Sleeping Gods Review - The Most Impressive Board Game I've Ever Seen Designed
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
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"Are the stars unfamiliar here?" she asked, and the sky grew suddenly dark, the star's patterns alien and exotic. "This is the Wandering Sea. The gods have brought you here, and you must wake them if you wish to return home."
In Sleeping Gods, you and up to 3 friends become Captain Sofi Odessa and her crew, lost in a strange world in 1929 on your steamship, the Manticore. You must work together to survive, exploring exotic islands, meeting new characters, and seeking out the totems of the gods so that you can return home.
Sleeping Gods is a campaign game. Each session can last as long as you want. When you are ready to take a break, you mark your progress on a journey log sheet, making it easy to return to the same place in the game the next time you play. You can play solo or with friends throughout your campaign. It's easy to swap players in and out at will. Your goal is to find at least fourteen totems hidden throughout the world. Like reading a book, you'll complete this journey one or two hours at a time, discovering new lands, stories, and challenges along the way.
Sleeping Gods is an atlas game. Each page of the atlas represents only a small portion of the world you can explore. When you reach the edge of a page and you want to continue in the same direction, you simply turn to a new page and sail onward.
Sleeping Gods is a storybook game. Each new location holds wild adventure, hidden treasures, and vivid characters. Your choices affect the characters and the plot of the game, and may help or hinder your chances of getting home!
Welcome to a vast world. Your journey starts now.
BGG Link - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2...
TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Overview
0:06:35 - Ease of Play
0:08:34 - Player Count
0:09:14 - What I Like
0:12:00 - What I Didn't Like
0:14:34 - What I Can See Others Not Liking
0:19:43 - Final Thoughts
0:21:55 - Recommendations
5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands.
4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc.
4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience.
3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad.
3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep.
2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again
1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend
1.0 - A game that is just bad.
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For media inquiries, please email me at alex@boardgameco.com 
Игры
Alex, I agree with everything you said, except for combat, which I enjoyed more as it got more difficult. I’ve played over 80 hours of SG, and I would like to point out a few things you might not have noticed: (1) The game has another great goal: To learn to play it better, so that we have more fun using our keywords, and our scores get higher and higher. (2) After you win a few games, if you are using your achievement sheet, you discover that you can unlock new rules that make SG easier or harder (your choice). Thus, SG becomes a non-destructive legacy game! (I was always tempted to drop my unlocks and start playing a full legacy game from the beginning, but I didn’t.) (3) There are difficult combats. Some explore actions can force you into two combats. You will enter the second combat with your crew already wounded, with some of your best advantages now unavailable, and with very few combat tokens. I once spent 30 minutes planning how to survive a combat. I might have found the only way. (4) After 80 hours, I was still willing to do all that page turning, to find out new things about this wonderful world; but I agree: an app would be best. (5) The story texts were written by THREE people, not just the two Laukats. Check the beginning of the story book; I forget Brenna's last name. (6) The solo game is simpler, since when more people play, you have to learn additional rules about using each other’s crew members. I suspect that yes, the 2-player game would be awesomely exciting. But this is one of the best solo games ever, because its method of making the solo player try to overcome the game is so natural. (7) It’s remarkable how well the little locations on the map are drawn to match their descriptions in the story book. It would have been easy to settle for less. The close terrain matches provide many additional hints about where to travel. (8) I got to see most of the enemy monsters in the game. The monster art is, I think, okay; but many of the choices of monsters to fight do not precisely match the text, and this is often a very minor bummer. - toby
Love the balanced review and always appreciative when people give their honest experience instead of going with the grain.
For me it wasn’t the mechanics that bothered me it was the lack of central narrative not guiding me through the game. Everything feels like side quests with variations on the same rewards. I could certainly see this being better multiplayer than solo (the way i played) as managing so many characters is kinda unwieldy.
Agree 100% with this. The mechanics for me were great
If they had tied this into an overarching narrative and worldbuilding it would have been incredible
If I ever reviewed stuff, I’d do the same having a personal score and then a more general, overall score because sometimes I don’t always agree with popular opinions but still recognize how good a game is or vise versa.
It's always hard to balance that...how do I extrapolate my opinion onto the general gaming space? I felt it was essential here though.
@@BoardGameCo You could almost give things a range, and say personally for me its a 3.5, but if XYZ doesn't bother you i could easily see this as a 4.5 or 5 for the audience. I think it would be much harder, on games you really like and give say a 5 out of 5, but realize if you don't like X mechanic/theme etc.. it could easily be a 3 out of 5 or a complete pass. Anyways just a thought
Love the personal and general score as well. This just solidified my desire to get this when the new one comes out. Great review as always, loved the top down camera shots to show the maps. (I love maps)
Glad to help :)
Huh, I find the combat thrilling, because for me, it continues the story. Who do I send out to fight? How damaged are they right now? I am literally making up cool back stories in my head as I go through the battle sequence, about the characters taking brave and bold actions ... or shrinking from combat ... or stepping in front to guard their friends.
And as you said, yep, if you play solo, you have given yourself a whole lot more "busywork" to worry about that will distract from the story and the "fun" of the game. I think a minority of people would enjoy this game solo, and most would enjoy it best at 2 or 3.
Thanks for the thoughtful review. I like the separate personal and game ratings.
Very interesting opinions! 7th Continent to me was great, but not as a board game. When you would explore and go into a cave, the whole map would go away and dozens of cards would have to be put away and reorganized, only to have to get them all back out again even though you were just on them when you come back out of the cave. I enjoyed it much more when playing on Tabletop Simulator with scripts that manage all the cards for you. I am very excited for ISS Vanguard, but Im antsy for something like it to fill the time til then. Maybe Ill pick this up!
I do like how they try to teach the rules. Going through the first part walk through truly helped when my group started reading the rules.
Your reviews are always honest, concise, interesting and informative. Id love you to review Folklore the Affliction, Star Wars Rebellion and War of the Ring.
I got to play a couple of rounds with a friend right after he got his copy. It looked really cool and I debated on maybe borrowing it over the summer to play when I could give it the time it required. Your comment about solo vs multiplayer will help me as I consider this option. Thanks for the insight!
I'm playing it 2p and it's incredible. I can imagine it being even better with 3-4.
A lot of what goes into the game is who controls what crew members and what you can and cannot do to help the other people.
As a result, it lends like this rhythm to the game. My wife is the one who travels because of the bonuses she gets for it. And I get extra command when I explore. It also plays into a meta narrative of 'Well Raphael would do this.'. Would he? I don't know. But I know I'm doing this. And I control Raph.
Despite being a happily married couple we have shouted "TOUGH SH** I'M THE CAPTAIN NOW" before I rush us headlong into a fight we came out bloodied and bruised. "Nice going there Raph."
In a single player you also get so few command if really limits what you can do I'd imagine. Even in a 2p game we NEVER have command. But choosing what to spend that command on is always an in depth discussion.
I'm happy Sleeping Gods has a solo mode for those who still want to experience it. But even Dice Tower members who played it at 2p+ liked it a lot more than those who played it solo. It's just missing a big part of the game without multiple people.
@BoardGameCo if u can still locate a copy please look for City Of Chaos. Sand box but more specific end goal, w/multiple ways to get there. Downside is that it is also an evolving map of the city being built as u explore (can easily take up a kitchen floor). Thnx for the reciew.
Another very good review.
I tried with different games groups - experienced group (3 people) they liked it but maybe not enough strategic decisions etc. so we didn’t come back to it after first session.
With less experience group (4 people) this was partially a social event and story reading. While singular person has even less impact on decisions this was a fun experience and we finished game after 4 sessions.
At the end we also find battles annoying, lacking some variety. It is easy to come back to game after 2-3 weeks thanks to quest cards etc. so maybe battles would be more interesting if we would have longer breaks between sessions and played something else meanwhile but everyone was interested how this will ends.
Finally there is partnership between Red Raven Games and Fortellergames (company that does audio narrations for games, for example: Near and Far and Gloomhaven) so hopefully they will do it also for new game - it is very useful for people that are non-native English speakers.
Now i am really interested in your view of Tainted grail vs Sleeping gods vs 7th continent.
Found this very intriguing.
Personally, the art and sandbox style isn’t my preference but with all the hype and rave I was excited to dive in the new one, but then again, this video reminds me to stay away from hype and analysis if this game is for me and will I actually play it. Thank you again Alex
Edit: Sorry, guess I missed final part of this video.
Know anything about the upcoming sequel Distant Skies?
Love this game! Can't wait for Distant Skies😎🙌
What an intro! I dare anyone to NOT watch till the end after that first sentence! Well played, sir.
Thanks for mentioning Shelfside. The new kids on the block are becoming the Siskel and Ebert of game reviewers.
They're great :)
Pretty cohesive breakdown. I totally get you, but for me the good parts make up for the lesser ones (in this lovely game). Still would love to see lees fiddling and management for a solo experience. Looking forward to see if Distance Skies can be somewhat of a perfected game.
Man, I love your videos. I'm completely new to Sleeping Gods and board games in general, which is why I'm still trying to figure out what I like and don't like, and the hype over on the current GameFound page is intoxicating. I was close to going with the absolute all in pledge but your video made me second guess whether or not I should back it at all when there are other games around that are more worth shelling out cash for. Gonna reevaluate and I might just get the Distant Skies pack, if I decide to get it at all. Thanks for your content! Keep it all coming. Btw I'd love to see you do more videos on games that have current reprints/expansions on fundraising sites. Takes away the hype of 'ooooohh new stuff' and makes it objective
Thanks for the analysis. I'd thought of getting this and think it might work for me, but know it would annoy the heck out of my other half. And I can easily see that it'd make a far better two player experience.
Good review. Cheers
Looking forward to the Should You Back for the latest Gamefound. Not sure if there’s any reason not to buy at retail instead
Ooh....there are reasons :)
Which do you think is more fiddly, Sleeping Gods or Sword and Sorcery?
Really like the honesty in your reviews
Appreciate it :)
I want to play this so bad. I ordered it back in November and store is still waiting on a restock.
Just curious, do you see yourself completing more than 1 campaign? Interested to hear your thoughts on that as the game has many totems to find if one plays the game to 'completion', but that requires lots of time. Or would you rather simply read the stories and skip the combat/mechanics? On the fence about this game because it looks amazing, but the game length to completion is tricky, and I've hear some players feeling it is a one campaign and done experience. If anyone else who owns the game wants to chime in, feel free:) Thanks for your work!
I think the base game has two campaigns in it before you feel like you’re doing the same stuff. I traveled through about half of the map in my first campaign. I expect it would take one more to see the other half of the map. I wouldn’t get to the point of just reading the story, but I could see implementing some anti-grind house rules, though.
Played it 2 times. Great game. Easy in my top 3 and just waiting few months to jump again into it :)
I’m with you, 7th Continent really wowed me and sucked me in way more than I expected, and Sleeping Gods just never did the same. I finished the campaign once but have no desire to try a second time or follow the series.
It’s a really neat idea, it’s just the mechanics never seemed that interesting to me, and the story side was also a bit too thin. I can see how for some people, if both of those reach the “just enough” line rather than “not quite” that the combination could be pretty magical though
I agree, although I finished 2 campaings. But after that I don't know if I ever want to play more. I also don't like the combat system much.
Hey, have you tried Legacy of Dragonholt? How would you compare those two games? It seems both go with the Choose your own Adventure Style. Really love your videos, keep up the good work!
I'm not Alex, but I'll throw my two cents out here. I really enjoy both games, but I would say the only real similarity they have is the CYOA book aspect. Dragonholt doesn't really have mechanics to speak of, other than checking if a party member has a skill that allows you to pick a different option in the book. The story is also much more linear in Dragonholt, i.e. you do an adventure book, then go back to town and maybe you get some choice about what lead to track down next before moving on to the next story book. Sleeping Gods is a lot more open, but also perhaps less narratively satisfying because there aren't set adventures the same way there are in Dragonholt. Sleeping Gods also has a lot more mechanics to it, i.e. you have to manage various resources and actions in a much more board-gamey way than anything in Dragonholt.
I think both games are very enjoyable, and if you liked Dragonholt and also enjoy resource management mechanics in board games, I'd definitely suggest giving Sleeping Gods a go too.
Oh and I'll also say, I think both games play better at lower player counts. I played the majority of both solo, and think two players is probably the sweet spot. Any more and there's just not enough to do for any individual player.
Question now is whether to wait for the standalone sequel... Or get this
What’s the game in the dark blue box to the top left of your head? The title looks like “Dig” but nothing came up. Thanks.
Alex, I’ve watched your video a couple of times now and have really appreciated it. This week I received and started playing the game, so I feel that now I can add to the conversation
Initially, your video was a driver in me backing Distant Skies and getting a new edition of Sleeping Gods. I was always interested in your experience of at some point ditching the mechanics and just reading. Personally, now I can say you have done yourself a huge disservice. Stripping always the mechanics and revealing behind the curtain has effectively killed the experience. Managing choices and combat is a large part of the game. You need them for your choices to be impactful. For me the game has a sweet spot at two players,I would suggest playing again with another person.
Thanks for this, and it highlights some of the reasons I wavered from backing it and eventually decided against it. Certainly the combat didn't appeal, which has me intrigued for the new standalone expansion on gamefound next week. The dialogue also concerned me, as I prefer the richer dialogue of (say) Tainted Grail over the more superficial dialogue of something like Gloomhaven or Above and Below. For dialogue, I'd rather it be a central part of the experience, rather than seeming like it's trying to not get in the way of the gameplay.
re: skill checks, I think this works best where the game hints at what skills might be tested, but doesn't make it obvious and predictable. Hence you're more drawn into the decision, and stops it feeling random / mechanical.
YAY! Thank you for reviewing Sleeping gods. I understand your frustrations, however they haven't pained me as much (yet). I have only just started playing this game, I am on my third event deck in solo and this is my favourite new experience this year. I have not played a game like this before so this was a brand new experience for me. I found the combat as a cool puzzle, where as my friend who played it 2 player and said, the character selection they chose led them to dislike combat as the limited selection of players led one player to just be dutifully beaten while the other player made damage (probably something that could be sorted with buying weapons). I agree with solo, managing characters gets quite complex with all of the upgrades and abilities as I forgot some of the buffs some characters had.
I can’t lie, going back to this game after watching your review I found myself skipping combat too.
It’s actually ruined my experience. I wish I never saw this review now
An app... there's a reason we play board games - which is to NOT stare at electronic devices.
You can absolutely pick your reasons. Not sure why you'd try to assume them of everyone else though.
It's the most beautiful Boardgame Box i've ever seen! Especially with the golden title!
:)
I enjoyed the puzzle and control of playing solo. I’m actually hesitant to play at 2+ players because of the shared control and or lack of abilities because the other player has the character I need for a skill check.
I am about to start a 2nd play through, but with all the expansions added in. It appears to add a lot more story and interaction in a lot of the island locations with going deep into a dungeon! I think the game is meant to be played with all the expansions.
I finally played Paleo with my wife. We _love_ the game! I'm sure that we will enjoy Sleeping God... when I decide to get it.
Paleo is excellent!
@@BoardGameCo - Next is... Robinson Crusoe.
I've said it elsewhere here but as a couples experience it has topped every board game we've ever played. We have yet to try Paleo but it's on our list.
I think the story is available on Foreteller, so that might help with the flipping-around-the-book problem.
The trio of games from Laukat are there but Sleeping Gods does not have any audio narration from Forteller.
@BoardGameCo Alex, you should try Legacy of Dragonholt !!
Some might not even call it a board game haha.
Its more text heavy than 7 Continent but its easier on the reader (as it has less page jumps).
I actually set up characters in that game a long time ago...and then never played it
Can't wait to have it on my board
Haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. Once I bring it out I will be gone for months just playing this based on my game group and I have been playing various shorter games first.
Seems you don’t like choose your own adventure books. That was a treasured part of my childhood and I really like that mechanic.
I love choose your own adventure books, that was my favorite part of this game! It's the rest I don't like.
Sounds awesome but seems like that cool kitchen gadget you bought but seldom if ever use. It's hard enough for me to find 3.5 hours to play Scythe let alone find people with that 3.5 hours. Seems like it would make a better tablet app you could play at your leisure because it handles the fiddly accounting and saves where you left off rather than taking an hour to re-setup a table from where you left off.
Combat was actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I loved the puzzle and challenge. It was really unique.
Glad you did :)
Great video, Alex. It's funny... This review reminds me a lot of SUSD's Etherfields review. The second a player starts breaking parts of the game, the whole experience quickly falls apart. The story is engaging, but it's not so engaging that I think I'd like reading it without the work of getting to it. Honestly, that's what killed Tainted Grail for me. I was able to get through the main campaign with house rules halfway through the game, but the first expansion was so brutal that I couldn't enjoy it with RAW, yet changing the rules destroyed the game. With so many good games, it's pointless to try to make a game that isn't right for you work. Much respect that you acknowledge both sides of the game here. :)
Yep, what's interesting is I actually liked Etherfields more. Not in the story, but in the general dream sequencing.
@@BoardGameCo - I'm with you on that. While I really like Sleeping Gods, I think Etherfields may be one of the very best games I've ever played... Top 3, likely. It feels like a love letter to the hobby. There are few games that just keep surprising you session after session like Etherfields. Love it. Yeah, the story is thin, but I like that you have to work to piece together a lot of it (although there are a couple HUGE exposition dumps in the latter part of the game).
@@TheGlassesPush I just couldnt get in to Etherfields even though i was really excited for it. It felt too fiddly when you were out on the world map running in circles and encountering the same monsters over and over to get the keys to go into the dreams. Tainted Grail is so cool, but the grimdark tone and difficult combat turned off some of my friends who arent as hardcore into games as I am... Im really hoping ISS Vanguard has the perfect sweet spot.
@@williamwolfe962 - I certainly see that about Etherfields. For me, the Deliverance mechanism completely elevated the Slumbers. Just when they were beginning to grate, Deliverance gave me this amazing puzzle. There was one session where my buddy and I talked through the motivations of the enemies and solved 3 deliverances in one night -- it was invigorating! It definitely is a fiddly game, but I do think all the moving parts fit together nicely.
Tainted Grail soured me and my group with 1) its insane difficulty, 2) the necessity of grinding (and unlike Etherfields, I felt TG actively punished me for wanting to explore), and -- most importantly -- 4) the lack of cohesion. In Etherfields, your one deck handles EVERYTHING. In TG, your decks are only used for combat / diplomacy, and you have separate decks for each. Thematic? Very. But cohesive? Hardly. I wanted to love TG as a game as much as I loved it for its story (wow, CANNOT say enough good things about its story).
I too am hoping that ISS Vanguard learns from both games. It definitely has a more established story, and it seems like the dice drive everything with cards being used for mitigation on all that. I am guarded (haha) optimistic.
In any case, I will give Awaken Realms the benefit of the doubt in many cases, as I have to give it up for any company that is as ambitious as they are.
Good talking! I love sharing ideas about things I love with others. :)
I have a similar sentiment toward The King is Dead. I think it's an incredibly well designed game. Very streamlined and simple in rules, and I love the different win conditions and tiebreakers. I really wanted to love that game, but I just didn't. Would be an interesting topic to hear about the best designed games that didn't click with you.
Ooh, a fun video idea for sure.
Surprised there wasn't a Roll Player Adventures comparison. It appears on the surface that this game seems very similar.
I haven't played that one yet
The sequel will have foreteller for the narrative. I suspect the base game will soon have one as well
Nice!
Only played this two players. It was amazing for us.
I played it 2 player and I think it is a great player count, and likely the best player count. I play solo games regularly but I have no desire to play sleeping gods solo as it will miss the interactive experience between two players. I definitely don't need the new distant skies sequel or tides of ruin expansion as the base game has plenty of content in it for the amount of time I predict I will want to spend with this game before moving on
Listening to your review, I think you are missing how the designs you started to skip 7hours in , are meant for the multi player experience. Maintenance tasks should be split between players to make them quicker , bringing in the actual achievement of working together. Passing the book around heightens the mystery and also slows the pace down, allowing you to enjoy it more. Combat may be tedious if you have to solve it all 9characters yourself, but is vastly more enjoyable when other brains help you get there. Or even simply saying the captain is in charge of combat so that you only really need to solve 1/3 or less of the combats you do get in the game and they are more unique for that. If you aren’t expecting multiplayer, then sure it’s too much game for the story you want. But as a co-op sandbox , with actual people at the table, it might be unparalleled.
I really hope distant skies is a more condensed experience, it seems like it from everything I have seen about it so far
I want to play that game so bad…
Still waiting for that Jaws of the Lion review :)
Played a good portion of the game on TTS with a group.
Was such a fun experience I am instant backing the new game on Gamefound to support the company.
I feel like your take is completely understandable as a solo experience. I think sleeping gods plays well into the asymmetry of characters.
Single Player suffers from:
-Too few command to use a lot of the cool things you get.
-Too much flexibility in combat. 4 people always go per turn but players don't share combat tokens.
-More boring skill checks. When my wife gets a Craft skill check she's excited because she has high in that skill on Audrey. When I get it, I cry and beg her for help. But she has to use HER command to help me. It's cooperative, but she has other intentions for that resource. So maybe I'll place a power on one of her characters after she helps me avoid the check.
- The game encourages a lot more player interaction that similar games like it. Gloomhaven had such restrictive communication that it felt like there was a wall between us. But Sleeping Gods has been one of the best couples experiences we have had board gaming.
I was excited to play a solo game at some point after we were done. But as we play I'm doubting we will be "done" until at least 3-4 playthroughs. And the idea of playing solo just doesn't appeal to me anymore. So I hear ya
We just finished Roll Player Adventures and the most annoying thing I found was the constant flipping through the mission books and looking for keywords. It would have benefited from an app like Destinies or Forgotten Waters. Sleeping Gods is our next campaign game and I'm not looking forward to the constant flipping.
You timestamped "What the expansions add" and after rewatching that part I'm still clueless about what the expansions add.
Apologies! Bad case of copy and pasting timestamps and leaving that in by mistake. I removed it.
My wife and I played Above and Below a few times with two others and thought it was just ok. This looks like a few levels of gameplay deeper, which may be more fun, but I’m not overly excited about it. This is especially true when hearing that the combat and upkeep/ maintenance is just “ok”… I’ll pass on this but pay attention to the upcoming campaign for Distant Skies.
In the midst of so many raving reviews for this game I appreciate your honesty here!
Those raving reviews are no less honest. It's certainly my game of the year so far for 2021.
@@windbane69 I’m sorry for the misinterpretation here. I didn’t mean to imply the other reviews were less honest, but that in the midst of so many great reviews Alex could have felt pressured to say similar things. My point was that I appreciated his willingness to say how he really felt, even though that went against the majority.
Easily one of my favourite games of all time.
Glad you're enjoying it :)
That bare bulb is absolutely wrecking your auto focus, check out the box text just shift constantly. I'd just clear that bulb In the frame or diffuse it. Love the channel just noticed that
Appreciate it!
ESC05; is the new format for when RUclips plays a preview in the app? Noticed other channels also doing it nowadays.
For me story is not necessary for a boardgame, I actually don't like it that much
Not even sure what that is?
@@BoardGameCo in the android tv app, When hovering above a thumbnail it will preview 30 seconds with sound. Just tested it but it's the middle of the video not the beginning. Part where you say it's brilliant from a husband and wife team
We haven't played our copy of Sleeping Gods yet. But I had a very similar experience with The Initiative. I enjoyed the story and puzzle solving, but the underlying gameplay was only okay. After several very similar plays of the kind of boring "board game", we started skipping that aspect to get to the good parts. Skipping the tedium allowed us to finish the campaign. :)
This is my #1….you gotta finish it
Had to resell it as my partner wasn't into the heavy narrative, and it was simply too much to manage as a solo player.
Totally reasonable...those 9 characters a lot
That is what a lot of Tainted Grail players did, skip the tedious stuff that did not really affect gameplay.
Yep, and I plan to as well :)
It looks great.
It's worth checking out for sure.
Like destinies, this one kept me out in the cold. I didn’t understand the hype. Felt like I’m doing a bunch of upkeep to read a simple story that just wasn’t that captivating and didn’t keep me wanting to explore and was not that tactically or strategically deep. I was playing solo, so can only speak to that. But this was not fun, and preferred 7th continent.
Yep, I loved the concept, and was incredibly impressed...but also wanted more.
Self-identifying Ryan Laukat fanboy here, and I really appreciated your review which managed to describe my mild-but-surprising disappointment with this title. The narrative here is impressive, but the arbitrary nature of ending a game after three deck cycles seemed to handicap some of my choices about where to go and what to do. Combat wasn't bad but was the weakest portion of the experience, and I avoided it where I could because it slowed things down without offering proportional rewards. I think SG shines as a solo experience, and reminded me of the joy of exploring as when I played Zelda in DOS format on an old IBM.
I'm hopeful that Ryan's iterative stye will address some of these minor issues when Distant Skies launches soon.
The fact that you gotta manage multiple/all the player boards was a huge mess. I just played Dead Reckoning and had much more fun “managing” a crew.
100% this.
Were you playing Solo? Controlling 3/4 characters wasn't as bad with 2. I am excited about Dead Reckoning, though.
@@windbane69 ya I only played it solo. I think managing 3-4 would still be burdensome, but yes, you manage EVERY character. It’s the flaw of the narrative system it employs, it needs all the characters or the system breaks down and won’t work. I wish I could just go in with 2 characters like Gloomhaven or something.
Good review, this would be one I'd show people I would play this with to see if they would like it or not. It is interesting how different I felt about Skill Checks and combat. The former felt almost too easy to plan for (there's a whole meta aspect of keeping low numbers out of the deck ), and the latter was fun to me.
Tastes differ as widely as the number values on the skill checks! But then I really love these games - I love 7th Continent too and never got the criticisms it gets. Doesn't mean the criticisms are wrong of course, just that they don't apply to me.
I've only played this game with 4 players (2 plays) and I haven't played since. A mix of too much downtime (one round took an hour) and too much upkeep (half the group were light gamers who like narratives, but not mechanics. So I played the mechanics for them. Its as unfun as it sounds) made it so I haven't tabled it again.
I really need to give it a shot with a different group. I have no desire to play solo, I might just give it a 2p play
That just sound awful, that seems like more of a problem with your group.
I'm so on the fence about this. It attracts me and repulses me. Halfway through Gloomhaven I had a bore-out, I'm afraid this might be the same. Maybe I'd be better off with Near and Far or something.
It's very different than gloomhaven, it's entirely possible that you will get burned out, but it's also possible that it's a different beast
@@BoardGameCo It is different, but so far longer campaigns do tend to put me off. So far, Imperial Assault has the ideal length for me: different paths through the story in about 10 sessions. In the same time as Gloomhaven or SG I can have different experiences or deepen my skills in other games. And yet... The experience beckons me...
Hope your well mate
Thanks Ben, you as well :)
Boardgame Co has a well? Hhm, must have missed a video about that one. I know work was done in the kitchen recently but I had no idea a well was added 😝
This review helped me a TON. I've been curious about this game, but couldn't quite figure out what it was entirely. Hearing that it's a lot of side quests without a big overall narrative (or you don't know the big narrative after 10 hours of play) is a non-starter for me. This is a game I'd have to tell my friends about this big campaign to get them excited.
My #1 problem with Gloomhaven is there wasn't enough of the main story and sometimes we'd be 10 missions in a row and go "wait, where is the one that connects back to the main storyline?" and have no idea where we were. I stop playing games like Skyrim for the exact same reason. Some love it, but I NEED that narrative push.
Which is why I LOVED Pandemic Legacy and King's Dilemma (the latter we didn't finish due to Covid hitting and later some people moved away and I can't imagine playing without them)
Oh ya, this definitely has a ton of side stuff, very akin to gloomhaven in that sense although with more attachment to the story as you can affect the outcome past a simple pass or fail
Well its more akin to what type of Narrative you like, do you want a more linear Narrative that just follows the Narrative or do you want the freedom to go were you want to go. I tend to personally like both, but I have encountered people feeling that the Narrative was too linear that they felt they weren't playing a game, that a game is about making choices, and they felt that their really wasn't any choice because the story was just going to continue. I have also encounter the other side of the coin like you, were their is too much choice that they feel like they are off track from the main Narrative. I never had the problem with Gloomhaven that you had, It was easy to see were the main story was going via the text, however I did have the problem were my game group finished the main story, and all that was left was side quests. So in the end my group wasn't feeling the side quests and even though we eventually finished the game, that secound half was lacking because the story for those side quests were not great. I have yet to see a Narrative game that balances both, were the side quests don't feel like side quest and are just as compelling as the main story, but I have heard that Middara does it very well.
I'm happy no app; I can play on shabbat!
Ah, you missed one geek point by writing "Journey over destination" instead of "Journey before destination"! :)
Lol fine
There is an overarching story. I'm sorry you didn't like the combat because it adds tension to the exploration, and without finishing or experiencing more, I guess you haven't seen the overarching story, yet. The ending is rather eye opening.
I had a very similar experience. It's beautiful, it's clearly objectively excellent, and yet ... I just didn't have much fun. I'll try again because it's the kind of game I *should* love. But so far, I really don't.
Sleeping Gods is an icredible game, i think your 3.5 rating is a little low IMO. I do very much enjoy your channel!
Totally understand that. The exploration and story are a 10/10, but I'm rating my full experience with it.
I’m glad to hear that we felt the same way about this game. I also ended up just voyaging and exploring, because I was so tired of these numerous skill checks that just uselessly slowed down my adventure, those uninteresting fights, and the worse was managing the tiredness of my characters. That was just annoying after 10 hours of gameplay...The whole adventure and sandbox part is incredible and never seen before (and I think everyone should experience the game at least once only for that part) but just as for you, I never wanted to go back to it (although I did get to one of the ends of the game). It ended up being quite a disappointment, that I would mitigate by admitting that I was expecting way too much. Hopefully the new version to come will correct that, but I’m not very confident
Ryan advises just relying on luck for most skill checks because failing them still moves the narrative forward, and saving the strength for the critical ones. I also got burned trying to manage fatigue and I probably would've fared better taking damage instead.
Alex, I believe you are a little bit generous with this game, and I feel that your personal score is a far more objective indicator of what this game is really like. The reason for my opinion comes from your own experience with the game, where, by your own admission, you ignored core game mechanics in order to keep playing the game. This is not a criticism of the way you played, but of the game's mechanics.
I don't have a lot of experience with Sleeping Gods, but from what I have seen, the battle and crew maintenance mechanics are an integral part of the game. Their purpose is to force you to make difficult decisions, as well as make you choose between taking a risk for a reward that could make your life easier, or take minimal loss in order to strive on. The impression I've always got from Sleeping Gods is that its mechanics are deliberately designed to keep you from doing and be forced to make difficult decisions all the time.
If you, or any other player for that matter, felt the need to ignore these mechanics, then it means they have completely and utterly failed. What effectively happened is that you turned this game into a choose-your-own-adventure book, which is not what the game was designed to do. Thus, even though the game may have engaging encounters and great atmosphere, it fails completely as a game if it cannot convince you to keep playing it as intended the whole time. I believe this is saying a lot.
I completely understand why you feel there are great design decisions in Sleeping Gods - I am not disputing that there are. But I believe you are giving the game too much credit because of that great aspect, despite the fact that the rest of the game was so unappealing to you that you chose to ignore it.
People are all different, He was feeling that the combat and the other parts of sleeping gods were unnecessary but others might feel the opposite. It all comes back to if this game is for you or not for you, and the answer was that it wasn't for him, that doesn't mean the game was made incorrectly, it just mean for him it wasn't. Their are countless games that are loved by many, but are equally hated by others. Just because one person didn't like something doesn't mean its bad. Like for example a lot didn't like the combat in sleeping gods to a point that they might change it in the new game, but others were upset that they were changing it because they enjoyed the combat.
Soon our rating system will take over all of board gaming! Mwahahaha!
As it should :)
I've heard mixed feelings when it comes to Sleeping God's combat system.
Ya....it's not bad, but it is tedious and not overly inspiring.
I do appreciate the designer trying something new and novel out however.
It's better the more people you have. Combat, for us, is 90% conversation and strategizing. 10% actually attacking. But that's because we can't attack with Kasumi, Captain, and Raphael. Because I control all 3 and only have 2 combat tokens.
I can't imagine what combat is like with 4. But it's a very strategy heavy aspect of an otherwise "wander and explore" game. But if you LIKE strategy it's a good reprieve from the smooth sailing (no pun intended)
I prefer Tainted Grail because I love combat in Tainted Grail and don't like combat in Sleeping Gods. But still skipping combat is not a good thing, if you don't have time and play the game as it should be played, then it's better not to play at all.
There are official variants from Ryan Laukat that dramatically reduce the combat for people who want that. Alex should have used those rather than skipping it
Timestamps are wrong I believe (ex : what I don't like)
I went into this game with very high expectations, but my expectations were not met. I felt like lots of the game mechanics took away from the story telling and exploration theme of the game.
Proving that board games are not the best vessel for stories/plot.
@@lastburning I think that some games work and some don't. For Sleeping Gods I felt like the whole purpose was exploration and adventure, but the mechanics got in the way of it feeling like a real exploration. I have played other story board games where the mechanics worked quite well to tell a story, like Forgotten Waters. Sleeping Gods is a good idea, just not the best execution.
Maybe I misunderstood but it sounds like you didn't actually like the game part of this? You liked the story but all the game aspects "got in the way."
Correct. The story and exploration was 10/10. The mechanical stuff was ok...but just slowed down the best parts for me.
Hm. You probably wouldn't love Tainted Grail, then. The combat is definitely better, but there's a decent chunk of "tedium" by the end of the game.
How does death work in the game? My biggest problem with 7th continent, and a problem i think absolutely breaks the game, is the fact that when you die you have to repeat the same story beats all over again. It's like going back a chapter in a book and being forced to re-read it with the same level of enthusiasm you had the first time round.
And you could just say "well then ignore dying", but then why am I playing a game? The entire game is built around survival and staying alive, so without the fear of death it just makes the gameplay pointless. From there all i'm doing is reading an incredibly obtuse book.
Sleeping Gods interests me, but i'm concerned that it might also suffer from this same issue?
I think you fell into a reviewers trap. Which is you played the game too much for it to be fun... I saw someone who tried to review ALL of "too many bones" do the same thing. Thanks for the good review though and context cause I think you've discovered two things:
1. Don't play it solo.
2. Don't play it too much so it doesn't become tedious.
🐐🥁👍
:)
Yea, you and I are definitely orthogonal. Sleeping Gods is a 9.5/10 for me and is what 7th Continent wishes it could be when it grows up ;-)
I like 7th Continent, but had to houserule the hunting sites. I keep them in the original state. Really don't like how you have to reset the game to restore them.
Lol like I said, I know the two games are compared and that many prefer sleeping gods :)
@@BoardGameCo I like the combat puzzle. Much prefer it to Tainted Grail as well.
I prefer 7th continent and combat in Tainted Grail. :)
Orthagonal doesn’t quite mean what you think it means. It’s the opposite of diagonal. But I agree, Sleeping Gods is mechanically better than 7th Continent. I think a much better game could be designed with the 7th Continent components. The main problem is the TIME Stories problem. Expecting you to lose, start the entire campaign over, and use your knowledge to make different choices, or to cut the shortest route to the objective. Starting over is a nightmare. That’s what leads to us house ruling the hunting sites. The game making it too hard to refill your deck, and making the deck running out too punishing.
There’s a reason that Sleeping Gods and the upcoming 7th Citadel both use fail forward mechanisms. You need to be able to keep moving forward. Asking people to start a campaign over, when the campaign is built on story and grind, is not smart. You’ve already seen the story, and while the grind may have been novel at first, it quickly loses its charm. The grind doesn’t feel as bad when you’re blazing new trails and making progress, but it’s appeal is close to zero when replaying old content. Especially when the bookkeeping is so much more difficult in 7th Continent due to the map being made out of cards than being in a book.
I didn’t care for elder scrolls oblivion because of wandering around doing side quests being the bulk of the game.
Between nit being a big fan of the art and a strong impression I don’t care about the story Im guessing this one is not for me.
100P. I got my KS and played a few. Boxed it up and sold it for a small profit. I didn't care for the combat.
Yep. I love a lot of what the game is doing...but some of it I can skip.
Yes, your review was spot on. Well designed game and have nothing but respect for the mechanics, art, and innovation, but I've seen it, I've tried it, and I'm done with it.
Seems like a good book, I'm just not convinced by the game part :p
That's sort of where I am with it.
Basically you like lighter games. Different strokes for different folks.
Not really. Check my top 100 or other recent reviews. Food Chain Magnate, Golem, Lorenzo, Terraforming Mars.
I just watch to hear you say "orld" over and over.
Yep :) I have a hard time with that specific word. I use to roll my r's when I was a kid and something about the word world...I just can't say without intensely focusing.