To add to what @rowe33 said, they often require you to cut, poke, or otherwise permanently alter the game.
We have thus far managed to render them replayable by running off copies of the book and stuff, because my wife’s sister also has a few and so we swap them after beating.
But, as they are puzzles, once you beat it and know the solution, there is little reason to redo one.
But at $10-15 a pop, they are I feel good value. 4-6 people and a nights entertainment for the cost of two people getting fast food.
The Unlock games are completely replayable by someone else by the way. No alterations or cut up cards, etc. I think we prefer the Exit series overall but they’re both a lot of fun and well worth it.
Okay my Kickstarter demon is demanding blood. I’m stumped on which to back
Pipeline
City on Big Shoulders
Barrage
I want them all, but let’s be realistic. Right now that’s my order. Pipeline and City are mainly due to Edward from Heavy Cardboard’s gushing over them for the past year. Barrage looks cool, but I’m hit and miss with the designers. I find Marco Polo to be the most boring version of Hansa Teutonica ever. It’s a game I should like but it did absolutely nothing for me.
Huh. This one looks interesting. I’ve saved it so I get a reminder before the KS ends.
I wish there was a good site for playing 18XX-games, but all I’ve found are different PBEM-facilitators and such. Seems like the type of games that has a fanbase that would fix a website for asynchronous online play.
Yeah, I should do a write up for each, since there was definitely some we liked more. Tonipails Treasure and the Wizard of Oz for Unlock were the tops. Exit The Forgotten Island was our favorite there.
How dare you address me instead of quoting and tagging @cpugeek13 directly!
Seriously, though, the KS-video makes it seem like the game has a lot of different things going on, but I agree with you that it seems to be streamlined (in a good way).
Streamlined? The games rules are 40 pages! It seems like a combination of 18xx and Arkwright, but with the best parts of those games removed. There is a stock market, but its not possible to do the stock shenanigans of 1830 (i.e. no buying out a opponent’s company and then tanking it). There is a product attractiveness score like in Arkwright, but it seems like it just gives a bonus resource instead of being integral to the selling mechanics. Plus, there are just a lot of extra stuff layered on top – managers, salespeople, capital resources – which seems more like fluff than actual meaningful mechanics.
I was interested in the game until I read this thread and realized that it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Its just another action-optimization Euro with lots of extra crap bolted on.
