Etherfields

The theme looks great, as does its publisher/designer pedigree, but $92....

Hrm. I love Oracz games. Two of my favorites (Theseus and Neuroshima Hex) are his designs. In theory, I like the theme because it has a lot of that genre mixture/Lovecraft/realm beyond worlds thing going on.

But I wonder how much of that gets delivered in the gameplay. Is it an interesting series of choices or simply a puzzle-solving exercise? The original release of Mansions of Madness was the perfect example of this: the puzzles were basic mechanisms that took little to no effort to solve. The rest of the game was just a dungeon crawler that urged you to maximize combat efficiency.

I'm not fond of co-ops. I have issues with storytelling games because too often they don't have a lot of replayability if you run into the same events, time after time. Combining the two makes something that I have a hard time seeing myself enjoying after a couple plays. And, of course, as dysjunct has said, the asking price is kind of irritating, as well, which is a significant concern if replayability is a factor. Dune is going to be sold for $50 next month. Are you sure you're going to get a better experience and as many plays out of this as Dune for almost twice the price? Or three times the price if you want all the minis? Plus, I'm finding myself almost done with Kickstarter projects, ESPECIALLY those that have bonuses linked to how quickly people jump on the wagon. They're basically marketing to people hovering over KS, waiting to throw money down a hole, but whom still won't pay a dime for anyone writing here or Vasel or Rahdo or whoever. (Tangent: there was another thread on Reddit this morning about the perfidy of people taking money for reviews and who won't entertain/inform everyone for free.) Is the board game "hobby" now made up of people who got on board in the first 24 hours and those who didn't? Is that how status is defined now?

I love Oracz, but I think I'll pass.

I’m also a big Oracz fan, but the games I love by him are small and very, VERY abstract and show a great deal of restraint. I saw this awhile back but immediately decided I want to see how it pans out. This looks bigger both in terms of production and design, which may not be a good representation of what I like about his games.

I don’t know, I got exhausted looking at the “comes with everything you see here” photo.

Especially since there will likely be twice as much parceled out in additional purchases.

That box art is fantastic. The FOMO is strong in this one, but thanks to the word "deckbuilder," this is an easy pass for me. Outside of a couple of sports-themed games (Slapshot and Blood Bowl Team Manager), deckbuilders seem to always result in thematic failure.

I think imma give this one a shot, looks real cool. Not springing for the extra minis though...

Oracz is my favorite designer. I even had my finger hovering over spending $500 on Dawnfall at one point. (I didn't...)

But while this looks neat, I know there's no way I have room in my life for some 50 hour campaign game. I like Michal's strategy games; you play, it's done and it was great. Play again!

It's so far removed from the Oracz games I like that I can barely even process it. Watched some gameplay before the KS hit and all it did was confuse me.

Frankly I just don't believe that board games can tell the kind of story that this claims to do. You're not going to test someone's emotional intelligence by flipping a card.

[Edit -this is why you shouldn't post too early, thanks for the clarifications Mark]

I'm a sucker for most of what Awaken Realms puts out. I love Lords of Hellas. I'm still waiting on Nemesis but multiple people have recommended it to me and it sounds like I will dig it.

Dawnfall was too much and competed too directly with Shadespire for me to commit, unfortunately.

I'm in for this one and also backed Tainted Grail (I didn't grab the unnecessary miniatures pack for either).

Charlie, you are mixing up Monolith and Awaken Realms. Here's a handy guide:

Ridiculous, bloated Kickstarters: BOTH
Amazing sculpts: Awaken Realms
Actually good games behind the ridiculousness: Awaken Realms
Solely exists on FOMO: Monolith

It's funny because I actually am aware of the differences between the two, but combine it being early and trying to multi-task between this and finishing up a project at work, and well, that's a major fuck-up of a post. I corrected it.

I do agree that Awaken Realms is better than Monolith.

See, even the fans can’t tell these games apart anymore. HIYO!