the same frigging game - talk about breaking the immersion (but expansions! Fuck off). You'll never go all the way through ANY of the decks in RC in a single game, guaranteed. I love it when the stuff that happens can come back to bite you in the ass later on. Getting the extra actions counters are almost essential for winning.

Eldritch does some cool things with spells and conditions and tries to tie the narrative with the featured GOO, but it isn't as fun as Arkham.

Robinson has a pretty fresh theme comparatively.

JEM wrote: Question. I had a game of Eldritch Horror where I had literally no choices to make for 40 minutes due to being detained, then cursed, then lost in time and space (and immediately lost again upon return due to a card event) just using my time to crank the game's engine along. No game should ever make someone feel so utterly shite for sitting down at it. Win or lose, "miss a turn" mechanics can go fuck themselves.

Shit like that could also happen in Arkham, although 40 minutes? Not unless you were playing with 8. But then with so many people around the table you'd probably pay less attention to the game than to shooting the shit.

Also Eldritch has that stupid stupid mechanic where the game can cancel player progression. Kind of like the "move 3 spaces, stumble back 2 spaces" of Mansions of Madness fame. These just suck, period, major design flaw IMO.

There were two of us. I effectively missed five turns, and there was a lot of book keeping with mythos effects, monsters etc. We don't rush through story driven games, but it was still too much.

I am casting my uninformed vote for Robinson Cruesoe, based on one play. It's an attractive game with a novel theme, and I like the way decisions can have delayed consequences.

Columbob wrote:

JEM wrote: Question. I had a game of Eldritch Horror where I had literally no choices to make for 40 minutes due to being detained, then cursed, then lost in time and space (and immediately lost again upon return due to a card event) just using my time to crank the game's engine along. No game should ever make someone feel so utterly shite for sitting down at it. Win or lose, "miss a turn" mechanics can go fuck themselves.

Shit like that could also happen in Arkham, although 40 minutes? Not unless you were playing with 8. But then with so many people around the table you'd probably pay less attention to the game than to shooting the shit.

Also Eldritch has that stupid stupid mechanic where the game can cancel player progression. Kind of like the "move 3 spaces, stumble back 2 spaces" of Mansions of Madness fame. These just suck, period, major design flaw IMO.

I haven't played Eldritch Horror yet, but I keep hearing very mixed things about it, and the overall gist is that the people who tend to like it are often people who don't like Arkham Horror. Since I am a huge fan of Arkham Horror and definitely not a fan of Mansions of Madness (especially for the problem mentioned above), I can't support EH in this dome.

This is one of the toughest Trashdomes in a while for me.
On one hand there is an extremely solid system that is very efficient and through the mechanics a very rich narrative is created. It is also a system that is highly adaptable to many story arcs.

On the other is a game that is very rich in their setting but the narrative comes not from the mechanics but from the character art and story text. It tells a less cohesive story but provides a better pulp like adventure.

Mechanics I'd go with Robinson
Artwork/Presentation I'd go with Eldritch
Overall game experience I think it is tied

In the end I'm going with Eldritch for the simple fact that when I play Eldritch I'm not thinking about mechanics, not thinking about what processes are coming up or calculating odds. With Robinson the mechanics stay a bit in the forefront and never really fade into the background.

Shellhead - From what I gather, you wouldn't like Eldritch. Espeically if you're happy with Arkham. I like it because it isn't Arkham and I think you won't like it because it isn't Arkham.

JEM wrote: There were two of us. I effectively missed five turns, and there was a lot of book keeping with mythos effects, monsters etc. We don't rush through story driven games, but it was still too much.

Just to clarify, you were playing Eldritch Horror, not Arkham Horror, right? I've played several games of Eldritch now and the book keeping is vastly reduced compared to Arkham. In fact, I don't recall ever having to keep up with monster or mythos book keeping in Eldritch other than applying Reckoning effects when they trigger.

Vote: Eldritch Horror

Vote - Eldritch Horror

I just have lots of fun with this. It feels like a grand adventure set withing the Call of Cthulhu universe. They just got everything right with this one.

Vote Robinson Crusoe.

I've never played Eldritch Horror, but my one bad experience with Arkham Horror told me I probably don't need to. I've read many raves from you guys about the improvements to EH, but I am very wary of trying that style again.

Crusoe, on the other hand, is fantastic. It's very engaging, wildly variable, and narratively inviting. A beautiful design.

Green Lantern wrote: Just to clarify, you were playing Eldritch Horror, not Arkham Horror, right?

Top bants.