I think you are taking what I said out of context despite repeated attempts to clarify the context and taking offense that is not warranted on that basis. But I don’t think this discussion is productive and I for one intend to drop it.
Speaking of legacy games:
Wow. That’s right up my alley.
I feel like a legacy campaign structure and the Betrayal “you could be playing basically any horror movie and you don’t know until it’s too late” structure are pretty directly at odds but I’ll be really interested to see what the result looks like.
Man, I thought Risk Legacy was a great idea, and I even enjoyed playing it, although my group never got through the whole 15 games.
Seafall was a wreck. Some people in my group liked it, but it was so imbalanced, the rules so hard to follow, and so random that it was more frustrating than fun.
Also, Betrayal is, in my opinion, one of the worst games ever made. So… count me out of this one.
Looking forward to Charterstone, though.
The only issue I had with Risk Legacy was how convoluted a couple of the unlock conditions were. We had to just collectively agree to bypass one of them by game 12 or so just to get all the content in.
We also opened the “never open this” envelope before the second to last game and it was delightful.
Good stuff, but I don’t think I ever need another Legacy game. The itch I didn’t know I had has been thoroughly scratched.
Nah, I kinda feel about it like… well, Caylus sort of invented the worker-placement genre, but it isn’t a good game (I will FIGHT you), but later games significantly improved on it. Now we have Tzolkin!
Dominions invented the deckbuilding game, but it isn’t good either (I will STILL FIGHT you). Now we have a billion of them, and a lot of them are good. I like Clank, Tyrants, Star Realms…
So, I’m just waiting for someone to take the Legacy idea and make a good game out of it. Obviously a lot of people like Pandemic, but I don’t like coop games, so it doesn’t appeal to me at all.
It feels like attack mode when you take disproportionate offense where none was intended. This isn’t P&R. You can relax. We’re just people talking about things and sometimes our opinions differ.
-Tom
Charterstone is my next best hope for this, as well. Have you bought it yet?
-Tom
The Dice Tower thought Charterstone was pretty bland, but they are generally biased toward Ameritrash. I’m waiting till more outlets weigh in before I decide on Charterstone.
Plus I really want to play Seafall before I try a different legacy game. I know it got panned but I’ve heard good things from a couple friends, one who is a game shop manager and the other has a gaming podcast. Neither of them has led me astray yet and they both play heaps of games.
While both agree that Seafall doesn’t live up to the massive hype it had going into a GenCon last year, the consensus seems to be that it’s still a pretty decent game.
Well, the plus side is that the way the hype cratered on that one, you should be able to get it supercheap.
That’s not totally true, they really liked the basic worker placement game but didn’t feel the legacy stuff was as exciting as something like Pandemic Legacy.
Which is interesting, and might point to what it’ll take to make competitive legacy style games successful.
I’ve seen CoolStuffInc and a couple of other places selling Seafall for around $30. I feel bad for the FLGS that picked up several copies on the back of the pre-release hype, sucks for them.
Yep, I paid like 30 bucks for my copy I think.
Gotcha, @Richard_Holt, I guess my takeaway was a bit off. Though, I’d argue that a bland legacy component in a legacy game doesn’t bode well.
I dunno, depends on how good the base game is. I don’t like Risk, Pandemic or Betrayal, but Pandemic Legacy was phenomenal largely because of the legacy components, and I imagine the same went for Risk and (if it’s any good) will go for Betrayal. But Stonemaier have a track record of turning out much better games.
I know, it’s an enigma. But I don’t think we’ve seen any indication yet that there is design space for a game that’s both competitive but changes significantly and unpredictably between sessions. So maybe Charterstone is on firmer ground than Seafall, which I believe went all in on legacy stuff, with getting a good base game and modifying it a little over time.
Are there any interesting competitive legacy games on the horizon?
I think Dominions is the best deck builder if you are playing with nonGamer types. My wife would veer away from a SciFi or Fantasy theme but Dominions she could get her wrapped around. I think you only need two editions (the original or prosperity) to play with the family etc.
It’s hard to be certain about interesting, when not letting players know much about the game somehow became one of the core tenets of the Legacy genre. That said, Rise of Queensdale has about as good a pedigree as it gets. Alea has a phenomenal hit rate for gamer’s eurogames; if they can’t get this right, who can?
German version this spring, English version in time for Gencon.
Sorry to get up on my “Dominions is teh suck” soapbox, but the problem with playing Dominions with nonGamer types is that you’re showing them a suboptimal design with a hardcoded and esoteric gameplay core (i.e. when do you shift from an economic engine to a victory point engine). There are so many other better deck-builders you could introduce them to, even if they’re folks like your wife who would poo-poo sci-fi or fantasy. The DC Comics deck-builder is really cool for casuals. The theming in Ascension is non-standard fantasy/sci-fi with nifty artwork. The Aliens co-op game is sci-fi, but it’s popular movie sci-fi! Arctic Scavengers is a great design – my favorite deck-builder, I think – and it’s not the usual pew-pew lasers sci-fi, but instead it’s post-apocalypse survival sci-fi. It also has the same modular situation as Dominions where you can set up different types of games depending on what cards you use for the game.
-Tom
Got to agree with Tom, it does happen! This game’s bad design will make less experienced gamers hate it too. The only difference is they will not be able to put their finger on exactly why.
I picked up the Trains standalone expansion, Rising Sun, for cheap, and I’m quite liking it as a game to play with a range of skill levels. The expansion’s introductory card selection are quite straight forward and it seems hard for anyone to break their deck.
I really need to pick up Arctic Scavengers at some point…
I understand the argument but I was able to get my wife to play Dominions and having her play is a treat (even if the game is not the best example of a deck builder). When we play as a family the game is just a mechanism to have some fun (so the game is secondary for my wife). My kids on the other hand will try more games.
Now the funny thing is that one of her favorite games is Acquire (go figure).