As weird west? Probably. But I’m always dubious about designs that try to be both coop and competitive in the same game. I mean, is it possible to do both well? Probably. But I don’t think I’ve played a game that does, and not infrequently I think both versions suffer for trying. (For example, you know how I said I don’t like what I’ve played of Flying Frog’s stuff? A Touch of Evil tries to be both and I dunno how it is in PvP but it sure didn’t feel built for coop.)
That said, I did back Dire Alliance: Horror because it was relatively cheap ($50) and unlike most of these games, it brought in completely different designers for the two halves, the Undaunted guys for PvP and the Sadler Bros for coop. So I don’t know if I’ll ever play it PvP, but I have some hope the coop design will stand on its own.
Does anyone here own or have you played a ludus magnus game?
They all look really cool, but I get the feeling they’re all just fluff miniatures with poor or just okay mechanics. Am I wrong?
Black Rose sounds cool as does DEI but can’t tell from what I’ve found in the normal chanels.
I’m pretty sure Tom and I purchased The Mission, a solo game about the rise of Christianity - mainly because I got a shipping notice to his name and address for both our copies.
Oh, cool, so I’ve got two copies on the way! I also got First Jihad, which is the same designer’s game about the rise of Islam. They’re probably sending you my copy.
Oh, cool, so I’ve got two copies on the way! I also got First Jihad, which is the same designer’s game about the rise of Islam. They’re probably sending you my copy.
I thought about the Jihad, but the production value was very suspect. Either way, when one of us receives two copies of something, lets PM to get it figured out :P
The TL;DR is that right after Champions of Hara was released, the designer issued an errata to the starting set-up of the board. But five months ago, based on the designer’s pre-release video playthrough of one of the scenarios, someone noticed that the new set-up seems to have broken that scenario. What’s more, it looks like many of the scenarios were similarly affected. It looks like the designer errata’ed the default set-up, but he didn’t adjust the scenario specific set-ups. So many of the scenarios probably aren’t working as intended.
For a month, I’ve been trying to contact the designer and the publisher, through PMs on BGG and emails. The designer eventually sent me a non-reply, saying he was going to get around to answering questions in the new few weeks. And today, I was berated by the publisher for “frequent badgering” and being “over critical”. Ugh. I’m used to games being abandoned or poorly supported. Sadly, it’s part of the hobby. There are so many games flooding the market, and so few of them are rigorously tested or played. Player standards are disappointingly low, especially for issues of QA and tuning.
But why did it have to happen to one of my favorite games?
You either have to ignore the errata’ed set up – which is what Greenbrier seems to be doing, as they’ve neglected to include it in their official errata – or rotate the scenario set-up instructions one space clockwise.
Note that’s an assumption on my part, as I haven’t gotten an actual answer from the publisher or designer. When Walter Barber errata’ed the set-up for how World Tiles are aligned, I figured he did it to make sure everything was set up correctly. Instead, he might have literally broken many of the scenarios he designed.
I see now on your update on the BGG thread that you did have a good call with someone else w/the publisher, which is good. Still no answer, but at least they were gracious and not adopting the other guy’s ‘kill the messenger’ approach.
Notes:
Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers - Long awaited reprint
Dice Throne: S1 Rerolled individual sets that were bundled for the Kickstarter. Treant vs Ninja is new