Anyone up for yet more Aeon’s End content?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/aeons-end-the-new-age/
We got to play last night! I was so excited. We have a handful of other games I was given to crack open but hey this made the list.
I am going start buy saying that I believe the instructions are supremely bad. There is just something about the way it approaches the entire idea that does’t fully work, you wind up consulting the instructions a lot and then just going to Google.
At some point you and your group might ask yourself if it’s worth the squeeze, and the answer is, yes it is. Every single person at the table had their hands on the manual at some point, either to look up the instructions or use the index to see what cards were out there to get. This is important for our group because tow of them are usually the kind of just go along, watch everyone else, until it clicks and they were actually trying to figure out if their approach to the game still made sense
It was an overall very fun and exciting (yes it got tense at the end) experience despite some of the unnecessarily early stumbling due to the way they organized this game.
Components:
They’s actually pretty good, held up well. The Base Cards are a bit thin in that they can bend kind of easily but they’re not scuffing up or fraying thus far. They’re weirdly shaped for no good reason at all
The base board is two sided, one is a beginners side that helps with game set-up The dice, there are only two and they’re huge, are nice to look at but don’t worry too much about the random nature of it. It does introduce some random risk but it does not substitute strategy.
Quick reference. Hand them out, use them… encourage people to read them. I kept encouraging one person to stop trying to memorize and struggle with ideas and just read it, and by the end she was one of the ones contended for first place and very excited, totally over that confusion hurdle.
I could go on and on about the components, but they’re good. I had one mini with a piece broken off and so far all the rest seem fine.
Game Play
This is where the game stumbles the most, and a group could get bogged down by it. The way it describes augmenting powers (basically taking your colored bogs and moving it from one circle to another going left to right), is confusing.
The middle circle, Influence, is what you use throughout the most of the game. The far left is useless, you don’t want blocks in there, and the far right is rare but really gives you a leg up with either the ability to do action, like control a part of the map, or do something better. This is also just regular influence whereas specialized influence allows you to do specific actions. You convert regular influence into specialized in a way that is basically a pretty color wheel… red (strength) and blue (knowledge) combine to make vision (purple).
This whole idea of influence as a basically something you earn and spend and get back is centric to the game. This is also how you wind up with a lot of people doing different and interesting things all with the same goal in mind, trying to get as much honor as possible.
You might have person A loading upon strength companions, building up courage and he’s diving into the Gaping Maw to destroy monsters which defeating gives him honor but also bonus ways to get more honor at end game. oh no, he rolled poorly and lost a hero but he’s still going in there.
Person B started with a Secret Quest to focus on knowledge, so as soon as the libraries showed up she’s been hanging out getting knowledge and knowledge based companions to master that, she’s also halfway to getting vindicated
Person C picked upgraded her mount early on, she’s whipping around the board picking up Traits and Companions and picked up a Relic…
Person D really liked the Relic the other person got and is now two Relics in. Instead of using her precious Conviction to buy as much as the maps as others did, she’s using it to choose from 4 cards instead of the face up one or the blind hidden one to focus her efforts.
The kind of neat characteristic of the game is how it’s not hugely difficult it is to keep track of all of this, an dhow genuinely curious / interested you are when someone uses that companion that basically can’t get killed by a monster, or the one that gives you an extra turn. Because the cards are unique, the Index pages are great at showing you what is available so you don’t have to guess which pile has the best chance of helping you with your specific strategy. Unfortunately the Index pages don’t help with clarifying as much as I hoped it would. I’ve got a feeling we used some of our cards incorrectly, but the second time around, and they made it clear there will be 2nd, 3rd and more playing, it will be a group decision on those and/or forums confirmation.
So complicated to start, very, very long but worth it for 5 players, 3-4 might be a sweeter spot but mostly for time not complications, and maybe some space considerations. You really don’t hide much, and the favored cards are well known by the end of the night.
We only played with one minor expansion this time, the treachery one.
I sure hope so. If only they came back with those of us who let them know it was an issue that they were planning on working on it. Apparently my board has a slight dent in it. I won’t be asking for a replacement board though. It’s barely noticeable. Heck i didn’t notice it until it was pointed out but a lot of pieces were just plastic wrapped outside the box, and t’s a slight challenge to get it into the box (mine has the expansions).
Hi Nesrie’s,
Many thanks for the in depth and informative after action report on your first game. I love that, even with the rules uncertainty and confusion, each player managed to go for their own distinct strategy and all had a good time.
It’s always a good sign when people want to play the game again when they finish. You’ve got a good chance of it hitting the table again.
I’m looking forward to the game even more so. Only 8+ months to go. :)
Thanks for the warning. Nowadays, it’s rare I start playing a new game or even reading the manual before I’ve watched a how to play video to give me a rough idea of what I’m about to learn and allow myself to catch more details from the manual.
So I’ve got JonGetsGames and Tom Teaches videos bookmarked for closer to release:
You’re probably right about the videos. I just hate doing that. I don’t enjoy watching 20+ min set-up and play video in order to learn board games.
These creators, especially the KS ones, could spend some of those resources designed ultra fragile and special looking minis and maybe just tighten up the the manual that tells people how to play. It also doesn’t help that early on you can see where some at that company didn’t even agree, initially, how what you’re supposed to do.
In the hall of the mountain King has 2 hours to go and looks very neat: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burntislandgames/in-the-hall-of-the-mountain-king
I like the combination of the digging through the mountain through Tetris like pieces and the cascading resource gathering.
Rahdo liked it:
Compared to some other retail / deluxe editions, it’s also pretty neatly priced. I had decided not to back another Kickstarter for some time. But I want that deluxe edition…
I backed that one yeah
Speaking of final hours, the Pocket Games of the Eighties kickstarter from Steve Jackson Games is less than 24 hours from completion:
I held off on joining until just yesterday because I still have so many of these from back in the day, but they’ve unlocked so many goodies that, well, I jumped in at the $200 level so I could grab a whole bunch of them. I’m an easy mark for Steve Jackson, what can I say.
Dead Matter, has been delayed once again. Now they are putting the release of the Alpha at “summer” but they refuse to be specific.
https://playdeadmatter.com/2019/03/01/community-update-9/
The brief history is :
The KS began July 2017, offered the closed Alpha in 6 months.
Nov 2017 they stated they needed another year.
Nov 2018 they stated they needed 2-3 more months
March 2019 they now say “summer” (purposely unspecific).
KS originally raised over $210K after asking for $45K.
Continuous Indie GoGo has raised almost an additional $300K.
In two weeks, two former Raven devs will be launching a Kickstarter for their promising retro shooter Prodeus. I haven’t backed anything for years, but I’m keen to support the indie FPS movement.
The campaign’s live. Prodeus has already reached a 5th of the funding goal so it’s off to a decent start!
And backed. Thank you!
No, thank you for supporting the indie FPS renaissance!
I got my Legacy Edition reissue of The Fantasy Trip today, which Steve Jackson Games released via Kickstarter!
No, it’s not a video game. Ha ha
You running a campaign? How do we sign up?
Thanks so much! Every bit helps. It’s been such a long time since we wanted to go indie, the potential success of this kickstarter will help us continue our goal.
The pleasure is all on this side of the table. ;) I mean y’all had me at Raven. ;)
Backed
Silk
(Looks like they are in trouble as far as making their goal, and time is short)
From the Kickstarter page:
Rise into glory by running your caravan from the Roman Empire to war-torn Three Kingdoms China. Defend yourself from bandits, sandstorms, and rebellions by hiring Advisors skilled in everything from battle to wayfinding. Fall in love with your own unique party of Advisors and the enchanting world of the Ancient Silk Road in 200 AD.
Silk is a Sandbox RPG Adventure Game and a tribute to the late Mike Singleton, especially his groundbreaking 1984 game The Lords of Midnight.
The engine used to produce the world of Silk has an identical design to the original ‘landscaping engine’ he designed, although it uses 2D assets rendered in Unity to create a more vibrant feeling wilderness with retro roots and a contemporary lo-fi vibe. All the exploration and warfare of the original will be here, along with trading and recruiting Advisors who make up an RPG party inspired by the Clan Ring of King of Dragon Pass.
There’s a demo for PC, Linux, and Mac
Spellcaster University
(Lots of time to go, and they look well on their way to making their goal.)
From the Kickstarter page:
In Spellcaster University, you take on the role of a magic university director in a world of heroic fantasy full of angry orcs and fanatical inquisitors. Build your school, manage your budget, recruit teachers. Will you make it a high place of black magic, with the best teachers of necromancy and demonology? Or a place in harmony with nature to train druids and shamans? Or why not train adventurous mages, offering them options to learn to fight and be discreet? But this will require surviving the ruthless attacks of the Orc tribes and the controls of the education authorities.
Spellcaster University is a management game: you build your school, manage the budget, appoint teachers. But it is also a “card driven” game: all your constructions, your improvements, are played with the help of cards. You draw these cards from different decks linked to different magic schools.
Manage the well-being of your students by building refectories, dormitories, rest rooms… but also their discipline, by building a dungeon for example…
Customize your rooms with powerful artifacts such as Xar’Saroth’s raclette machine or the Soul Devouring Bed. Everyone has a unique power that will help you improve your university.
Fill your school with legendary creatures: dragons, fauns, pegasus, janitors… they each bring different bonuses. If used properly, they will make your university glorious.
Compose your pedagogical team by choosing your teachers wisely, according to their pedagogy, alignment, personality traits…
Select your students carefully. Traits, personality, alignment, wealth… each of these aspects has its importance. Especially wealth.
Offer your students a glorious future: at the end of their studies, you discover their destiny (necromancer, archimage, peasant…) according to the success of their studies, and win new bonuses. These bonuses can follow you throughout the campaign, so form them well!
Open specialized classes to make your students more effective. Each class allows you to define a program, but also special features that will be shared by all the students in the class. Why not make a class of nerds, sportsmen, or with the most beautiful?
For PC only. There is a demo.
(Crossposted to the boardgame thread)
Cheapass Games, the venerable-but-also-kind-of-uneven-but-also-it-was-1996-so-still-pretty-impressive game company run by celebrity game designer James Ernest has announced a Kickstarter book compiling the rules and design notes on all their games:
They’ll be releasing print-and-play versions of many of the games, one-a-day, as the campaign continues.