What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Oh man, that 3d tileset for TM looks doooope!

Gary Sax wrote: It's a bad campaign. Everyone has their own "why would people back this?" incredulous criteria but my strongest is "what are the fucking mechanics of this game?"

The designer talks a bit about them here:

boardgamegeek.com/thread/2613483/mechanics-and-resources

Although still not much detail. The KS page is full of promises to reveal more as the campaign goes on, which is probably smart marketing, albeit sleazy -- get the marks emotionally invested and trickle info out, as opposed to publishing the rulebook right now and risk some people deciding not to pledge because they don't like a mechanic.

This one sounds like it'll be perfectly ready when it hits their retail store. PASS...

Oh, and Hi

There's a new version of Factory Funner up on Kickstarter. It's affordable and I've always wanted to try that game, so...

It's a solid game and happens to be my buddy's favorite game. We played the original a few times and I've played Funner once. I do like the shape of the engines in the sequel better.

My only beef with the game is that people can spend a lot of time reconfiguring portions of their plant after buying a new converter. I don't find that puzzle interesting enough to really dig in and spend a ton of time optimizing, so the pace sometimes feels sluggish to me.

But overall it's a clever design that's unique.

Battle for Biternia has their expansion live, which I'm definitely backing. The expansion will likely add 10 characters at the end of the day, which is more than enough to provide enough variety for 10s of plays at the very least. I'm a big fan of Aristeia! and skirmish games in general, and when I played this is kind of felt like it made those other games obsolete, mostly because it's in a smaller package, is simpler, and was able to exchange complicated LoS for a few high-intensity areas, and complicated dice and modifiers for a simple but chewy card-based system.

I've never played a MOBA, so I have no grasp on how well it simulates the game, but as an objective-based (destroy their bit) skirmish game that allows you to level up characters as you go, it's a joy. There are simple, juicy decisions at every moment, and the way the game streamlines defense and ability cooldowns is quite satisfying.

I would say I'm a bit shocked at the lack of interest in the game, but it seems to be picking up some steam with a few prominent reviewers giving it a positive look, notably Dan Thurot and Vysterion. Still, that translating to only 132 backers at this time does make me a little sad, but at the end of the day it will probably get funded and hit it's incredibly humble stretch goals. Plus, the creators seem ecstatic to have reached 50% after the first day so at least their low expectations are being surpassed!

ZeeAyKay wrote: I've never played a MOBA, so I have no grasp on how well it simulates the game,

If you ever have an interest, I can recommend Heroes of the Storm. It plays more quickly than giants like League of Legends or DOTA2 (average game is around 15 minutes) and doesn't have the pages and pages of items to know, since every character has their own unique set of talents they gain as they level up. It's also rooted in Blizzard's well-known IPs, if you ever took a shine to one of their other properties. These days, I usually just play vs the AI with other players as kind of a brain cleanser, which is still entertaining, if not particularly challenging. I'm Jackwraith#1816 there.

I am also in on the Battle for Biternia expansion. It's a great game.

John Company 2nd edition just went live on KS. Like Pax Pamir, I think the 2nd will prove to be more accessible and more popular.

I backed the Drawing Monsters Kickstarter.

For $15 I get some Hellboy postcards and a new card for the game.

Any opinions around here on V-Commandos? I had wanted to pick it up a while back, but it was unavailable. Now it's back on KS, but rather pricey even without miniatures. I'm wondering if it will find its way back onto retail later.

Yeah I liked it quite a bit. Wasn't top tier best of year, but a neat and unique game that reminded me of the old Commandos PC game.

Funny story - a few years ago a buddy who was at Essen texted me and sent a pic. It was a banner near their booth advertising V-Commandos and it had a quote from my Geek & Sundry article on it:

"Extraordinarily solid." - Charlie Theel, Geek & Sundry.

Funny that they would pick those words.

I had a similar moment of Essen glory with Neuroshima Hex.

I had V-Commandos for a while from the first printing and played through most of it. I thought it was okay but some of the scenarios had design problems and just didn't work, plus the promo content was generally a mess. It was quite a few years ago so I'm hazy on the detail. I remember that it flopped hard with my friends, so most of my plays were solo.

I don't feel like it's something I would recommend off-hand but note that they claim to have revised a lot of content since then. I'd probably play it again if I had the chance out of curiosity because the ideas behind it are certainly enticing. As an aside, I am amused that the paragraph where they talk about improving the wording in the rulebook stops dead in the middle of a sentence.

I’ve been reflecting some more on V-Commandos and I remember now what the problem was. There were some scenarios where disturbing the guards was inevitable and super inconvenient when deep into the mission. I found that if I just rushed the objective and shot down anyone in my way I could complete the mission with way less grief and it started to become the default way to play. I couldn’t un-see it even though it felt a bit off to play against the spirit of the game. This may well have been addressed in the tweaks they are talking about.