I actually did watch a video someone posted here a month or two back. Not sure if that’s the one you’re talking about. The combat system looks neat, and certainly different. I don’t remember seeing any other actual mechanics, and even if they were there, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to think much of them before playing. I’m sure they’ll be serviceable and work, which is what I expect from him. The adventure, writing, worldbuilding, exploration are what I’m interested in, and those will be there in spades.
It’s this one:
It was only posted 3 days ago and includes an actual small play session, rather than an overview of the game mechanics only.
Got a chance to play Bargain Quest for the first time with my wife + niece & nephews last night. Got it from Kickstarter earlier (reprint of original + expansion) this week so was excited to try it out. It’s a fun game, loved the theme, and it played pretty quickly once we got in a groove. We just played the base game but the KS came with a bunch of extra heroes, items, and other cards.
Each player owns their own fantasy-type shop, picking from about 7 or 8 different themes. The shops are all functionally the same but it’s nice to have some variety in the art. The basic goal of the game is to make as much money as possible from the heroes that visit your shop (money is converted to points at the end) while also scoring some extra victory points along the way.
You basically draft a hand of four cards each round, choosing one as your shop’s display item to try and lure one of the available heroes to come sample your wares. Once each player has enticed a hero to visit, you can sell any available items in your shop to them, taking coins from the limited supply of that particular hero. After equipping the heroes, it’s time to fight the monster!
There are three monsters to defeat, one at a time, in ascending order of difficulty. Each hero has a chance of wounding the monster, while also attempting to survive the encounter. The game ends once the final monster is defeated so the game could last anywhere from a minimum of 3 turns (unlikely!) on up. A monster will stick around if the heroes don’t accumulate enough wounds to defeat it that turn, inflicting a penalty on one or more players, depending on its special ability.
After the battle portion, surviving heroes earn a certain amount of gold if the monster was defeated, which goes into their individual pockets to be spent on future turns. Defeated heroes are replaced by the hero deck, which ends the game immediately if it ever fully depleted. Survivors earn half the loot amount if they merely survived the encounter but didn’t take the monster down. All items equipped by adventurers are discarded as well, as apparently these heroes don’t have time for used gear!
An upgrade phase occurs next, where the players can purchase a bonus for their shop, or perhaps hire an employee with his/her own special ability to aid in the cause. Then each player saves one or more cards (if they’ve upgraded their storage), discarding the rest of their hand, and the next round begins.
We had a lot of fun and I’m actually going to try this tonight with a different group (with 5 players again). Will probably mix in some of the extra heroes/cards for more variety as well. Definitely recommend it as a light game if anyone’s interested in the shopkeeper theme!
Played it last week. We liked it.
Wow, I thought the art looked familiar. They are using the art from the print and play Ilya Baranovsky build, which i have lol
The rules changes look interesting. I didn’t realize the advanced rules offered so much balancing.
I’m wondering if the changes will still allow me to plug in the expansions i have PNP version of.
To close the loop, I’m guessing that we can hear about how this worked out on this 3MA?
You say that, and then play Euphrat and Tigris!
Becca was super annoying, but she did get better when she toned it down about 8 notches later on.
She’s still kind of annoying at times.
Not sure if this is the right thread for it but I was hoping for some advice regarding the Pokemon TCG. I came across a big stack of cards (maybe 200 or 250) for about $7 at a yardsale today. When I saw that I thought, “This might be a fun game to get into with my son in a few years” (he’s turning 6 soon). Of course I’ve never played a Pokemon anything in my life and didn’t even bother looking through the cards because I would have had no idea what I was even looking at. I’ve since played through the tutorial on the iPad app and have a much better idea of how it works and it does seem fun. I went back to the yard sale but the cards were gone so perhaps it was a decent deal. Anyways, while I do have a better idea of how to play the game, I have no idea where to start in terms of getting cards. Do most people start out with some kind of a starter deck? Should I just be going around to yard sales and places where they sell second hand stuff in search for cards that most people don’t want anymore? I just want to have fun playing with my son, I have no interest in competitive play.
Short version: they trashed the balance
They tried to shorten the game by shrinking the map and increasing movement across the board, but then changed nothing to compensate for the mobility factions whose strength relied on a large map and slower movement.
I recently started playing this with my daughter. I just picked up two two theme decks. Picked up let’s go pikachu and eveee decks. It has everything you need to play. She has had fun and while not the most complicated card game ever it is an good intro to concepts and she loves Pokémon.
The Pokémon TCG is a great deal of fun even if you never move past starter decks, which are often far better balanced to be played with each other than other card games’ equivalent products. I recommend picking up whichever starter decks catch your eye with the most exciting-looking and/or the cutest Pokémon on the front. Alternatively, for a more-specifically-themed two-player box, see if you can find any of the Battle Arena sets. Each one includes two premade decks designed to fight the other, and typically have flashier cards than the starter decks.
Finally got around to Uboot today. I was very pleasantly surprised (probably because I went in with quite negative expectations despite an interest in the theme). It felt a lot like playing a Silent Hunter game; skills learnt playing those certainly transfer. That leads straight to my biggest criticism, of course: it would probably always have been better as a computer game.
Still, everyone around the table had a good time. The roles are fairly distinct and it wasn’t all about time pressure in the way that some co-op games are. We did play the training mission on easy though; there were certainly things that could have been much harder or more pressured.
It did seem very important to get the latest rules rather than the ones they shipped in the box. The action system was significantly reworked, I gather.
Played six-player TI4 today. I won, but only because a) another player made a mistake and grabbed a later-scoring strategy card and left #2 Diplomacy for me, and b) the player with the #1 Leadership scored a secret objective that meant he would hit 10 first in scoring and another player who couldn’t win decided to take his home planet to give the game to me. Classic TI, in other words.
Glad to hear it. I’ve been reading the rules and it sounds awesome.
I’d like to hear more. Is it really unbalanced or are people trying to play it as Dune and then getting upset that it’s not exactly the same? I saw a lot of people complaing that oh you can win Rex in round one, but you could do the same in Dune. So far I’ve enjoyed my plays of rex and haven’t seen any problems.
I do like the extra betrayer option. While I wouldn’t play with it all the time, I think it would be fun to have that one team that sits there and debates if they should screw over all their teammates.
Stuff only Dune/Rex players would care about
Summary
The Fremen and Guild relied on the slow movement + large map. It was their main strength. The Guild especially because they have nothing else going for them with the worst leaders in the game. Atredis and Harkonnen also leaned on it since they started the game occupying space ports that increased movement. The two factions with no movement bonuses were Bene Gessrit and the Emperor, who had AMAZING strengths to compensate for that.
Hacan (Guild) and Sol (Fremen) got no boosts to compensate for their strengths being undercut. The weaknesses of Xxcha (Bene Gessrit) and Lazax (Emperor) were downplayed but their strengths were not reduced to compensate. In fact they buffed Lazax by eliminating end of turn money trading for everyone, giving Lazax the monopoly on money lending.
They took away the blank cards from Dune, which were part of Harkonnen and Atredis strength. Letnev and Jol’Nar get no boosts to compensate for this (on top of their starting movement bonus being undercut).
On top of all that, they just flat out removed the elite units for Sol (Fremen). I…have no clue why. But they let Lazax (Emperor) keep theirs. So on top of all the direct and indirect buffs for Lazax, they get another massive one.
In addition to the balance issues, I just don’t like the Rex map as much as Dune. The flat hemisphere layout was clear and it was easy to see connections and lines of attack/defense. The Rex map has all this laid out in a abstract way which results in it being not as intuitive to me.
Also, the smaller map/greater movement means that instead of the more deliberate build-up/move/blow-out battle sequence of Dune, you have a more frenzied game flow, which is just not as good IMO.
Rex did clean up some things, but all things considered I strongly prefer Dune.
The moving orbital bombardment fleet in Rex is cooler than the sand storms in Dune.
That’s about the only kind thing I’ll say about Rex.
Thanks for the info. Yeah the bombardment didn’t bother me. Follow the numbers. Not having played Dune enough to know I guess that’s why I haven’t seen the problem.
Dune: Huge map. Fremen move twice as fast as other factions. Atredis and Harkonnen can move triple(?) if they start at their ports. Landing new units outside of major strongholds (like, on top of a spice field) costs double. Placement and movement must be thought out in advance.
Rex: Map shrunk by half. Standard movement doubled. Fremen now only move 50% faster, with move speed less important on top of that. Costs of landing units is flipped so that landing outside strongholds is half as much, making it so you can land armies directly on top of spice blooms to claim them, then move quickly to other spots. Much less advance planning required.
Read over the new Dune rules. I love how alliances are now limited to 2 players. That change was badly needed. 3 man alliances were no brainers, and a 1-2 player team couldn’t compete. Don’t like how The Voice power for the Bene Gessrit player was buffed. That ability was already ridiculous on top of a ridiculous faction (do all their leaders really need to be strength 5?).