Dune: Imperium

I went to their web site to see more and found that same text (except for the who/whom thing) and a video . . . of that exact same text.

Looks pretty fun I think. Not sure I need to buy it (especially because it uses a weird dummy player 2p and seems like it wouldn't be great that way), but I'd certainly be interested in trying it out.

The only thing I've seen of this is the promotional image that makes it look very dull. The whole aesthetic is unappealing. Game might be great.

Yea the board is ugly, but the combination of deckbuilding and worker placement looks fun. The cards you buy have effects, but also determine where your can place workers each round, and also the cards left in your hand when you pass determine how much money you get to buy new cards. Plus there's a fight at the end of each round and whoever sends the most troops gets points or resources or whatever (with hidden cards you can get to boost your combat power after troops have been sent, etc). Lots of fun looking decisions going on.

Edit: looks like $50 for the game, and there's a $55 upgrade pack to replace all the wooden player pieces with minis for some reason.

www.direwolfdigital.com/news/dune-imperium-pre-order-10-29/

When I first saw it, I was totally underwhelmed by the visual design: a bunch of boxes with tiny images of desertscapes and symbology. I'm still kind of underwhelmed but understanding the game makes it a bit more intriguing. Rodney Smith put up a great video that's much shorter than the Dice Tower playthrough:



A deckbuilder with only 10 rounds is a bit of a concern, in that you'll only see those really cool cards that you purchased a couple times/game, unless you're able to set up an engine that lets you draw more on a regular basis. The flip side of that complaint is that 10 rounds means a game that moves swiftly and doesn't drag on too long. The counter-counterpoint is that my favorite game of this style, Tyrants of the Underdark, has never had that problem and I'm not one that's usually concerned about long games, either.

I'm not in a position to be spending more on games and I've never been as much of a Dune fan as most gamer-types (although I do own two copies of the original game for some reason), so I'm not necessarily the target audience for this. And, again, coming back to the visual design... ugh. Everything is just a bit too plain, I think.

Ratings according to BGG users:

Dune: Imperium is 8.2
the GaleForce Nine edition of original Dune is 8.2
the original Dune is 7.6
Rex is 7.1

I guess BGGers are easily impressed when a game recycles the old worker placement and deckbuilder mechanics.

It's getting very good reviews.

Yeah, every comment I've seen about it has been almost uniform in its content:

1. It's a great game.
2. The board is somewhere between pedestrian and awful.

Point #2 was my reaction, as well. I can't say that I've been totally sold by reviews and gameplay I've seen, but I have similar games (Tyrants of the Underdark, etc.), no money, and am not a Dune fanatic. I've also never played Clank!, so I don't have any attachment to Dire Wolf's output, to date. But it certainly seems like a well-designed package.

Charlie, you have a review of this yet?

Nah, don't have a copy of it. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it as there are very few worker placement games I enjoy.

I like worker placement, it sounds pretty good. Chris Farrell has a bunch of long comments on it on instagram, if you want a critical voice who likes it but has issues.

Thanks Gary. I actually picked it up right after Christmas, so I'll probably review it in a few weeks.