Review Removed

Jason Glover’s Iron Helm, self-published and available only through Game...

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Thanks for this, was waiting for your fuller take after the bits you had in the forums.

Is this something that is likely to see a more polished "professional" version (i.e. is the designer likely to sign on with a larger publisher) or is this the best we can hope for in the forseeable future for this game?

For once I am able to say: I am in 100% agreement with Mr. Michael Barnes! Iron Helm is a really fun low-key solo game.

Some responses to MB's review:

PRICE - It is somewhat deflating to open the box and see basically a stack of cards, a few dice, two pawns, a few sprues of MDF tokens (be prepared for black soot!) and 2 very small rulebooks, but then I remember this is Gamecrafter we're talking about. Their small-batch production shtick typically results in inflated prices VS what you'd pay via Hasbro or others. But that's when I remind myself this is a small game from one dude and he ain't gettin' rich off of even Gamecrafter prices. So I'm ultimately OK with $40

INDIE GAME - The nature of Iron Helm as an indie game by a one-man-show really does show through. I've played through and made good decisions that resulted in super good things, I've played through and made bad decisions that I was duly punished for. It just makes sense. Which leads me to a word that Barnes used in his review...

"SATISFIED" - That is a really appropriate way to describe it. It's just satisfying to play, it does what you want it to do, and it doesn't play itself. Your choices matter (and as MB said, you can easily house-rule anything that smells off.) When I play Baseball Highlights 2045 I get the same "satisfied" feeling that the best solo games provide, like "This is what I want this game to do." Same feeling here.

MATS ARE DULL - Coincidentally, I just left a mediocre (3 stars out of 5) today on Gamecrafter's site for the playmats. They are functionally great, but the GC site uses a render of the image used, and not one of the actual mat. Consequently the neoprene mat you get is dull, greyed out, dingy-looking, and not nearly as vibrant as the great art in the photos. If you play Magic The Gathering and are used to playmats that make the art really pop, this is definitely not that. Kinda disappointing, especially for the price.

But yeah, mark me down as a believer in Iron Helm.

p.s.
Someone else asked about a major publisher maybe picking this up, and I had the EXACT SAME THOUGHT after I played the first time. This is way better than stuff like One Deck Dungeon or 90% of the Tiny Epic dreck. I would totally be shopping it around to publishers if I were Jason Glover.

Yikes

In the future, someone remind me that I said I wouldn't mention this guys games ever again.

I'm presuming something shitty happened and then fell down the memory hole here, but I probably don't need any of it in my life anyway.

Barnes can poke back in or not, but since this is sort of an odd stub I wanted to clear up that this wasn't something insane or dramatic that blew up. Basically Michael found some things out about the designer that he did not support and decided to pull the review.

This is exactly the case- nothing happened, I’m just not signing off on a positive review that could result in others patronizing the designer. To be clear, the designer in question does not appear to engage in toxic or abusive behavior but there is evidence that he has viewpoints that I find repellent and anti-human. Others are encouraged to look into it and decide for themselves if they are OK with it but I am definitely not and I will not elevate this work here on our site.

The review beeing removed made me curious... I just bought it out of curiosity...

I like it quite a bit, should have gotten the expansions at the same time.

LOL, what happened?!? Last thing I remember MB and I had a nice moment of gaming agreement, now I come back and apparently the review is POOF. Well, at least people can read my agreement with the original review, I guess.

And for those who were similarly impressed, the small box sequel to Iron Helm (Tin Helm) is newly finished and will be coming to Gamecrafter in September.

I spent way too much time to try and find out what this guy did, to no avail.

CranBerries wrote: I spent way too much time to try and find out what this guy did, to no avail.

Same, then figured I probably didn't care...

Flyers fan.