Thanks for the heads up!
So, Blood Rage launched today. As is typical for these things with CMON and Asmodee, they screwed up with the backers.
- If I just pre-ordered the game, it is unlocked
- If I buy the game now, it is unlocked
- If I backed the game and funded development, I don’t have a key yet.
Right now, they are “working on it.” It’s not the end of the world, but it’s safe to say it’s unlikely I will do another CMON/Asmodee kickstarter.
How’s the actual game? I was going to wait to see if it was a big a mess as initial release digital Scythe and Terraforming Mars before I buy.
It is probably a mess. I got my Steam key around 2:30 and haven’t had much time to play t. It is made by the people who did Catan Universal.
There is some improvement over the beta. The big tree in the middle doesn’t obstruct views and it is easier to see what provinces are affected by Ragnarok, and which will be destroyed in future phases.
But, the game is unnecessarily graphics intensive and feels like a game running on crappy hardware. The engine just doesn’t feel optimized at all.
Blood Rage is getting hammered in reviews. Apparently the online multiplayer is broken (it locks up a lot).
Yah, that (I think) happened to me. I did a quick match and we got through the first age no problem. Second age, a player forfeited and then the AI took over. There was a big fight in the center and someone looked like they went AFK, the clock ticked down and then I got, again, a player forfeited message. I bailed on the game then.
When I get a chance to play either people from here, or my regular gaming group, I will have a better idea of just how messed up it is, or just internet people being people.
wasn’t it in EA for a while? Either they don’t check the feedback or didn’t care. Maybe they got pressure from the publisher. Release it at 28052020 or skip the release bonus or something. I feel bad for the devs, usually it’s a management issue, when it is released in a buggy state.
No EA.
They had a 3 week “beta” that was in worse shape than this. They do have a fix in test for the multiplayer issue, though.
I didn’t realize it’s Exocet that made it. I haven’t played Catan Universal, but I hear it has a lot off issues.
It’s a fairly consistent issue with Asmodee digital releases.
Scythe, Terraforming Mars, now this.
With the lockdown in effect I have been playing Terraforming Mars 2-3 times a week with different people from my boardgame group remotely. Certainly not a great app but seems to work fine nowadays.
Not a good app but good enough for a pandemic huh? I’m guessing that’s not what they were going for. heh.
Asmodee is a shit company that destroyed Fantasy Flight Games. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Understood… but many of their apps work just fine. I use them in MP… a lot. I don’t understand why Terra would be different.
This dev team deserves more love. They have steadily been adding meaningful improvements to an already great base game.
Note my comments are around the single player game with AI opponents. No idea on multiplayer if that is important to you.
The game itself is really clean and elegant but with enough variant mechanics to main your interest. Great coffee/compile break game.
I have an idea because… I play it. I kick started that video game, and it’s a lot of fun, AI or player. It’s also cross-platform. Now if you don’t like the boardgame, well it’s probably not going to change anyone’s mind on that. It does make keeping track of stuff super easy though. I like the animations as well.
So MP away!
edit: forgot to mention, I play Android and Steam. My partner uses an Ipad… no issues really with either. I recall only one game kind of having an issues many moons ago.
Terraforming Mars and Scythe were complete clusterfucks on release.
Scythe STILL is.
Is Terraforming Mars good now? I ask because I seem to recall Tom saying it was a great boardgame, and I would love to try it!
It’s an excellent board game. The app is better than it was at launch, and I’ve been able to play and enjoy a half dozen rounds with various qt3 people, but I wouldn’t call it “good”. It’s still plagued by several baffling interface and usability issues that waste time and detract from the underlying quality.
Yeah, agreed. It’s perfectly functional but it takes some getting used to if you want to be able to understand the current game state. Good enough for lockdown games with friends.
The AI is pretty weak though, and the slowness of the interface (even on fastest speed) makes playing against the AI frustrating.
Well sure, but they have around 30 games via their digital front. Those two seem to be the exception, and these days I hear more about Terra’s issue than Scythes. That might be because people gave up talking about it outside a few boards/topics.