It felt a little light when I played it a few months ago in Beta. I’ll take another look at release to see if they added a few systems to make it feel crunchier. It feels like it straddles a strange line of being too light for heavy grognards like myself and too complicated for more casual players who want something more like Talisman.
Coincidentally I played a game last night and had the 4 spirit stones I needed to win, but couldn’t make it into the castle before the end of the game and the bear won with 5 prestige.
Gave it another play before listening to the TMA podcast and, well, I think I lean towards Paul’s take on the game. It’s fine as it stands and quite beautiful to look at, but it doesn’t compel me to keep playing it in its current state. I enjoyed the Spirit Stones victory I got, but the game felt a little short, a little underdeveloped, and, well, very arbitrary. Hopefully they keep tinkering with its depth (hopefully for more) and turn it into something that really rewards multiple plays.
I won when the rabbit tried to fight the king, but they both died because the rabbit wasn’t good at fighting and the corrupted king was down to one health. Oh hey, look, I have the highest prestige. I win!
-Tom
Yeah, as nice looking as this game is (except that you can’t zoom out far enough to actually see a significant portion of the board), it’s not deep. I’ve never seen a game end any way except by prestige. There aren’t many interesting choices. Playing single-player is painful because you spend most of your time just waiting for the computer to take its turns, during which time you can’t do anything. If you’re not the wolf dude you’ll probably die every turn.
It really is quite nice looking, though.
I wish someone would computerize Twilight Imperium 3 instead :)
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Ha. I mostly agree with that review, except I don’t think “there’s a lot happening”. It’s a bog-standard fantasy-adventure board game, where you draw a card to see what your quest is (and it is always “move to a random space and roll some dice”), move to that space, roll dice, repeat. Unless you’re not the wolf, in which case you’ll nearly always be killed before your turn comes back around, so you have to start from your starting space again, so you’ll never actually complete a quest anyway.
I definitely agree that the fact that you can’t zoom out and see the whole board is mind-boggling. You can zoom out – a little – but when you do, you can’t see anything!
Edit: I do want to add that they ran a really professional Kickstarter, and delivered exactly what they promised (I don’t think it was exactly on time, but it was in a very reasonable time frame). And it is a great-looking game. So I don’t feel ripped off or anything, I just don’t care for the result.
I see this from time to time, what does “bog standard” mean?
I have no idea what the etymology is (but I’m sure as heck going to look it up now). I’m use it to mean “completely ordinary; strictly following the standards of the genre”. Or, in other words, Armello does just what every other fantasy-adventure board game does, it doesn’t stand out among them.
Edit: The Oxford English Dictionary describes “bog standard” as: “slang (depreciative, chiefly Brit.). Ordinary, basic, standard without extra features or modification; unexceptional or uninspired.”
The etymology is unknown, but it may come from “box standard”, as if that explains anything.
Interestingly enough, in Armello, you lose one points of health when you end your turn on a bog. You could call that rule the “bog standard”.
Here all night, try the veal, etc., etc., etc.
-Tom
I played this with my brothers the other day using skype, and it was pretty fun. It is clearly pure Ameritrash, with little or no real strategy and lots of dice chucking. The game does go on a bit longer than it should, due in large part to the slow guards and AI players (they should be like 2x as fast, I don’t care if it looks weird). The interface is also kind of a mess, with important information being relegated to menus and submenus. That said, it was still enjoyable, especially with voice chat. I don’t think I’ll ever play it with strangers, though, for reasons pointed out in Tom’s review.
I guess they read Tom’s review. They cleared up some of the clouds/fog when you zoom out. Also, you can select the animals used by the AI players.
I was just listening to the QT3 Movie Podcast for “Straight Outta Compton”, and Tom refers to it as “bog-standard”. So HA!
Armello is available on GOG in a DRM-free format.
HOWEVER…
There is a caveat.
http://leagueofgeeks.com/forums/index.php?topic=2613
[quote]
We’ve had fantastic meetings with GoG about the future of Armello on the platform and although there’s no way for us to provide DLC for DRM Free users or to attempt to retain parity with the Steam version of Armello, Armello DRM Free Edition will see features that best suit a DRM Free experience picked across from other platforms into early-mid 2017, helping LoG & GoG (lol) reach our mutual goal of providing users the best possible DRM Free Armello experience.[/quote]
The fault with Arnello, Horatio, is not in it’s DRM, but in itself.
I don’t understand, why does being DRM free exclude the possibility of DLC in this case? Plenty of other games do it.
It’s an excuse. A bad one at that.
All I know is that they lost a customer.
GOG is offering refunds on Armello.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/armello_drmfree_edition_now_available_on_gog_2b6bf/post387
[quote]
Due to changes to the GOG.com version of Armello and the fact that some online functionalities and future content for the game will not be available on GOG.com, we want to make sure all prior owners have a choice. If you feel that the current version of Armello is not something you wished for back when you bought the game - please contact our support team for a refund.[/quote]
Meanwhile, game director Trent Kusters posted this half-assed explanation:
[quote]
DLC on DRM Free
Just because another studio or game has DLC on DRM Free, doesn’t mean it’s immediately a possibility for us or Armello. Assuming as much is incredibly naive. Every team’s processes, resources, and games are innumerably different.
Almost every single piece of conjecture about ways we could have or should roll out our DLC on DRM Free have either been wildly off course or avenues we’ve already investigated.
Now, of course it’s theoretically possible to have DLC on DRM Free, I mean, there’s a robot taking selfies on Mars right now. So sure, given infinite resources and time we could undertake the task of rewriting the underlying architecture at the core of this decision, but that’s straight up not feasible for a vast number of reasons that are unique to LoG, Armello, where we’re standing right now and where we see Armello’s future.[/quote]
Salute!