What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Michael Barnes wrote: Isn’t it something like $400 for everything? That’s -ludicrous-. The game has always had garbage components but does anyone really need all this?

It’s much less than that.
Although, as someone who has spent a lot more than that on individual games, I think $400 is expensive but not ludicrous for a game if I see value in it.
I mean, I’ve seen you writing about games at that value or more, so I’m not sure why this price - in, and of, itself - would bother you. I think I’ve seen you abandon more expensive games shortly after writing about how great you think they are.

Value is relative, right? So the components of the game are not necessarily great. I’ve seen worse. And the art may or may not be appealing to you. That’s subjective. At the very least, it’s functional.

But this is a game I like to play, my friends like to play, and it hits the table. At least it did before covid.
Which is more than can be said, I think, for so many other games out there. Games on shelves collecting dust, played maybe a few times or not at all.

So if people enjoy playing it and want to invest in some bling, that’s money better spent than buying yet another box of stuff that goes into a kallax and never gets touched or sold off after a period of time.

Yeah I looked at it, the price I got was from buying everything which is not something I think anyone interested in this is going to be doing anyway. Nobody’s going to buy the base game and all expansions on this campaign, let alone the add on gewgaws which seem like a waste of money to me.

TM is the rare game with staying power these days...I think for a lot of folks it is THE game. And it is a very good one. If I played it regularly I would go in $80 for the upgrade for sure- it looks cool and it reminds me of my Acquire with the buildings or the old Settlers collector’s edition.

You are correct, cost is relative. I’ve spent plenty on single games in my time.

To give a measure of how much staying power Terraforming Mars has: I wrote on article on the best cards in the game two years ago. And it's still one of my most read articles on a daily basis, only surpassed by other articles on the game.

I doubt a strategy article about the average game will be read by anyone two years down the line.

In general terms I would say that the people who spend a lot of money on one game that they love and often play are far saner than those who spend the same amount of money on a lot of games that sit around barely touched. I suspect however that it is largely the same people buying both.

I looked into the upgrade pack as my son is at a point where the only gifts he wants to receive are really expensive tech and he enjoys TM so much that I figured it could make for a good alternative. However, the small box + domes and fleets + shipping + currency transaction from USD to GBP is going to be well north of a hundred quid; for the same money I can get him a premium Lego Technic set which he will likely love even more and we still get to enjoy playing TM. Or for the same price I could buy a whole other premium boardgame like Oath or the core box for Nemesis.

Sure we really like TM, but it's by no means an obsession enough to dump that kind of money into some plastic toys when the cardboard does the job well enough. I just wish the new cards and cardboard tiles could be bought separately, I'd definitely go for those and the fleet ships.

mezike wrote: In general terms I would say that the people who spend a lot of money on one game that they love and often play are far saner than those who spend the same amount of money on a lot of games that sit around barely touched. I suspect however that it is largely the same people buying both.

True, but there is also, at least in my experience, a sizeable quantity of groups who enjoy and play one single game a lot and never bother to show up on the internet telling anyone about it. Some examples I saw were Twilight Imperium, Battlestar Galactica, Eclipse and even Talisman. From what I gather, these people tend to be oblivious to KS. Really more of a down-to-earth "I like what I like" approach.

southernman wrote:

Msample wrote: Sequel to NEMESIS;

www.kickstarter.com/projects/awakenrealms/nemesis-lockdown

You can also pledge the original/ stretch goal stuff too.

With 15 days still to go it has 25,700 supporters, might even pass the nearly 42,000 Tainted Grail got and will definitely pass the 32,500 the first Nemesis project got. Awaken Realms is certainly doing the business, they know their market and what it wants.

Not quite - 41,905.

Rallyman: Dirt KS went up this weekend.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/holygrailgames/rallyman-dirt

It looks more interesting than the regular game with time trials added in, terrain effects, etc. Given how much we’re enjoying Rallyman: GT I’m definitely in on this one and also going to pick up some of the GT expansion packs at the same time.

Went a bit nuts recently. I'm in on both 2 Worm 2 Furious and Metallic Tome for my OSR needs and as someone who grew up on Crossbows and Catapults I also couldn't resist Walls of Scydonia. It's gonna be a ramen filled month.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/mantisfalls...&term=Mantis%20Falls - Mantis Falls, although hopefully via a group buy as shipping to the UK does not seem that reasonable for a small box game.

Eyeing Rallyman Dirt too.

I'm most likely in for Rallyman Dirt.

Maybe some kind of solo Rallyman league here where we compare scores?

ChristopherMD wrote: I'm most likely in for Rallyman Dirt.

Maybe some kind of solo Rallyman league here where we compare scores?

A whole lotta people going in on this for $200+. Game doesn't support that kind of price. $56 for the basic (plus $16 shipping) would appear sufficient. Still a little salty.

One of the things I noticed in Rallyman GT's rules was tbe inclusion of a woman and a person of color. Added a little flavor. This one is back to white men.

Most of the expansions for both games don't interest me. They seem like extra shit I would buy then never use.

200 euro doesn't seem too bad for two games and a half-dozen expansions. It's whether you'd use them or not.

ChristopherMD wrote: Most of the expansions for both games don't interest me. They seem like extra shit I would buy then never use.

I think you are right. The base pledge plus shipping plus transaction fees are going to end up being nearly twice what I recently paid for GT and I doubt the extra stuff is going to be worth the cost. I can wait till general release, thank you for bringing me back after a temporary loss of sanity. Rallyman is definitely a thirty-bucks game not a two-hundred bucks one.

The variant cars are great fun to play with though and I highly recommend them. You can however proxy another dice for the additional drift/acceleration, after all the only function of the dice is either a 1/6 or 1/3 hazard risk, and so you save €24 if you don't care about the shape of the teeny plastic cars. You don't even need the dashboards, just a reference of the hazard tables which are easy to find. And you can play right now instead of waiting till next summer.

I found it interesting that this hobby and its relationship with Kickstarter is getting covered by traditional news outlets: www.npr.org/2020/07/05/887283058/a-look-...p-board-game-funding