I got this via KS and finally got it to the table last night. Six player game. I purposefully delayed watching Tom's (or any reviews) before playing. After playing I formulated my own opinions and came to see what Tom thought and I hate to admit that I think he's spot on. Not that I don't agree with a lot if Tom's reviews or dislike him, I just WANTED DESPERATELY to really like this game. I was looking forward to it so much. Love the theme, thought I was going to live this game but I didn't. It is SUPER long at 6 players. Granted, it was all our first time playing, and we had to consult the book constantly ( and Tom is right, I was continuously flipping back and forth). Took us the better part of 4 hours to finish. There was never really a sense of dread like Tom said. The other thing, once the V-cards are depleted, there didn't seem to be any repercussions for not having food during to food round, or not bunking together. There should be a secondary condition after the V-cards are gone. I've now played The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, Who Goes There and Dead of Winter and I continue to drift back to Dead of Winter. I so much wanted to live this game. I backed it. I thought it was going g to be great. But all the things Tom said I agree with and I'm not sure how often this will make it to the table.
I find it interesting how much doubt people have in Tom’s ability to review the game in the comments. Obviously, people can like the game, but his experience in playing so many games gives him a unique perspective so that he can point out things that could bother certain people. Anyway, I believe that Tom did a great review, and props to him for not overlooking the flaws just because of theme/how other players liked it.
Happens every single time Tom doesn’t like a Kickstarter game, all the backers (like, at a guess, Replect) turn up and point out how wrong he is and how clearly he’s a terrible reviewer and how they can tell at a glance he didn’t play it with the right number of people or he got a crucial rule wrong or he didn’t play it the 37 times you needed to to really get it. Every. Single. Time. 😀
So far this is the only video I have seen that pointed out valid issues with the game as well as show it's strengths and didn't either give it a full 100% or a 0%.
Thanks for the review, it helped me distinguish which “The Thing” themed game would work best for my group. I think this game works well for those dedicated groups who come prepared with knowledge of the literature and concept of dedication to survival, but as the price point for the deluxe edition of this game, its an investment for the dedicated, who truely sink in and love the concept.
I've played three games of this so far. A 3 player, 4 player and 5 player game. I think it may be how you are coming into the experience. I see a lot of complaints revolving around dice and luck but I think this game was not intended to be some highly strategic survival game. It is more along the lines of a fun social experience. I enjoy the game very much and two from our group enjoy it immensely too, no one hated it and it may be because they came into the game knowing what it would be like....
I've not played "Alien Entity", which came out in 2014. I HAVE played "Panic Station", which came out in 2011, and it was terrible. The art style is one of the most unappealing I've ever seen (and bear in mind just how visually great John Carpenter's movie was), there's no way to discover the identity of the Alien other than body language or dumb luck, there's zero tension, and the game can be over in five minutes if you can get a good shot onto the correct Thing. I played it at a convention and it was the worst game I saw there by a country mile. Would not recommend to anybody, especially fans of the book / film these games are based on.
Man, I'd like to try that one... but on the other hand, my experience with Thing-related board games has been pretty much universally negative, and it doesn't sound like "Who Goes There" is gonna buck that trend.
I didn't like Outpost 31 at all... felt like they tried to make a bigger game out of a simple social deduction. all the additions just made it bloated. played like a less interesting less tense Dead of Winter. I love the Thing movie and the idea of the theme but no one has gotten it right yet in my opinion.
Just finished playing a 6 player game. First time for everyone. This is indeed a survival game first and foremost. There are too many ways to get strikes and die. If you do not prepare your character to mitigate, and don't collectively play to help each other, you die early. We had two players die before the 8th round! Second, i agree with Tom that randomness of searching can be one sided. Those are just the odds. One person will get screwed and one person will be geared to the hilt. Therefore, everyone must be willing to trade freely even knowing the risk. I love the mechanics and the survival part of this game. This could be a game of just that. However, as i stated below the helicopter phase just kills it for me. I was really hoping it wouldn't. Maybe on my second playing, the end game will seem better to me. Just my two cents.
Sad to hear. I'm hoping our group likes it. It does look amazing and I've heard good things about it when it was less than 5 players. I've seen some other technical reviews that really enjoyed it so maybe different strokes for different folks on this one...
The Dice Odyssey If you want to take the game for a test drive and reaffirm your decision to buy, got to TableTop Simulator on Steam. They just added the core game as a free mod.😀
Dave MacDonald thanks brother. I may just do that. The one thing I know about the game that has been said is that it was designed as a survival game first, so that there was a viable game in there to begin with, and then they added the elements of "the thing". So it's a survival game with a slight social deduction element. Man Vs Meeple said that they didn't necessarily wanna categorize this In the social deduction realm as much as a survival game. I'm hoping the game is strong enough to survive even if the social deduction aspect isn't as strong.
This game is a survival game first which strongly encourages teamwork at the beginning to get better gear just to survive the environment. Trust is easy to come by early since everybody starts off human. Failure to act as a team hastens the dispersement of vulnerability cards. Acting as a team "stacks the odds in your favor" on the dice rolls to beat camp events and monster attacks. As the game unfolds and vulnerable cards get passed out, players need to manage their risk of exposure when deciding who to bunk with during sleep rounds or who to trade with to build/upgrade gear.. Trust is not so easy to come by later. The entertainment value of the ensuing social dynamics cannot be overstated. I really like how the ultimate goal of the game remains unchanged for all players (whether human or the Thing): survive and board the chopper at the end. Brilliant! If your teamwork was awesome, the outcome of the dice roll is automatic, but if you let a Thing aboard the chopper, well, things get more tooth and nail! The game has a mod available on TableTop Simulator, so give it a try! Bring questions to WGT Discord channel!
Nathaniel P - I have only played WGT? on TTS so far. It’s a great way to pick up turn order and game mechanics. Now I am ready for “next level shenannigans” with the game. We are awaiting arrival of the game so we can add the ‘face-to-face’ aspect to our experience!
I am not sure of the logistics details. I expect if your order is placed soon and the game comes from the batch that is going through customs now, shipping would be along the lines of a Kickstarter backer. If those extra units are sold out already, and another production run needs to occur, then it would take longer. You could contact Rick@certifiablestudios.com to get an idea of logistical details for this game. We are still patiently waiting a notification from the fulfillment center that our game is en route. Word on the street is that Kickstarter orders in the US started fulfilling in earnest last week and should be wrapping up this week.
I have not played the game yet, that happens this week. To prepare I watched several videos including this one. Love everything about it except the ending. It bothers me that the game misses the boat here. In the movie the Thing doesn't need any help getting out because it can build its own ship! Second, once people know of its existence, the Thing would not allow them to report back to civilization. So its goal is to kill or infect everyone at the station. In the movie, the Thing would sabotage helicopters, cut off communications and such to prevent humans from leaving. I think adding this to the game would've added a different level of tension. It would quiet the complaint of people saying, "if your infected, just play along as if human the whole time." I know, it's one of those game design decisions. Adding this complexity may of been too difficult. Anyway, I'm excited to play the game, it seems like a lot of fun.
Just got this game. A gift. Haven't played it yet, but he got the THING's part wrong. Its goal is the same as the humans.....to get on that shiny, candy-like helicopter.....but only if it brings a tasty, juicy human with it. You fail if everyone is infected. As the THING, you can choose to infect or NOT, to save you intended meat for the trip. So the clicker can be set in either position. Not to mention you can't allow the last human to die of natural causes, either. Keep them alive for later. It changes the dynamic considerably.....but it is still 50-50 chance at the end. Grim, but a bit realistic in performance. It IS a blizzard, after all......and you still are making a desperate bid for freedom. What would help the game (for new players) would be a cheat sheet of possible player actions. As an old programmer, cheat sheets and reference cards were key to speed.
If you go back and watch the review on The Thing, infection at outpost 31, one of the biggest complaints was that you couldn't cause as much trouble as the thing and it wasn't random enough. So now you have a game that allows you to do those very things and you don't like it. Sorry, I can't put much stock into your review on this one. I've played it on TTS and it's a blast.
I love this game and I think Tom was way off here - now, they did put out a 2.0 that improved on the mechanics, got rid of that random die you roll once that he mentioned. This game is the best of the bunch on The Thing. This is a really good game if you play it with RPG types.
It seems to me that this kind of heavily thematic social deduction game is an entirely new beast, that simply did not click with Tom. I’m very much looking forward to getting my copy and playing it with the rpg loving part of my gaming group :)
Jens Riisom Schultz How will you deduce anything though if the infected don’t have to act in any way different from the non infected and want the same goal (helicopter to leave). In most deduction games the guilty party has a different goal, they want the Galactica to be destroyed, they want the missions to fail, they want someone else to be accused of the murder. It’s the small things they do to sabotage success that other players pick up on. In this one the good guys want to get away on the helicopter and the Thing wants to get away on the helicopter. What clues will there be.
Cthulwho? I’m not sure that the strategy of the infected is the same as that of the humans. Maybe its easier to win if everyone is infected or all humans are dead? I won’t know until I try it :) My hope is that Tom overlooked something... ;) Admittedly I’m pre invested in the game, so I want it to work.
Having played the game a few times, and loving it, I would say that the thing player is less inclined to work as a team. don't tell people you have food when they need it, move outside when you know you might get locked out so more people have to bunk alone and draw more of the vulnerable cards. As the thing, you want to spread the already growing paranoia while still being subtle enough, and valuable enough, to be brought on the chopper. Also remember, you want the humans to only take you and one of them....if there are 3 humans and 1 thing, the thing still needs to be able to win the roll. Watch for people who change from a team focused mindset (letting other people get the chopper bonus), to doing risky searches themselves.
I am not sure what to make of this review!? Tom clearly knows games and instruction books so I really do not want to dismiss his opinions. On the other hand after watching every other gameplay video I can find on youtube. It seems like he maybe didn't understand everything. Or maybe I don't since I have not played the game.
SJ Barnette he didn't understand everything. Play it on Table Top Simulator and give it a try first. I found it to be a ton of fun. And the instruction manual was easy to follow.
I have the same question. I came here from the kickstarter for the second edition to get an idea of the game. It's quite a bit of money for the game. I think I give it a pass.
Die hard Who Goes There fan here. I am a huge tabletop game fan, and for a good year Who Goes There was probably my number one board game. I will say Who Goes There is no longer my favorite, but that is just from overplaying it (plus Arcadia Quest and Gloomhaven hit my table and I just couldn't resist). As I played it more, I noticed the issues with the game, but I do not know if they are as extreme as Tom lists. Yes the die at the end of the game can sometimes make or break your game, but if you play well enough, you wont NEED the die roll at all. The die is really a last resort that might make it for you, even though you didn't rack up enough points on your own. But yes, the randomness and lack of true paranoia is somewhat lacking, but the second edition does seem to fix some of these issues... First off, some cards in the inside piles are replaced with "keys". Now this may seem like not a big deal, but these keys allow you to cut through the randomness of the game. The cards that were deleted were literally trash. I'm not kidding. The cards were titled "trash" and did nothing for you. This alone stops you from ever drawing useless cards again out of the workshop deck. Going on, the keys allow you to go inside/outside even when the camp is in lock down. Having a camp in lock down is the worst thing, and its completely random whether it will be or not turn to turn. But keys let you ignore this, and some of the new characters specialize in keys and ignoring camp events. Second off, this is probably even more important, is the death mechanic. Death was the worst part about Who Goes There. I recently played a game where one of the players died in round 5 (about 45 minutes in), and they just left the table as they didn't want to sit around for an hour and a half while we finished. The second edition kind of fixes this with the new frostbite mechanic, but Ill admit, it isn't perfect. Frostbite allows you to have the potential to be revived by your teammates, but if, for example, your team killed you because they thought you were infected, you aren't going to be revived and the game is over for you. Personally, my biggest gripe with the first edition was the ending. No matter WHAT team you're on, your goal is to get on the helicopter, and that sucks, as it kills the paranoia. If you're left behind, you lose, and I personally think this gives too much power to the team captain. I'm not sure how to fix this issue but that's my schpeel. So just to sum up... Second Edition fixes SOME of the randomness and gives you more chances to work as a team to face the game but not all But honestly, the randomness is part of the game's charm, and if that's not your thing, that's cool too. Other examples of too heavily random games I enjoy that are criticized for their randomness would be Killer Bunnies or Villainous. Certifiable Studios knows that their games are not the best, they are meant to be fun games to enjoy doing whatever you want with.
Whenever there is a game I'm really interested in, I get as much information on it as I possibly can before I reach for my wallet. I see what all my favorite reviewers think, I listen to the podcasts, I want to see a finished product, and I want to read the BGG ratings. This was one person's opinion, and I was turned off from this game after watching the Man V Meeple play through. My game group and I are huge fans of this IP, but the gameplay here didn't excite us. But that's our opinion. Keep on gaming!!!
Just bought this off someone who really liked it, but his group didn't. Having gone through how to play it I am certain my group will love it, but I already have an urge to house-rule the hell outta this game. It is such a cool concept and the components are so nice, but unfortunately, I can already see some of mr. Vasel's points becoming a real issue and potentially ruining much of the fun. The one major problem I see is the final helicopter phase. The boarding process is rather vaguely described, incoherent and without a clear structure. But the worst part is the final counting up of bonus points. It is convoluted, arbitrary in its outcome and has no narrative strength to it. Plus, it allows the Host a super easy win, since all he has to do is play it super straight and infect another player relative late in the game to be almost certain to win, if the team as a whole survived, and the human players will have no way to expose him, except with a lucky shot in the dark. Fortunately pretty much none of the game's flaws are built into its components, and I have hope of creating some house rules that could change it from a flawed game with potential to a truly amazing experience.
Finkeren-House rules can make this game really incredible. I love this game with a few tweaks. My wife and I have a really good 2 player variant that we have played multiple times.
Absolutely gutted to hear how much you didn't like this one. The production is gorgeous and The Thing being a favorite film makes this a must buy (I couldn't afford the KS)... now I'm a bit like.. well.. if the main element of the story is missing (ie the paranoia), what's the point of it having that setting. So sad. If anyone else had a more positive outcome I'd love to hear it.
Trust me the paranoia is there. I actually played a game where no one & I repeat no one trusted each other by the end. People were choosing to bunk alone because they were CERTAIN the infected was already out and would rather "take a clean card from the pile than risk you infecting me". Everyone wasting actions to avoid unsafe food trades ... And just when you discover the thing ... BAM thing attack and now anyone could be infecred again. If you want a paranoia game this has it in spades.
It is interesting to see so many people, who have not played the game, saying how great the game is. The games certainly looks awesome, I know I came close to backing. But I don't get the defense of a game that has not been played yet.
a tabletop simulator is not the same as actually playing a physical game at a table with other people playing that physical game. I have no idea if the game is good or not good. I know it looks good and I know people spent a lot of money on the game and thus want it to be good, which it may well be. I just don't get the strong defense of a game before you have played it for real, but I guess that is my problem with KS as a whole. You spend a lot of money for a game with a great theme or look that you have not played, and then you wait at least a year for that game to show up. In the meantime, there are 1000s of games at your local FLGS that you can actually play first, and then buy after you have actually played it for real. I hope the game is good and I hope you enjoy it, but until you actually play it on a table with other people around you can't know that yet. But again, I hope Tom is wrong and you enjoy your game.
This seems fidely and overly layered with stuff for what is offered. It's as though they wanted to make a social deduction game with a multitude of mechanics. Like they trew everything they could into the game, hoping it would stick, a goulash of a social deduction game. Doesn't look to me there's any reason to play this over DarkMoon .For the most part the beauty of Social deduction is easier to explain and immerse oneself in it. If I want depth and complexity I'll just play Battlestar Galactica!!! And little tension or paranoia come on now!
I was eyeing this game but was confused on how little the game seemed to have missions. like yeah youre building better and better items but for what. sure to fight with but what else? it needs crisis, story, and personal mission aspects the utilize these items on a much more meaningful manner. then i think the game will shine.
Everman You are building better items because you need them to fight the camp events every round (a part of the game Tom seems to ignore). Every round has a different camp event (a group mission if you will), these events can drastically change the decisions players make in their turn. Also events can lock you inside / outside and change your game too. Get locked out with almost stamina? Well son you may die unless you built that hot spot. A madman pop up in the event deck? Too bad you didn't build a knife to defend yoursef. The items have purpose and trust me you need them.
i have played the game and i totally agree. Its a 5 maybe a 5.5 but no more. It has a cool concept but not to be able to find during the game who is infected is totally random. A cool experience but only for one time not more.
I agree with Mr. Coffey. The base game (4 player) just went public on TableTop Simulator. Nothing wrong with giving it a try before letting someone else's personal view deter from getting a game you initially wanted.
Wombat I'd suggest you play it on simulator - I think you've shot yourself in the foot, none of the game plays show too much randomness. I backed and can't wait.
How many players did he play with? From his comments, he does not seem to understand that since it is a social deduction game, you need interaction with other players, and that is where it can shine in that as he said, someone with one vulnerability card is actually the thing, and the one with all the vulnerability cards is safe. Also, the randomness is offset with how you interact with the other players. I guess it all depends on your playgroup and how they play. If everyone just plays as they are the only player, it will be a flop.
It's not even a social deduction game from the start, since you all start out as human. It's a survival co-op game which turns into a social deduction once those v-cards get into play.
Components to look great, almost tricked me into backing. But, I felt like too much going on here, felt like it could of been developed more as you can say about a lot of kickstarters.
Uhm.. the infected also wants the helicopter to fly away.. If an infected is on the helicopter, and the die roll succeeds, the infected win (they spread the infection to the rest of the world)
No. Infected needs to board AND bonus total should be lower than the helicopter total. Only in this case infected win the game. Check page 35 in the rules (Scenario #2).
People are allowed to like and not like whatever they want, so I don't mind Tom not digging the game overall... but... he definitely misrepresented quite a few things. It is NOT a social deduction game. First and FOREMOST, it is a cooperative survival game. It becomes a pseudo-social deduction game as the infection cards are drawn, but again, it is primarily about surviving and helping each other to do so. It's about the experience, and definitely not about winning or losing. A game this long shouldn't care too much about the outcome, because like D&D and other story-based games, Who Goes There is about the journey. My only real gripe with the game are a couple minor rules. I personally think that receiving cards should just simply be an action and not a 50/50 die roll as well. Because it is a simple action, it shouldn't cost any more than 1 action (And definitely no risk of not getting it). In D&D and games like that, simple actions like receiving, giving, or trading items don't need a die roll, so for me, stuff like that in Who Goes There just seems tedious and stupid when you have to roll to execute it. That's why as a house rule, we've decided to not roll for receiving. My only other issue are the characters, but it's a minor complaint. There are three characters that are ESSENTIAL for a smooth game (Or at least the possibility of a smooth game), and that is the cook, the medic, and the pilot. The three of them provide access to plenty of important in-game items, so not having any one of them is painful. We tried playing a couple 3-player games with the add-on characters, and both of those games were incredibly difficult and resulted in a lot of deaths. I highly recommend keeping the initial 4 characters are primary, and the other 4 characters as additional, if that makes sense. Overall, though, I have had nothing but fun with Who Goes There! It's a different experience each time, and I always look forward to trying it with new people.
I watched a gameplay of this and I thought to myself that it was taking too much time and happening very little . It reminded me to battlestar galactica and why we don't play it anymore.
I actually love BSG. In it the idea of the traitor is frenetic and engaging. They participate, fail votes, make thigs explode, have an active role in the direction of the game, In WGT it's a snore fest all the way through, human or infected. The players are on rails at the game's mercy with no real goal or influence. You draw cards to build stuff for the sole reason that it is a major mechanic but it does very little in the end but pass the turns
Based on reading the comments, it seems more like people are saying he got things wrong or isn't understanding some things about the game. I do see a lot of people claiming anyone who disagrees with him is just a salty Kickstarter backer though. I haven't played or bought the game, but after reading the comments from both people who like the game and people claiming people who disagree with this review are doing so just because they paid for it, I'm going to check more reviews since the comments have convinced me it probably isn't a good idea to draw conclusions about this game based on this review.
Things Tom forgot to mention or got wrong: - This is a co-op survival game which gradually turns into a social deduction game as the v-cards get drawn. - The main objective is to get on the Helicopter and leave. Humans want to leave the infected behind, so they can warn the world about them, the infected want to leave to doom humanity. - On the character boards you can read what actions you can take each round. - There's an event board, each event gets drawn at the start of every round. There are 3 kinds of events: Setback (blue), Attack (red) and Instant (green). You can build items to get more action dice against the red and blue events. Green events have to be resolved right away, while the other 2 can be resolved at any time during your turn. If you forget to do them, or fail, you receive a penalty as described on the card. You can also get locked in (or out) so planning ahead is almost impossible. The pre-round sequence of every round is also written on this board. - Since it's a co-op game you need to help eachother stay human (and not having to beg for items, like Tom says). Search for food or medkits when someone needs it, or trade items to build a weapon. Each phase you need to roll more successes to win (P1 - 1 success, P2 - 2 and P3 - 3), so upgrading weapons is a must. - If you search outside you'll get 2 xp for every search. - You can only move inside or outside once per round. - Three strikes on the door leads to taking a v-card when you're inside. So always repair the 2nd strike or more before you search again (unless nobody is inside) - There are 2 instant events that give 2 strikes on the boiler, that's why you always need to repair it. When there are 3 strikes on the boiler, everyone inside will get a strike. - We recommend playing the extented version of the game when you play with 3 players, since there are less people to trade with. Otherwise the standard version is more than enough (unless you have the time) - Kinner, the cook, has multiple cans of food, Copper has multiple medkits. These are supporting characters. The game will be much harder if you leave one or both out of the game. - Bunking is always in pairs. In an uneven game you either have to play Clark (exp char) and unlock Jack (untrained 50%, trained 100% succes against getting a v-card), build a barricade (50% chance of succes) or play as Copper and find an adranaline boost (one use only) - Infected characters can choose whether they infect someone or not. During trades (giving) and bunk rounds one has to show their clicker. - The Thing has the same objective as the humans, it wants to get away. Of course you can sabotage stuff, like "accidentally" search outside with 2 strikes on the door, but do you really want to be left behind? Or worse, Assaulted? - Once outed a Thing can perform a Thing Attack. They take the Host card along with a blank v-card for every character they want to attack (at the same location) and shuffle them. Now everyone who's being attacked has to draw one card. Is the Host card back to the original owner or did someone else become it? - Copper has the Bloodtest, he can find out who's infected. Blair (exp char) has the Host test, he can only find out who's the Host. The only problem is that the one doing the testing also needs to have a v-card. So they might be lying about the results. - Each human (dead and alive) counts for 6 points. So in a 3 player game the starting Helicopter total is 18 points to escape. You can lower the needed amount by finding Helicopter Bonuses outside. Each infected person removes 6 points from the Helicopter total (so 1 infected lowers the amount to 12 points). If they come on board, all Helicopter bonuses they collected PLUS their Helicopter roll adds to the Helicopter total needed. If one did their job and found enough Helicopter Bonuses outside, they usually don't even have to roll the Helicopter die to get away. If you didn't... well then you either crash and burn, or you end up as a snack for the Thing(s) on board. Also the rulebook has lots of fluff with all the different outcomes just to cover everything. - The insert holds sleeved cards and each deck has it's own space.The base game box could be smaller, but that's because Certifiable Studios might sell the insert for the Deluxe seperately later on so you can store the expansion characters in the same box. - The rulebook is setup this way because you need to know stuff first before you can start the game. And you don't need the rulebook that much because, as mentioned before, all info is printed on the boards too. - From each phase deck 5 cards get removed at the beginning of the game. This means either good cards and/or bad cards (Thing Attacks and Door damages) get removed. That's so you will never be 100% sure what's left in the deck. This game is a lot of fun. Try it on TTS first before you start canceling because of this review. Or listen to this podcast by the Brawling Brothers who played it multiple times: brawlingbrothers.com/who-goes-there-review-e77/
frostedBrownies As Tom said, he knows he's in the minority. Also, this is a review, not a how to play, so some of the points you made do not seem relevant to it, too much detail for a review. That rulebook really doesn't look well put together, not very intuitive. Also, think about how many rulebooks Tom has seen over the years, he knows when a rulebook is good or not. I'm not a fan boy or anything, but I don't think your comments are all justified. Reviews are opinions though, so as with everything you'll get people who like and don't like something.
wavewynder If you do a review, you need to represent the game correctly. The stuff he left out is what makes the game. Just check the post of Tom's review on BGG to see that the creators said about this or for an ever completer list of what was left out. To be clear I'm totally fine with him disliking the game (his opinion), but the review was badly done.
The random die roll at the end could have been replaced with a difficulty setting at the beginning of the game. It would work better as a goal than as a "game came down to a random die roll" mechanism.
Joshua Postema if you did your job and searched outside for Helicopter bonuses then one doesn't even need to roll that die. The die is purely there to give those who didn't find enough bonuses at least a second chance to succeed. Nothing random at all.
Angela Viveen I’m aware of how the die functions. But I don’t know why it is preferred over a difficulty setting like Pandemic has. A die roll deciding a game - even if you can influence it - is just too random. If I owned the game, I’d House-rule rolling the thing before the game starts. As for the die offering a second chance, it seems lazy. The second chance is roll a die and see what happens? It would be like in Dead of Winter if each losing player rolled a die and on a six, they win anyway. Why bother?
You don't draw strikes. There are certain events (every round starts with a new event) when failed give you a strike. When the boiler breaks, everyone inside receives a strike When you fail a Thing Attack, you gain a strike and a Vulnerable card If all v-cards are drawn and you need to draw one, you'll get a strike instead Also critical strikes give you a strike after you failed to remove it during your round.
I'm not sure what to make of Tom's review for this game. He says 'on any given day, it could've gone another way'. Well, some of his reviews are just as random as the games he criticizes, since this has happened with several games now. He's free to feel any way he wants about a game, but this review (and many others) is clearly his personal opinion (he even says he's in the minority about how he feels). Yet, so many people have posted comments using this review to seemingly justify their own feelings or decisions about the kickstarter or game itself. I haven't heard any other reviewer make any comments/criticisms about the game that are even similar to Tom's. Why does his opinion matter so much to people when what he says is just and only that - his opinion? He (and the Dice Tower in general) clearly prefer certain types of games (and game designers) to others, so when he heavily criticizes a game (and tends to be in the minority), I tend to not take the review very seriously. This is one of those times. I get the impression that he was let down because he was expecting bigger things from the game, and that weighed heavily in this review. I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything, but his reviews for Pixie Queen and Feudum were very similar, where he "wanted to like the game", but didn't. Fine, but those reasons are clearly subjective, and come down to nothing more than opinion, especially for games like Pixie Queen and especially Feudum, which aren't his favorite style of games to start with. I don't think this game was meant to be taken seriously, so things like the dice roll at the end of the game are there for fun only, not to make you upset if you lose because of it. Anyway, those are just some observations I have about these reviews and the comments afterwards.
“Clearly subjective” and “opinion”...he’s a reviewer, it’s a review, that’s what a review is. He said good things, he said bad things and then he gave his opinion. Sometimes it seems that people only want reviewers that always say every game is awesome, to me that’s pointless.
Agreed. It's also about, as you've said, how so many people seem to be using Tom's review as their sole justification for their decision to not back the game.
Sounds like they guy didn't understand how the game is played which comes under his argument about the rules and it took me a while to get to grips with some of the concepts. So the argument about the rules is fair. I felt the same way about the end with the dice but then realised the dice is a bonus. you are supposed to,( in an ideal world with out a thing to put a spanner in the works,) is work together, share, go outside and get helicopter points and walk on the helicopter with out rolling a dice easy. The risk of infection and someone being on the helicopter who is not human goes against the human required roll and gives them a chance to still still succeed with the dice. Any thing infected player takes his points into negatives for the humans. I have seen demo games where a human was left behind and the thing got on with one human making it impossible for the human player to win because he believed the wrong player was the thing The game appears sound and a matter of preference. i for example have loved hp lovecraft and call of cthuhu since a teen many moons ago and despite really wanting to like the arkham board games did not enjoy them at all. I still recognise it as a classic brilliant board game, i just didn't enjoy it. I have one last point that it is a pretty crap review and not very professional or objectified review. Apart from the rules complaint i would take this review with a pinch of salt.(thrown over the shoulder)
yes. yes i do understand that. but it appears he didn't play the game right or understand it. it would like reviewing the film memento with out seeing the last minutes which changes the entire film you just watched. the review would not complete. I do not think its a very good review. a Good reviewer would describe the game, the mechanics well and point out what type of players would like a game or right up their ally and what type of players may dislike it or find it boring.
your complaint is that he is not a good reviewer. he reviewed the game as he experienced it. he went over the rules quickly, about 8 mins in a 19 min review. how can he say what type of players would like it when he specifically does, and say he is a bad reviewer for it? he said he didnt like it and he said why. any one watching the review will see if they like it based on what they saw. people always complain about the way he goes over the rules (which is always prefaced with a "this a quick synopsis") and say he didnt play them correctly. every blanking time. yet, if you had bothered to watch any other reviews of his (miami dice are the best ones for this) he explains they always go over the rules again if they feel something is wrong or doesnt feel like something is just off from the game. they play the rules correctly. so let me break down your argument - a good reviewer decribes the game (his intro) the mechanics (nearly 8 mins of a 19 min video) and point who what type of players would or would not like it (he explains himself and his points as to why he doesnt like it. he cannot explain why you like it as he is not you. but he can expound upon his reasoning, which he does, which allows for anyone watching to extrapolate that for themselves. which he does.) so here is how he said exactly what kind of games would like this game .do you like: 2 plus hours (do you like long games?) too much randomness? (2 hours that can determine if you win or lose) luck? (maybe you get what you need, maybe its on the bottom of the deck) strong theme? (not only does he say its strong, he said some people he played with could enjoy the game because of the theme). he kind of covers exactly why he doesnt like it, what could have been different, and then goes to say if you like what you saw, you could like the game. so what part of this review are you dinging the reviewers skills for? and finally, from what i can find you do not have a physical copy of the game (apparently they had some bollocks issues they couldnt control, it happens) but when you do, i would like to see (read if i must) your full review. since you feel he has done reviewership wrong, i would (and i do mean this truly) like to see how you would do it better. plus, i have now seen a video that points (and as he said, barely, but points negatively) i would like to see one that points positively. (and if your curious about my thoughts on it - he said its a 2 plus hour game with a bit too much randomness. im out. there isn't enough people in my group that would play this, that would bother trying this. if someone said "lets play" and i wasnt doing anything though, youd probably get me to play it... but only if this was the only big game of the night)
Firstly i am dyslexic and will not be able to respond as eloquently as you (me brain will not let me and lets me appear stupid). Should also learn to not comment on stuff :-). I would never say or try to do a review or claim i can do something better. I am an artist and people who can not draw for crap can and do mention errors and other things i have missed or they do not like and i welcome their opinion and help me to be a better artist. They are just as valid as someone who is better and more experienced than me just because they can not draw. People are able to criticise experts right or wrong. No i have not played but have read the rules so when he complains about the randomness of the roll at the end as if that is the end result every time regardless of the game you played always is simply not true unless the game is truly broken . The fact when i watched it he didn't seem to understand the end and that the thing wants to get on the game is pretty big omission who brings the required chances of winning down hence the dice roll can be a life saver if you had enough to not make a roll. you then still have a chance to win. finding a good reviewer is about trust and he is not my cup of tea at all. I do take your points on board and appreciate the argument. i have rewatched it and he is talking so fast some parts had passed by. wish i could i able to transfer my thoughts to keyboard easier. probably could have a good chat in person but this has taken aeons to write and not happy with it so am off to do the weekly food shopping (woo hoo (sarcasticly)
We like their Endangered Orphans of Condyle cove (it's a light, simple game but we like it). But this one didn't sound interesting to me. Glad I didn't back it.
I didn't care for EO at all. WGT is completely different and, in my opinion, much better. It reminds me of that one guy's games who makes stuff for Czech Games Edition, and whose name I will certain misspell if I try it from memory, but each of his games is really different - his philosophy is that he doesn't want to make 7/10 or 8/10 games for everyone, but each of his games should be a 10/10 for some people, and he doesn't care if everyone else rates them a 2 or 3. WGT is a hardcore co-op survival game with a sci-fi/horror bent and a "hidden traitor" mechanic that can be AVOIDED, unlike games like Dead of Winter or The Thing where the traitor is simply randomly determined; in WGT your team has to fail before there can be a traitor. It bears no resemblance to Endangered Orphans at all, except the company logo on the box. (You can play the base game free on Tabletop Simulator, if you want to make up your mind for yourself.)
sorry, tom gotta disagree. theres not supposed to be a reason to play different if you are the thing. in the book/film the alien is an exact replica of the characters. only way to tell is from a blood test which the game allows for. so i think in this instance, it works that the infected players go along. im very excited to get this game and ur review hasnt wavered my want of this game at all. people have their opinions, i think its going to be great! edit: also looked over how the thing does have sabotage options. infected players can play useful cards facedown in the bonfire to waste needed resources for humans
I would like to have more options to sabotage mission in this game. As in Dead of Winter you can screw up a crisis by putting a wrong card into a deck. Also in Battle Star Gallactica is many of those possibilities.
I believe his point was as there is no way to play any differently there are no clues at all for the other players to guess who is infected. In Social Deduction games you are meant to deduce who is a traitor, but if the traitor never has to do anything that a loyal player wouldn’t do then there’s no chance to do this. Even playing a card face down isn’t a clue unless at some point people can look at those face down cards.
I dont agree that infected players dont play differently. They should try to put suspicoius on other players. They should do everything other players get more vulnerable cards. If they do so they have more chance that more infected players is in helicopter at the end.
Replect What of the die roll at the end of the game that ultimately decides if you win? I don't think I want to play a game that's 2+ hours long and at the end I roll a couple dice to see if we win or lose. That's not a satisfying ending to me. Change my mind because I was interested in this game, but this part (and the complete lack of any true social deduction) have me passing on it now.
It's heartbreaking hearing this isn't that great. The components are so beautiful, and I love the theme of The Thing. Shocking that they didn't seem to capitalize on the theme.
D-Doom33 Agreed. It's not a social deduction game. It's a survival game with an added, and highly thematic, social deduction element. And as far as random ... Tom loves Zombicide. So ... WGT is too random compared to what he is willing to accept in Zombicide? That makes no sense to me. Sounds like he completely missed the point of WGT which is pretty loyal to the short story source material unlike the movie.
Could have sworn he told Zee that he loved Zombicide during one of the DTC livestreams. *shrug* Mea culpa. Must have been Sam. Anyway ... He still missed the whole point of WGT.
i hear you. Being infected keeps you in the game by keeping your goals the same. But that's utterly uninteresting. Speaking from the perspective of The Thing (because that's the one I've played) the game gives you all these ways to sabotage but there's no incentive to sabotage. Why sabotage when you can play good literally the entire game and then land on the chopper at the end to win? Unlike the Resistance where you might have an incentive to play good one round to set yourself up for the double round, or to cast suspicion on a specific partner. There's no reason to have sabotage cards except for theme in The Thing. You might as well remove them. If the humans fail to survive you win, If they do you can be picked randomly to join the helo. There's no reason to trust anyone making the game just a random pick. It means the entire game boils down to Win, Lose, Banana. (I've only played maybe 20 games of The Thing because people in my group love it but at this point I now just back out) >Depending on how the humans are doing he might want to mess with them or spread the infection but again why. Why bother messing with the humans. There is no gameplay incentive to do that. Not when waiting until the end is *just* as easy. In The Resistance failing a mission gets you close to the win condition. Every fail is on step closer. I fail the first mission when I can because it makes two people suspicious and it gives us a victory. In the thing waiting to the end and starting early don't affect how easy it is to win. If you sabotage as much as you can but we survive it's still a random pick. If I don't sabotage and play it strait it's still a random pick. There's no informed decision making. Which is also the issue I have with Secret Hitler. It has a dumb theme but my real issue is a failed mission can't be seen as information.
Tom also forgot to mention that the Thing can fight back once outed. He can do a Thing Attack (by using the Host card and a blank v-card for every player they want to attack). They shuffle those cards and then everyone who's being attacked draws one. The Thing might be Assaulted (also not mentioned by Tom), but the paranoia goes through the roof. Did the Host card infect someone else or did it get returned? The guy you bunked with just minutes early might not be human anymore... So who will you take on the Helicopter now? It looked so simple earlier :(
i have no problem with randomness in this type of game beccause it requires randomness to tell a story. its not a euro which has an engine that allows you to strategize and optimize. in this type of game you don't know what you're going to get. It seems to have the same issue that This War of Mine has. You may not win. Its random. What you encounter may be completely beyond your control and you may have no way to counter it. This particular game may not have implemented its randomenss that well, but I'm not sure if we should penalize it for being random. Since this is the sort of game that requires randomnesss.
But surely it should be penalized for doing randomness wrong, yes there's a good level to aim for in a game like this but it seems too much. My biggest issue is the "roll to win" at the end, you have plenty of randomness in how well you do throughout the game, then making a one off highly variable roll decide if that was enough at the end seems bizarre.
i haven't played it yet, so dont know for sure that hte randomness is done wrong. However, Tom seems to fault it for being random at all. He seems to want a Euro style game where you can strategize your way to victory. But this sort of game seems to rely on randomness specifically to tel its story. The single die roll having you win or lose does appear to be a bit much. But perhaps Tom simply doens't like this sort of game. I'd lump other games like Last Night on Earth , This War of Mine in amongst this style of game. And Tom may not like this type of game generally. I know he also had issues with This War of Mine for same reasons. The randomness though, is what makes that game. (its also what makes the game frusrating for many)
The problem of high randomness is not only the unfairness of the victory/loss, that's not precisely what Tom is complaining about. He mostly points the fact that players decisions have little weight, and brings little satisfaction because many of them are blind choices. Too much blind guessing in a +2 hours long deduction game finished by an ultimate dice roll can be frustrating. That said I didn't play the game, but by reading a part of the rulebook and listening Tom I'm yet to be convinced.
Vimesey17 I have played this game more than a handful of times & I can attest that you do not "roll to win" at the end. If you play well & attain helicopter points, and properly identify the thing you can get away with not having to roll at all. The roll is a final "Hail Mary" for extra bonuses to balance out a bad playthroughs. Sure each player starts off needing a perfect roll of 6 each to win ... But each bonus gets you closer to winning & reducing the importance of the die roll.
Sounds exactly like nemesis the board game...just not nearly as good. Playing a game for 90 plus minutes and then having a die determine if you win or lose just sounds ridiculous. Completely agree with you Tom.
Replect well if a guy who plays board games and reviews them for a living can't figure out how to do the end game scoring then something is clearly wrong with the game. Like he said, you shouldn't need 3 pages of a rule book just to figure out who won.
Mike Slaybaugh If Tom READ the rulebook beforehand he would know that the three pages are more than just describing who won. It is 1) Describing how to decide who gets on the helicopter, how you can force the leader off the helicopter, how a consensus is reached. 2) Covering all possible outcome: all human, a thing on board, all infected onboard by accidentally over infecting (because people choose to infect) 3) how to calculate the Total needed to win (based on how many humans left alive + things allowed on board the helicopter) 4) how to calculate your bonuses (based on humans on board the helicopter) 5) Also has some delightful flavour text describing your success / failure as of it were ripped from the pages of the original novella. ... So based on the fact that there are SOO many different ways the game can end ... Doesn't it make sense they cover all possibilities in a thorough manner?
Well, he did say he thought the rulebook was poorly constructed so maybe that has something to do with it. The rulebook from Endangered Orphans was horrible, so it wouldn't surprise me. Game does look cool, though.
oneanotherstudios I would disagree that the rulebook is poorly constructed. It sounded like Tom wanted to learn how to run beofre learning what part of his body is the legs. The rulebook describes how to set up the game boards, then tells you how to read the game boards and what everything means. Then it tells you how a character is set up, how the round tracker is used on the game board. Then so that you understand the character board it explains what stamina, strikes and exp are and why they are important to characters. Then it let's you know what each of the 5 card decks are, and what you can find in them. It then explains how to set up and use the “camp events” deck (one of the pages Tom didn't read as he doesn't mention this VERY important aspect of the game once in a 20 minute review) and how to resolve them. This is basically telling you everything you need to know mechanically before you decide on how to use any actions … the actions page is "buried" on page 24 of 35 because the book is telling you: "You should probably read every page in front of the actions page before even trying to play ... or nothing will make sense … and you will use actions poorly". Then the remaining pages after that are describing things you need to know during your turn once you start playing. If Tom wanted the action breakdown on page one before learning how to setup, prepare and understand the game it meant he didn't want to learn how to properly play the game or how it worked ... He just wanted to know what he could do on his turn ...
I backed 165 project, everyone u listed !so I’m aware of how ks works . Like I said welcome to ks it’s still a gamble and u better hope you get a discount. On the 2nd eddition upgrade pack !
Oh.. and did you completely miss the whole trade aspect in the game? yeah, you find random stuff.. but you can trade items with the others.. and that gives another risk, if you trade with someone who is infected, you may get infected yourself.. i'm sorry, but it feels like you didn't read the rule book properly..
He did mention it about one player having everything and the other player needing to ask nicely. i'm sorry, but it feels like you didn't watch the video properly..
Replect So you are essentially saying "You are using/playing it wrong". If player understanding of trades ask is required to enjoy the game but there is no rule making it mandatory, then you shouldn't be upset/judgmental when players DON'T understand and thus DON't have a good time.
Isn’t this just a rip-off of the The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game from Mondo? They stole the idea and got people to fund them money via Kickstarter?
razzledazzle15 If you want to find out for yourself if you will like it or not, go try it on TableTop Simulator On Steam: They added the base 4 player game as a free public mod. You can give it a test run yourself to potentially reaffirm your decision.
Thanks Dave. I figure I'll just wait for my copy to arrive and try it myself. On further consideration, Tom's review doesn't seem exactly fair- the thing player doesn't want to exactly play straight, he wants to be less than optimally productive. He also wants to infect others. He also seems to misunderstand the role of the final die roll.
The art alone was enough to instantly turn me off to this. Who the heck thought this was a good tone for one of the bleakest sci-fi horror stories of all time? The stunt dog in Dead of Winter is positively dignified in comparison. What's next, Chibi Event Horizon?
The first prerogative for any game i get, is does it look good? so i am glad i am not the only one who rights off a game because of art design The thing is one of my fave films and i can see your point about the art but i like it myself . But i would like to see a darker toned art work version too would be cool. The thing event cards are not that scary and disappointing to be honest. As a 3d artist though to avoid uncanny valley i make my art less realist and more stylistic. knowing how the game works i think the art fits the game mechanics and suspension of disbelief very well. The main reason is the art is done by the designer Anthony and that obviously is his style of painting and its very good at.
I like the gritty comic book style of the art. If "who goes there?" were put into graphic novel form, I suspect it would look similar. Maybe a little darker, but still very cool comic book style art.
Odd, I thought the art was brilliant and meshed perfectly. But then I don't like ugly, grunge style art. To each their own, I guess. I'm thrilled I backed this at the infection level. All the bells and whistles.
Welcome to Gloomhaven, Rising Sun, Kingdom Death: Monster, Scythe, 7th Continent... Kickstarter has grown up and delivers more and more great games! Stop saying "oh it's a kickstarter game, so it must be rubbish. only real publishers can put out great games!".
Toms reviews are garbage nowadays. Half the time it feels he never played the game fully or read the rule book. Sam and Zee are way better. Leaps and bounds. Tom needs to step it up.
Would love to get Tom's thoughts on the 2nd edition changes to this game which is currently running on Kickstarter.
"She and me are gonna bunk together and we're showing each other our things" - Tom Vasel, 2018
Me and the neighbor girl used to do that when I was younger.
I got this via KS and finally got it to the table last night. Six player game. I purposefully delayed watching Tom's (or any reviews) before playing. After playing I formulated my own opinions and came to see what Tom thought and I hate to admit that I think he's spot on. Not that I don't agree with a lot if Tom's reviews or dislike him, I just WANTED DESPERATELY to really like this game. I was looking forward to it so much. Love the theme, thought I was going to live this game but I didn't.
It is SUPER long at 6 players. Granted, it was all our first time playing, and we had to consult the book constantly ( and Tom is right, I was continuously flipping back and forth). Took us the better part of 4 hours to finish. There was never really a sense of dread like Tom said. The other thing, once the V-cards are depleted, there didn't seem to be any repercussions for not having food during to food round, or not bunking together. There should be a secondary condition after the V-cards are gone.
I've now played The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, Who Goes There and Dead of Winter and I continue to drift back to Dead of Winter.
I so much wanted to live this game. I backed it. I thought it was going g to be great. But all the things Tom said I agree with and I'm not sure how often this will make it to the table.
There are. You get damaged when you have to take a card but there are no more left.
I find it interesting how much doubt people have in Tom’s ability to review the game in the comments. Obviously, people can like the game, but his experience in playing so many games gives him a unique perspective so that he can point out things that could bother certain people. Anyway, I believe that Tom did a great review, and props to him for not overlooking the flaws just because of theme/how other players liked it.
Happens every single time Tom doesn’t like a Kickstarter game, all the backers (like, at a guess, Replect) turn up and point out how wrong he is and how clearly he’s a terrible reviewer and how they can tell at a glance he didn’t play it with the right number of people or he got a crucial rule wrong or he didn’t play it the 37 times you needed to to really get it. Every. Single. Time. 😀
the ones doubting are the kickstarter backers ;P
So far this is the only video I have seen that pointed out valid issues with the game as well as show it's strengths and didn't either give it a full 100% or a 0%.
Cthulwho? Hmmm... So you're surprised when people who own and have played the game comment on a review.. over those that don't and/or haven't? Weird.
kevin Sheiksen The ones commenting are the ones who have played it.
Thanks for the review, it helped me distinguish which “The Thing” themed game would work best for my group. I think this game works well for those dedicated groups who come prepared with knowledge of the literature and concept of dedication to survival, but as the price point for the deluxe edition of this game, its an investment for the dedicated, who truely sink in and love the concept.
As others have said I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the 2nd edition. Looks like they fixed some issues that you brought up!
I've played three games of this so far. A 3 player, 4 player and 5 player game. I think it may be how you are coming into the experience. I see a lot of complaints revolving around dice and luck but I think this game was not intended to be some highly strategic survival game. It is more along the lines of a fun social experience. I enjoy the game very much and two from our group enjoy it immensely too, no one hated it and it may be because they came into the game knowing what it would be like....
How does it compare with the other "The Thing" game which came out about a year ago?
I've not played "Alien Entity", which came out in 2014. I HAVE played "Panic Station", which came out in 2011, and it was terrible. The art style is one of the most unappealing I've ever seen (and bear in mind just how visually great John Carpenter's movie was), there's no way to discover the identity of the Alien other than body language or dumb luck, there's zero tension, and the game can be over in five minutes if you can get a good shot onto the correct Thing. I played it at a convention and it was the worst game I saw there by a country mile. Would not recommend to anybody, especially fans of the book / film these games are based on.
H0lyMoley i think he means"The Thing: infection at Outpost 31"
Yes, I'm referring to this one: usaopoly.com/games/thingtm-infection-outpost-31
Man, I'd like to try that one... but on the other hand, my experience with Thing-related board games has been pretty much universally negative, and it doesn't sound like "Who Goes There" is gonna buck that trend.
I didn't like Outpost 31 at all... felt like they tried to make a bigger game out of a simple social deduction. all the additions just made it bloated. played like a less interesting less tense Dead of Winter. I love the Thing movie and the idea of the theme but no one has gotten it right yet in my opinion.
Sir! The Kickstarter Defence Force is ready, sir!
Sir! It's an honour to be speaking to the leading commander, sir!
Sir! Thank you for permission to stay, sir!
I'm with Tom on this one. We played at DTC and I feel like I wasted those hours. Wish we'd played Dark Moon instead.
Yeah, dark moon with the shadow corporation expansion is pretty good
Just finished playing a 6 player game. First time for everyone. This is indeed a survival game first and foremost. There are too many ways to get strikes and die. If you do not prepare your character to mitigate, and don't collectively play to help each other, you die early. We had two players die before the 8th round! Second, i agree with Tom that randomness of searching can be one sided. Those are just the odds. One person will get screwed and one person will be geared to the hilt. Therefore, everyone must be willing to trade freely even knowing the risk. I love the mechanics and the survival part of this game. This could be a game of just that. However, as i stated below the helicopter phase just kills it for me. I was really hoping it wouldn't. Maybe on my second playing, the end game will seem better to me. Just my two cents.
Sad to hear. I'm hoping our group likes it. It does look amazing and I've heard good things about it when it was less than 5 players. I've seen some other technical reviews that really enjoyed it so maybe different strokes for different folks on this one...
The Dice Odyssey If you want to take the game for a test drive and reaffirm your decision to buy, got to TableTop Simulator on Steam. They just added the core game as a free mod.😀
Dave MacDonald thanks brother. I may just do that. The one thing I know about the game that has been said is that it was designed as a survival game first, so that there was a viable game in there to begin with, and then they added the elements of "the thing". So it's a survival game with a slight social deduction element.
Man Vs Meeple said that they didn't necessarily wanna categorize this In the social deduction realm as much as a survival game. I'm hoping the game is strong enough to survive even if the social deduction aspect isn't as strong.
Have you played it now? Wanna know your feedback.
This game is a survival game first which strongly encourages teamwork at the beginning to get better gear just to survive the environment. Trust is easy to come by early since everybody starts off human. Failure to act as a team hastens the dispersement of vulnerability cards. Acting as a team "stacks the odds in your favor" on the dice rolls to beat camp events and monster attacks. As the game unfolds and vulnerable cards get passed out, players need to manage their risk of exposure when deciding who to bunk with during sleep rounds or who to trade with to build/upgrade gear.. Trust is not so easy to come by later. The entertainment value of the ensuing social dynamics cannot be overstated. I really like how the ultimate goal of the game remains unchanged for all players (whether human or the Thing): survive and board the chopper at the end. Brilliant! If your teamwork was awesome, the outcome of the dice roll is automatic, but if you let a Thing aboard the chopper, well, things get more tooth and nail! The game has a mod available on TableTop Simulator, so give it a try! Bring questions to WGT Discord channel!
Do you guys still play "Who Goes There"?
Nathaniel P - I have only played WGT? on TTS so far. It’s a great way to pick up turn order and game mechanics. Now I am ready for “next level shenannigans” with the game. We are awaiting arrival of the game so we can add the ‘face-to-face’ aspect to our experience!
Oh nice. yeah i played it on TTS and it was fun so i was going to pre-order it. do you know when they will ship it when you pre order?
I am not sure of the logistics details. I expect if your order is placed soon and the game comes from the batch that is going through customs now, shipping would be along the lines of a Kickstarter backer. If those extra units are sold out already, and another production run needs to occur, then it would take longer. You could contact Rick@certifiablestudios.com to get an idea of logistical details for this game. We are still patiently waiting a notification from the fulfillment center that our game is en route. Word on the street is that Kickstarter orders in the US started fulfilling in earnest last week and should be wrapping up this week.
We totally had the dread and paranoia in our game and the thing won because it was someone we never expected.
I have not played the game yet, that happens this week. To prepare I watched several videos including this one. Love everything about it except the ending. It bothers me that the game misses the boat here. In the movie the Thing doesn't need any help getting out because it can build its own ship! Second, once people know of its existence, the Thing would not allow them to report back to civilization. So its goal is to kill or infect everyone at the station. In the movie, the Thing would sabotage helicopters, cut off communications and such to prevent humans from leaving. I think adding this to the game would've added a different level of tension. It would quiet the complaint of people saying, "if your infected, just play along as if human the whole time." I know, it's one of those game design decisions. Adding this complexity may of been too difficult. Anyway, I'm excited to play the game, it seems like a lot of fun.
Just got this game. A gift. Haven't played it yet, but he got the THING's part wrong. Its goal is the same as the humans.....to get on that shiny, candy-like helicopter.....but only if it brings a tasty, juicy human with it. You fail if everyone is infected. As the THING, you can choose to infect or NOT, to save you intended meat for the trip. So the clicker can be set in either position. Not to mention you can't allow the last human to die of natural causes, either. Keep them alive for later. It changes the dynamic considerably.....but it is still 50-50 chance at the end. Grim, but a bit realistic in performance. It IS a blizzard, after all......and you still are making a desperate bid for freedom.
What would help the game (for new players) would be a cheat sheet of possible player actions. As an old programmer, cheat sheets and reference cards were key to speed.
If you go back and watch the review on The Thing, infection at outpost 31, one of the biggest complaints was that you couldn't cause as much trouble as the thing and it wasn't random enough. So now you have a game that allows you to do those very things and you don't like it. Sorry, I can't put much stock into your review on this one. I've played it on TTS and it's a blast.
I love this game and I think Tom was way off here - now, they did put out a 2.0 that improved on the mechanics, got rid of that random die you roll once that he mentioned. This game is the best of the bunch on The Thing. This is a really good game if you play it with RPG types.
It seems to me that this kind of heavily thematic social deduction game is an entirely new beast, that simply did not click with Tom.
I’m very much looking forward to getting my copy and playing it with the rpg loving part of my gaming group :)
Jens Riisom Schultz How will you deduce anything though if the infected don’t have to act in any way different from the non infected and want the same goal (helicopter to leave).
In most deduction games the guilty party has a different goal, they want the Galactica to be destroyed, they want the missions to fail, they want someone else to be accused of the murder.
It’s the small things they do to sabotage success that other players pick up on. In this one the good guys want to get away on the helicopter and the Thing wants to get away on the helicopter. What clues will there be.
Cthulwho? I’m not sure that the strategy of the infected is the same as that of the humans. Maybe its easier to win if everyone is infected or all humans are dead? I won’t know until I try it :) My hope is that Tom overlooked something... ;) Admittedly I’m pre invested in the game, so I want it to work.
Having played the game a few times, and loving it, I would say that the thing player is less inclined to work as a team. don't tell people you have food when they need it, move outside when you know you might get locked out so more people have to bunk alone and draw more of the vulnerable cards. As the thing, you want to spread the already growing paranoia while still being subtle enough, and valuable enough, to be brought on the chopper. Also remember, you want the humans to only take you and one of them....if there are 3 humans and 1 thing, the thing still needs to be able to win the roll. Watch for people who change from a team focused mindset (letting other people get the chopper bonus), to doing risky searches themselves.
I am not sure what to make of this review!? Tom clearly knows games and instruction books so I really do not want to dismiss his opinions. On the other hand after watching every other gameplay video I can find on youtube. It seems like he maybe didn't understand everything. Or maybe I don't since I have not played the game.
SJ Barnette he didn't understand everything. Play it on Table Top Simulator and give it a try first. I found it to be a ton of fun. And the instruction manual was easy to follow.
Tookie M no worries I backed the game so I will be getting my copy. Every other video people seemed to be enjoying it. I feel like I will too.
SJ Barnette I am waiting for my copy too. Hopefully this week. I can't wait!
Tookie M I know right. I am super excited too.
SJ same here
I'm looking at the kickstarter for the second edition and do any of you think they might have dealt with these issues or otherwise improved upon it?
I have the same question. I came here from the kickstarter for the second edition to get an idea of the game. It's quite a bit of money for the game. I think I give it a pass.
Same question here...
Die hard Who Goes There fan here. I am a huge tabletop game fan, and for a good year Who Goes There was probably my number one board game. I will say Who Goes There is no longer my favorite, but that is just from overplaying it (plus Arcadia Quest and Gloomhaven hit my table and I just couldn't resist). As I played it more, I noticed the issues with the game, but I do not know if they are as extreme as Tom lists. Yes the die at the end of the game can sometimes make or break your game, but if you play well enough, you wont NEED the die roll at all. The die is really a last resort that might make it for you, even though you didn't rack up enough points on your own. But yes, the randomness and lack of true paranoia is somewhat lacking, but the second edition does seem to fix some of these issues...
First off, some cards in the inside piles are replaced with "keys". Now this may seem like not a big deal, but these keys allow you to cut through the randomness of the game. The cards that were deleted were literally trash. I'm not kidding. The cards were titled "trash" and did nothing for you. This alone stops you from ever drawing useless cards again out of the workshop deck. Going on, the keys allow you to go inside/outside even when the camp is in lock down. Having a camp in lock down is the worst thing, and its completely random whether it will be or not turn to turn. But keys let you ignore this, and some of the new characters specialize in keys and ignoring camp events.
Second off, this is probably even more important, is the death mechanic. Death was the worst part about Who Goes There. I recently played a game where one of the players died in round 5 (about 45 minutes in), and they just left the table as they didn't want to sit around for an hour and a half while we finished.
The second edition kind of fixes this with the new frostbite mechanic, but Ill admit, it isn't perfect. Frostbite allows you to have the potential to be revived by your teammates, but if, for example, your team killed you because they thought you were infected, you aren't going to be revived and the game is over for you.
Personally, my biggest gripe with the first edition was the ending. No matter WHAT team you're on, your goal is to get on the helicopter, and that sucks, as it kills the paranoia. If you're left behind, you lose, and I personally think this gives too much power to the team captain. I'm not sure how to fix this issue but that's my schpeel.
So just to sum up...
Second Edition fixes SOME of the randomness and gives you more chances to work as a team to face the game but not all
But honestly, the randomness is part of the game's charm, and if that's not your thing, that's cool too. Other examples of too heavily random games I enjoy that are criticized for their randomness would be Killer Bunnies or Villainous. Certifiable Studios knows that their games are not the best, they are meant to be fun games to enjoy doing whatever you want with.
Whenever there is a game I'm really interested in, I get as much information on it as I possibly can before I reach for my wallet. I see what all my favorite reviewers think, I listen to the podcasts, I want to see a finished product, and I want to read the BGG ratings. This was one person's opinion, and I was turned off from this game after watching the Man V Meeple play through. My game group and I are huge fans of this IP, but the gameplay here didn't excite us. But that's our opinion. Keep on gaming!!!
I had the same concerns you now mention as problems when concidering to back it. So glad I backed out in the end.
Same here.
Just bought this off someone who really liked it, but his group didn't. Having gone through how to play it I am certain my group will love it, but I already have an urge to house-rule the hell outta this game. It is such a cool concept and the components are so nice, but unfortunately, I can already see some of mr. Vasel's points becoming a real issue and potentially ruining much of the fun. The one major problem I see is the final helicopter phase. The boarding process is rather vaguely described, incoherent and without a clear structure. But the worst part is the final counting up of bonus points. It is convoluted, arbitrary in its outcome and has no narrative strength to it. Plus, it allows the Host a super easy win, since all he has to do is play it super straight and infect another player relative late in the game to be almost certain to win, if the team as a whole survived, and the human players will have no way to expose him, except with a lucky shot in the dark.
Fortunately pretty much none of the game's flaws are built into its components, and I have hope of creating some house rules that could change it from a flawed game with potential to a truly amazing experience.
Finkeren-House rules can make this game really incredible. I love this game with a few tweaks.
My wife and I have a really good 2 player variant that we have played multiple times.
M Raney we just played this tonight. I want to play it again but definitely with some house rules. Could you elaborate on some of yours?
My experience with the game at Gencon was very positive (absolutely love it), but good objective points all the same. Thanks for the review!
So in other words... buy Dark Moon and its expansion instead?
Absolutely gutted to hear how much you didn't like this one. The production is gorgeous and The Thing being a favorite film makes this a must buy (I couldn't afford the KS)... now I'm a bit like.. well.. if the main element of the story is missing (ie the paranoia), what's the point of it having that setting. So sad. If anyone else had a more positive outcome I'd love to hear it.
Trust me the paranoia is there. I actually played a game where no one & I repeat no one trusted each other by the end. People were choosing to bunk alone because they were CERTAIN the infected was already out and would rather "take a clean card from the pile than risk you infecting me". Everyone wasting actions to avoid unsafe food trades ... And just when you discover the thing ... BAM thing attack and now anyone could be infecred again.
If you want a paranoia game this has it in spades.
It is interesting to see so many people, who have not played the game, saying how great the game is. The games certainly looks awesome, I know I came close to backing. But I don't get the defense of a game that has not been played yet.
a tabletop simulator is not the same as actually playing a physical game at a table with other people playing that physical game. I have no idea if the game is good or not good. I know it looks good and I know people spent a lot of money on the game and thus want it to be good, which it may well be. I just don't get the strong defense of a game before you have played it for real, but I guess that is my problem with KS as a whole. You spend a lot of money for a game with a great theme or look that you have not played, and then you wait at least a year for that game to show up. In the meantime, there are 1000s of games at your local FLGS that you can actually play first, and then buy after you have actually played it for real. I hope the game is good and I hope you enjoy it, but until you actually play it on a table with other people around you can't know that yet. But again, I hope Tom is wrong and you enjoy your game.
Replect you don't like gloomhaven but like this game? Even more reason for me to not get this game hah
This seems fidely and overly layered with stuff for what is offered. It's as though they wanted to make a social deduction game with a multitude of mechanics. Like they trew everything they could into the game, hoping it would stick, a goulash of a social deduction game. Doesn't look to me there's any reason to play this over DarkMoon .For the most part the beauty of Social deduction is easier to explain and immerse oneself in it. If I want depth and complexity I'll just play Battlestar Galactica!!! And little tension or paranoia come on now!
I was eyeing this game but was confused on how little the game seemed to have missions. like yeah youre building better and better items but for what. sure to fight with but what else? it needs crisis, story, and personal mission aspects the utilize these items on a much more meaningful manner. then i think the game will shine.
Everman You are building better items because you need them to fight the camp events every round (a part of the game Tom seems to ignore).
Every round has a different camp event (a group mission if you will), these events can drastically change the decisions players make in their turn. Also events can lock you inside / outside and change your game too. Get locked out with almost stamina? Well son you may die unless you built that hot spot. A madman pop up in the event deck? Too bad you didn't build a knife to defend yoursef.
The items have purpose and trust me you need them.
i have played the game and i totally agree. Its a 5 maybe a 5.5 but no more. It has a cool concept but not to be able to find during the game who is infected is totally random. A cool experience but only for one time not more.
Was anyone counting the number of times Tom say the word “thing”?
Sounds extremely similar to Dead of Winter.
Jumping Turtle Games is working on a co-op escape the prison card game turning into a social deduction game. Called THE SNITCH.
Love Jesse Labbe’s Art Work!
This looks like Dead of winter gameplay strip down a little. Shame, I really enjoy the thing !
I like how they basically brought a video game and turned it into a table top game. The upstairs did an amazing job!
I backed out of the Kickstarter because I suspected there would be too much randomness. And I really really wanted it.
test it out for free on Tabletop Simulator on Steam.
I agree with Mr. Coffey. The base game (4 player) just went public on TableTop Simulator. Nothing wrong with giving it a try before letting someone else's personal view deter from getting a game you initially wanted.
Wombat I'd suggest you play it on simulator - I think you've shot yourself in the foot, none of the game plays show too much randomness. I backed and can't wait.
How many players did he play with? From his comments, he does not seem to understand that since it is a social deduction game, you need interaction with other players, and that is where it can shine in that as he said, someone with one vulnerability card is actually the thing, and the one with all the vulnerability cards is safe. Also, the randomness is offset with how you interact with the other players. I guess it all depends on your playgroup and how they play. If everyone just plays as they are the only player, it will be a flop.
It's not even a social deduction game from the start, since you all start out as human. It's a survival co-op game which turns into a social deduction once those v-cards get into play.
Components to look great, almost tricked me into backing. But, I felt like too much going on here, felt like it could of been developed more as you can say about a lot of kickstarters.
Uhm.. the infected also wants the helicopter to fly away..
If an infected is on the helicopter, and the die roll succeeds, the infected win (they spread the infection to the rest of the world)
No. Infected needs to board AND bonus total should be lower than the helicopter total. Only in this case infected win the game. Check page 35 in the rules (Scenario #2).
People are allowed to like and not like whatever they want, so I don't mind Tom not digging the game overall... but... he definitely misrepresented quite a few things. It is NOT a social deduction game. First and FOREMOST, it is a cooperative survival game. It becomes a pseudo-social deduction game as the infection cards are drawn, but again, it is primarily about surviving and helping each other to do so. It's about the experience, and definitely not about winning or losing. A game this long shouldn't care too much about the outcome, because like D&D and other story-based games, Who Goes There is about the journey.
My only real gripe with the game are a couple minor rules. I personally think that receiving cards should just simply be an action and not a 50/50 die roll as well. Because it is a simple action, it shouldn't cost any more than 1 action (And definitely no risk of not getting it). In D&D and games like that, simple actions like receiving, giving, or trading items don't need a die roll, so for me, stuff like that in Who Goes There just seems tedious and stupid when you have to roll to execute it. That's why as a house rule, we've decided to not roll for receiving.
My only other issue are the characters, but it's a minor complaint. There are three characters that are ESSENTIAL for a smooth game (Or at least the possibility of a smooth game), and that is the cook, the medic, and the pilot. The three of them provide access to plenty of important in-game items, so not having any one of them is painful. We tried playing a couple 3-player games with the add-on characters, and both of those games were incredibly difficult and resulted in a lot of deaths. I highly recommend keeping the initial 4 characters are primary, and the other 4 characters as additional, if that makes sense.
Overall, though, I have had nothing but fun with Who Goes There! It's a different experience each time, and I always look forward to trying it with new people.
The roll when trading cards is to determine if you have to take the infection clicker or not. Re-read the rules.
I watched a gameplay of this and I thought to myself that it was taking too much time and happening very little . It reminded me to battlestar galactica and why we don't play it anymore.
I actually love BSG. In it the idea of the traitor is frenetic and engaging. They participate, fail votes, make thigs explode, have an active role in the direction of the game, In WGT it's a snore fest all the way through, human or infected. The players are on rails at the game's mercy with no real goal or influence. You draw cards to build stuff for the sole reason that it is a major mechanic but it does very little in the end but pass the turns
The poor dog scene in the Thing, gave me nightmares. To bad Snake Plissken or Jack Burton, would not be able to help them out. :)
snake yes he would have killed everyone else just to make sure almost immediately. jack burton? not so sure besides mac had it covered
"Gotta disagree Tom. You must have played this game wrong, because I paid a lot for this."
Based on reading the comments, it seems more like people are saying he got things wrong or isn't understanding some things about the game. I do see a lot of people claiming anyone who disagrees with him is just a salty Kickstarter backer though.
I haven't played or bought the game, but after reading the comments from both people who like the game and people claiming people who disagree with this review are doing so just because they paid for it, I'm going to check more reviews since the comments have convinced me it probably isn't a good idea to draw conclusions about this game based on this review.
@@VelcroSnake93 you should use the money you would have used for this on the new TMNT KS coming out this year.
This seems craaaaaazy fiddly. Holy cow.
Things Tom forgot to mention or got wrong:
- This is a co-op survival game which gradually turns into a social deduction game as the v-cards get drawn.
- The main objective is to get on the Helicopter and leave. Humans want to leave the infected behind, so they can warn the world about them, the infected want to leave to doom humanity.
- On the character boards you can read what actions you can take each round.
- There's an event board, each event gets drawn at the start of every round. There are 3 kinds of events: Setback (blue), Attack (red) and Instant (green). You can build items to get more action dice against the red and blue events. Green events have to be resolved right away, while the other 2 can be resolved at any time during your turn. If you forget to do them, or fail, you receive a penalty as described on the card. You can also get locked in (or out) so planning ahead is almost impossible. The pre-round sequence of every round is also written on this board.
- Since it's a co-op game you need to help eachother stay human (and not having to beg for items, like Tom says). Search for food or medkits when someone needs it, or trade items to build a weapon. Each phase you need to roll more successes to win (P1 - 1 success, P2 - 2 and P3 - 3), so upgrading weapons is a must.
- If you search outside you'll get 2 xp for every search.
- You can only move inside or outside once per round.
- Three strikes on the door leads to taking a v-card when you're inside. So always repair the 2nd strike or more before you search again (unless nobody is inside)
- There are 2 instant events that give 2 strikes on the boiler, that's why you always need to repair it. When there are 3 strikes on the boiler, everyone inside will get a strike.
- We recommend playing the extented version of the game when you play with 3 players, since there are less people to trade with. Otherwise the standard version is more than enough (unless you have the time)
- Kinner, the cook, has multiple cans of food, Copper has multiple medkits. These are supporting characters. The game will be much harder if you leave one or both out of the game.
- Bunking is always in pairs. In an uneven game you either have to play Clark (exp char) and unlock Jack (untrained 50%, trained 100% succes against getting a v-card), build a barricade (50% chance of succes) or play as Copper and find an adranaline boost (one use only)
- Infected characters can choose whether they infect someone or not. During trades (giving) and bunk rounds one has to show their clicker.
- The Thing has the same objective as the humans, it wants to get away. Of course you can sabotage stuff, like "accidentally" search outside with 2 strikes on the door, but do you really want to be left behind? Or worse, Assaulted?
- Once outed a Thing can perform a Thing Attack. They take the Host card along with a blank v-card for every character they want to attack (at the same location) and shuffle them. Now everyone who's being attacked has to draw one card. Is the Host card back to the original owner or did someone else become it?
- Copper has the Bloodtest, he can find out who's infected. Blair (exp char) has the Host test, he can only find out who's the Host. The only problem is that the one doing the testing also needs to have a v-card. So they might be lying about the results.
- Each human (dead and alive) counts for 6 points. So in a 3 player game the starting Helicopter total is 18 points to escape. You can lower the needed amount by finding Helicopter Bonuses outside. Each infected person removes 6 points from the Helicopter total (so 1 infected lowers the amount to 12 points). If they come on board, all Helicopter bonuses they collected PLUS their Helicopter roll adds to the Helicopter total needed. If one did their job and found enough Helicopter Bonuses outside, they usually don't even have to roll the Helicopter die to get away. If you didn't... well then you either crash and burn, or you end up as a snack for the Thing(s) on board. Also the rulebook has lots of fluff with all the different outcomes just to cover everything.
- The insert holds sleeved cards and each deck has it's own space.The base game box could be smaller, but that's because Certifiable Studios might sell the insert for the Deluxe seperately later on so you can store the expansion characters in the same box.
- The rulebook is setup this way because you need to know stuff first before you can start the game. And you don't need the rulebook that much because, as mentioned before, all info is printed on the boards too.
- From each phase deck 5 cards get removed at the beginning of the game. This means either good cards and/or bad cards (Thing Attacks and Door damages) get removed. That's so you will never be 100% sure what's left in the deck.
This game is a lot of fun. Try it on TTS first before you start canceling because of this review.
Or listen to this podcast by the Brawling Brothers who played it multiple times:
brawlingbrothers.com/who-goes-there-review-e77/
frostedBrownies As Tom said, he knows he's in the minority. Also, this is a review, not a how to play, so some of the points you made do not seem relevant to it, too much detail for a review. That rulebook really doesn't look well put together, not very intuitive. Also, think about how many rulebooks Tom has seen over the years, he knows when a rulebook is good or not. I'm not a fan boy or anything, but I don't think your comments are all justified. Reviews are opinions though, so as with everything you'll get people who like and don't like something.
wavewynder If you do a review, you need to represent the game correctly. The stuff he left out is what makes the game. Just check the post of Tom's review on BGG to see that the creators said about this or for an ever completer list of what was left out.
To be clear I'm totally fine with him disliking the game (his opinion), but the review was badly done.
The random die roll at the end could have been replaced with a difficulty setting at the beginning of the game. It would work better as a goal than as a "game came down to a random die roll" mechanism.
Joshua Postema if you did your job and searched outside for Helicopter bonuses then one doesn't even need to roll that die. The die is purely there to give those who didn't find enough bonuses at least a second chance to succeed. Nothing random at all.
Angela Viveen I’m aware of how the die functions. But I don’t know why it is preferred over a difficulty setting like Pandemic has. A die roll deciding a game - even if you can influence it - is just too random.
If I owned the game, I’d House-rule rolling the thing before the game starts.
As for the die offering a second chance, it seems lazy. The second chance is roll a die and see what happens? It would be like in Dead of Winter if each losing player rolled a die and on a six, they win anyway. Why bother?
Did.. Did you just made a pun
What about house rulings some things:
Like you can draw more than one card and choose one, but if you draw a strike u must take the strike?
You don't draw strikes.
There are certain events (every round starts with a new event) when failed give you a strike.
When the boiler breaks, everyone inside receives a strike
When you fail a Thing Attack, you gain a strike and a Vulnerable card
If all v-cards are drawn and you need to draw one, you'll get a strike instead
Also critical strikes give you a strike after you failed to remove it during your round.
we're showing each other our things 13:56 :-X
I'm not sure what to make of Tom's review for this game. He says 'on any given day, it could've gone another way'. Well, some of his reviews are just as random as the games he criticizes, since this has happened with several games now. He's free to feel any way he wants about a game, but this review (and many others) is clearly his personal opinion (he even says he's in the minority about how he feels). Yet, so many people have posted comments using this review to seemingly justify their own feelings or decisions about the kickstarter or game itself. I haven't heard any other reviewer make any comments/criticisms about the game that are even similar to Tom's. Why does his opinion matter so much to people when what he says is just and only that - his opinion? He (and the Dice Tower in general) clearly prefer certain types of games (and game designers) to others, so when he heavily criticizes a game (and tends to be in the minority), I tend to not take the review very seriously. This is one of those times. I get the impression that he was let down because he was expecting bigger things from the game, and that weighed heavily in this review. I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything, but his reviews for Pixie Queen and Feudum were very similar, where he "wanted to like the game", but didn't. Fine, but those reasons are clearly subjective, and come down to nothing more than opinion, especially for games like Pixie Queen and especially Feudum, which aren't his favorite style of games to start with. I don't think this game was meant to be taken seriously, so things like the dice roll at the end of the game are there for fun only, not to make you upset if you lose because of it. Anyway, those are just some observations I have about these reviews and the comments afterwards.
Ruben Behnke I agree 100%
This is the best analysis of The Dice Tower I have read.
“Clearly subjective” and “opinion”...he’s a reviewer, it’s a review, that’s what a review is. He said good things, he said bad things and then he gave his opinion. Sometimes it seems that people only want reviewers that always say every game is awesome, to me that’s pointless.
As I stated several times in my comment, and Replect emphasized, it's not about whether or not he likes the game.
Agreed. It's also about, as you've said, how so many people seem to be using Tom's review as their sole justification for their decision to not back the game.
Damn.
Sounds like they guy didn't understand how the game is played which comes under his argument about the rules and it took me a while to get to grips with some of the concepts. So the argument about the rules is fair.
I felt the same way about the end with the dice but then realised the dice is a bonus. you are supposed to,( in an ideal world with out a thing to put a spanner in the works,) is work together, share, go outside and get helicopter points and walk on the helicopter with out rolling a dice easy.
The risk of infection and someone being on the helicopter who is not human goes against the human required roll and gives them a chance to still still succeed with the dice. Any thing infected player takes his points into negatives for the humans. I have seen demo games where a human was left behind and the thing got on with one human making it impossible for the human player to win because he believed the wrong player was the thing
The game appears sound and a matter of preference. i for example have loved hp lovecraft and call of cthuhu since a teen many moons ago and despite really wanting to like the arkham board games did not enjoy them at all. I still recognise it as a classic brilliant board game, i just didn't enjoy it.
I have one last point that it is a pretty crap review and not very professional or objectified review. Apart from the rules complaint i would take this review with a pinch of salt.(thrown over the shoulder)
you know reviews are subjective right?
yes. yes i do understand that. but it appears he didn't play the game right or understand it. it would like reviewing the film memento with out seeing the last minutes which changes the entire film you just watched. the review would not complete.
I do not think its a very good review. a Good reviewer would describe the game, the mechanics well and point out what type of players would like a game or right up their ally and what type of players may dislike it or find it boring.
your complaint is that he is not a good reviewer. he reviewed the game as he experienced it. he went over the rules quickly, about 8 mins in a 19 min review. how can he say what type of players would like it when he specifically does, and say he is a bad reviewer for it? he said he didnt like it and he said why. any one watching the review will see if they like it based on what they saw. people always complain about the way he goes over the rules (which is always prefaced with a "this a quick synopsis") and say he didnt play them correctly. every blanking time. yet, if you had bothered to watch any other reviews of his (miami dice are the best ones for this) he explains they always go over the rules again if they feel something is wrong or doesnt feel like something is just off from the game. they play the rules correctly.
so let me break down your argument - a good reviewer decribes the game (his intro) the mechanics (nearly 8 mins of a 19 min video) and point who what type of players would or would not like it (he explains himself and his points as to why he doesnt like it. he cannot explain why you like it as he is not you. but he can expound upon his reasoning, which he does, which allows for anyone watching to extrapolate that for themselves. which he does.) so here is how he said exactly what kind of games would like this game .do you like: 2 plus hours (do you like long games?) too much randomness? (2 hours that can determine if you win or lose) luck? (maybe you get what you need, maybe its on the bottom of the deck) strong theme? (not only does he say its strong, he said some people he played with could enjoy the game because of the theme). he kind of covers exactly why he doesnt like it, what could have been different, and then goes to say if you like what you saw, you could like the game. so what part of this review are you dinging the reviewers skills for?
and finally, from what i can find you do not have a physical copy of the game (apparently they had some bollocks issues they couldnt control, it happens) but when you do, i would like to see (read if i must) your full review. since you feel he has done reviewership wrong, i would (and i do mean this truly) like to see how you would do it better. plus, i have now seen a video that points (and as he said, barely, but points negatively) i would like to see one that points positively. (and if your curious about my thoughts on it - he said its a 2 plus hour game with a bit too much randomness. im out. there isn't enough people in my group that would play this, that would bother trying this. if someone said "lets play" and i wasnt doing anything though, youd probably get me to play it... but only if this was the only big game of the night)
Firstly i am dyslexic and will not be able to respond as eloquently as you (me brain will not let me and lets me appear stupid). Should also learn to not comment on stuff :-). I would never say or try to do a review or claim i can do something better. I am an artist and people who can not draw for crap can and do mention errors and other things i have missed or they do not like and i welcome their opinion and help me to be a better artist. They are just as valid as someone who is better and more experienced than me just because they can not draw. People are able to criticise experts right or wrong.
No i have not played but have read the rules so when he complains about the randomness of the roll at the end as if that is the end result every time regardless of the game you played always is simply not true unless the game is truly broken .
The fact when i watched it he didn't seem to understand the end and that the thing wants to get on the game is pretty big omission who brings the required chances of winning down hence the dice roll can be a life saver if you had enough to not make a roll. you then still have a chance to win. finding a good reviewer is about trust and he is not my cup of tea at all.
I do take your points on board and appreciate the argument. i have rewatched it and he is talking so fast some parts had passed by.
wish i could i able to transfer my thoughts to keyboard easier. probably could have a good chat in person but this has taken aeons to write and not happy with it so am off to do the weekly food shopping (woo hoo (sarcasticly)
fair enough. i still wanna know your thoughts after you get a chance to play it though. good luck with food shopping.
Really need a best rulebook list. Useful review too.
We like their Endangered Orphans of Condyle cove (it's a light, simple game but we like it). But this one didn't sound interesting to me. Glad I didn't back it.
Wow, I absolutely hate that game. I better not get this then.
I didn't care for EO at all. WGT is completely different and, in my opinion, much better. It reminds me of that one guy's games who makes stuff for Czech Games Edition, and whose name I will certain misspell if I try it from memory, but each of his games is really different - his philosophy is that he doesn't want to make 7/10 or 8/10 games for everyone, but each of his games should be a 10/10 for some people, and he doesn't care if everyone else rates them a 2 or 3.
WGT is a hardcore co-op survival game with a sci-fi/horror bent and a "hidden traitor" mechanic that can be AVOIDED, unlike games like Dead of Winter or The Thing where the traitor is simply randomly determined; in WGT your team has to fail before there can be a traitor. It bears no resemblance to Endangered Orphans at all, except the company logo on the box. (You can play the base game free on Tabletop Simulator, if you want to make up your mind for yourself.)
sorry, tom gotta disagree. theres not supposed to be a reason to play different if you are the thing. in the book/film the alien is an exact replica of the characters. only way to tell is from a blood test which the game allows for. so i think in this instance, it works that the infected players go along. im very excited to get this game and ur review hasnt wavered my want of this game at all. people have their opinions, i think its going to be great!
edit: also looked over how the thing does have sabotage options. infected players can play useful cards facedown in the bonfire to waste needed resources for humans
Yes, excellent point.
I would like to have more options to sabotage mission in this game. As in Dead of Winter you can screw up a crisis by putting a wrong card into a deck. Also in Battle Star Gallactica is many of those possibilities.
I believe his point was as there is no way to play any differently there are no clues at all for the other players to guess who is infected. In Social Deduction games you are meant to deduce who is a traitor, but if the traitor never has to do anything that a loyal player wouldn’t do then there’s no chance to do this. Even playing a card face down isn’t a clue unless at some point people can look at those face down cards.
I dont agree that infected players dont play differently. They should try to put suspicoius on other players. They should do everything other players get more vulnerable cards. If they do so they have more chance that more infected players is in helicopter at the end.
Replect What of the die roll at the end of the game that ultimately decides if you win? I don't think I want to play a game that's 2+ hours long and at the end I roll a couple dice to see if we win or lose. That's not a satisfying ending to me. Change my mind because I was interested in this game, but this part (and the complete lack of any true social deduction) have me passing on it now.
It's heartbreaking hearing this isn't that great. The components are so beautiful, and I love the theme of The Thing. Shocking that they didn't seem to capitalize on the theme.
Go watch the ManvsMeeple round one play. They had a blast. I don't know what to make if Tom's review, I fell like he is completely wrong on this one
also, go play it on Tabletop Simulator on Steam for free. Test it out with some people hosting it or get your friends together.
D-Doom33 Agreed. It's not a social deduction game. It's a survival game with an added, and highly thematic, social deduction element.
And as far as random ... Tom loves Zombicide. So ... WGT is too random compared to what he is willing to accept in Zombicide? That makes no sense to me.
Sounds like he completely missed the point of WGT which is pretty loyal to the short story source material unlike the movie.
No Tom doesn’t love zombiecide, in fact he put it on an “over rated game list” just last week. Sam loves Zombiecide.
Could have sworn he told Zee that he loved Zombicide during one of the DTC livestreams. *shrug* Mea culpa. Must have been Sam. Anyway ... He still missed the whole point of WGT.
So much want
Same game looks great.
Dead of Winter is a much better version of this game.
Ironically it sounds like exactly the same problem that The Thing has. No incentive to be sneaky.
i hear you. Being infected keeps you in the game by keeping your goals the same. But that's utterly uninteresting.
Speaking from the perspective of The Thing (because that's the one I've played) the game gives you all these ways to sabotage but there's no incentive to sabotage. Why sabotage when you can play good literally the entire game and then land on the chopper at the end to win? Unlike the Resistance where you might have an incentive to play good one round to set yourself up for the double round, or to cast suspicion on a specific partner. There's no reason to have sabotage cards except for theme in The Thing. You might as well remove them. If the humans fail to survive you win, If they do you can be picked randomly to join the helo. There's no reason to trust anyone making the game just a random pick. It means the entire game boils down to Win, Lose, Banana. (I've only played maybe 20 games of The Thing because people in my group love it but at this point I now just back out)
>Depending on how the humans are doing he might want to mess with them or spread the infection
but again why. Why bother messing with the humans. There is no gameplay incentive to do that. Not when waiting until the end is *just* as easy. In The Resistance failing a mission gets you close to the win condition. Every fail is on step closer. I fail the first mission when I can because it makes two people suspicious and it gives us a victory. In the thing waiting to the end and starting early don't affect how easy it is to win. If you sabotage as much as you can but we survive it's still a random pick. If I don't sabotage and play it strait it's still a random pick. There's no informed decision making. Which is also the issue I have with Secret Hitler. It has a dumb theme but my real issue is a failed mission can't be seen as information.
Tom also forgot to mention that the Thing can fight back once outed. He can do a Thing Attack (by using the Host card and a blank v-card for every player they want to attack). They shuffle those cards and then everyone who's being attacked draws one. The Thing might be Assaulted (also not mentioned by Tom), but the paranoia goes through the roof. Did the Host card infect someone else or did it get returned?
The guy you bunked with just minutes early might not be human anymore... So who will you take on the Helicopter now? It looked so simple earlier :(
Three hours of my life I'll never get back. An hour in and I didn't give a shit either way.
The novela with the same name is also great (it inspired The thing).
i have no problem with randomness in this type of game beccause it requires randomness to tell a story. its not a euro which has an engine that allows you to strategize and optimize. in this type of game you don't know what you're going to get. It seems to have the same issue that This War of Mine has. You may not win. Its random. What you encounter may be completely beyond your control and you may have no way to counter it.
This particular game may not have implemented its randomenss that well, but I'm not sure if we should penalize it for being random. Since this is the sort of game that requires randomnesss.
But surely it should be penalized for doing randomness wrong, yes there's a good level to aim for in a game like this but it seems too much. My biggest issue is the "roll to win" at the end, you have plenty of randomness in how well you do throughout the game, then making a one off highly variable roll decide if that was enough at the end seems bizarre.
i haven't played it yet, so dont know for sure that hte randomness is done wrong. However, Tom seems to fault it for being random at all. He seems to want a Euro style game where you can strategize your way to victory. But this sort of game seems to rely on randomness specifically to tel its story. The single die roll having you win or lose does appear to be a bit much.
But perhaps Tom simply doens't like this sort of game. I'd lump other games like Last Night on Earth , This War of Mine in amongst this style of game. And Tom may not like this type of game generally.
I know he also had issues with This War of Mine for same reasons. The randomness though, is what makes that game. (its also what makes the game frusrating for many)
The problem of high randomness is not only the unfairness of the victory/loss, that's not precisely what Tom is complaining about. He mostly points the fact that players decisions have little weight, and brings little satisfaction because many of them are blind choices. Too much blind guessing in a +2 hours long deduction game finished by an ultimate dice roll can be frustrating.
That said I didn't play the game, but by reading a part of the rulebook and listening Tom I'm yet to be convinced.
Theerin lies part of the problem ... Tom treated this as a 2hr deduction game. It's not. It's a survival game first.
Vimesey17 I have played this game more than a handful of times & I can attest that you do not "roll to win" at the end. If you play well & attain helicopter points, and properly identify the thing you can get away with not having to roll at all.
The roll is a final "Hail Mary" for extra bonuses to balance out a bad playthroughs. Sure each player starts off needing a perfect roll of 6 each to win ... But each bonus gets you closer to winning & reducing the importance of the die roll.
If only the people who made the Betrayal games made The Thing/Who Goes There.
Sounds exactly like nemesis the board game...just not nearly as good. Playing a game for 90 plus minutes and then having a die determine if you win or lose just sounds ridiculous. Completely agree with you Tom.
Replect well if a guy who plays board games and reviews them for a living can't figure out how to do the end game scoring then something is clearly wrong with the game. Like he said, you shouldn't need 3 pages of a rule book just to figure out who won.
Mike Slaybaugh If Tom READ the rulebook beforehand he would know that the three pages are more than just describing who won. It is
1) Describing how to decide who gets on the helicopter, how you can force the leader off the helicopter, how a consensus is reached.
2) Covering all possible outcome: all human, a thing on board, all infected onboard by accidentally over infecting (because people choose to infect)
3) how to calculate the Total needed to win (based on how many humans left alive + things allowed on board the helicopter)
4) how to calculate your bonuses (based on humans on board the helicopter)
5) Also has some delightful flavour text describing your success / failure as of it were ripped from the pages of the original novella.
... So based on the fact that there are SOO many different ways the game can end ... Doesn't it make sense they cover all possibilities in a thorough manner?
Well, he did say he thought the rulebook was poorly constructed so maybe that has something to do with it. The rulebook from Endangered Orphans was horrible, so it wouldn't surprise me. Game does look cool, though.
oneanotherstudios I would disagree that the rulebook is poorly constructed. It sounded like Tom wanted to learn how to run beofre learning what part of his body is the legs.
The rulebook describes how to set up the game boards, then tells you how to read the game boards and what everything means. Then it tells you how a character is set up, how the round tracker is used on the game board. Then so that you understand the character board it explains what stamina, strikes and exp are and why they are important to characters. Then it let's you know what each of the 5 card decks are, and what you can find in them. It then explains how to set up and use the “camp events” deck (one of the pages Tom didn't read as he doesn't mention this VERY important aspect of the game once in a 20 minute review) and how to resolve them.
This is basically telling you everything you need to know mechanically before you decide on how to use any actions … the actions page is "buried" on page 24 of 35 because the book is telling you:
"You should probably read every page in front of the actions page before even trying to play ... or nothing will make sense … and you will use actions poorly".
Then the remaining pages after that are describing things you need to know during your turn once you start playing.
If Tom wanted the action breakdown on page one before learning how to setup, prepare and understand the game it meant he didn't want to learn how to properly play the game or how it worked ... He just wanted to know what he could do on his turn ...
Cancelling my pre-order for this one, I wanted to like this game so much!
W0lfman250 if you would like to test it out first it is available for free on Tabletop Simulator on Steam. It's in the TTS workshop.
I backed 165 project, everyone u listed !so I’m aware of how ks works . Like I said welcome to ks it’s still a gamble and u better hope you get a discount. On the 2nd eddition upgrade pack !
Oh.. and did you completely miss the whole trade aspect in the game?
yeah, you find random stuff.. but you can trade items with the others.. and that gives another risk, if you trade with someone who is infected, you may get infected yourself..
i'm sorry, but it feels like you didn't read the rule book properly..
He did mention it about one player having everything and the other player needing to ask nicely.
i'm sorry, but it feels like you didn't watch the video properly..
Replect So you are essentially saying "You are using/playing it wrong". If player understanding of trades ask is required to enjoy the game but there is no rule making it mandatory, then you shouldn't be upset/judgmental when players DON'T understand and thus DON't have a good time.
You seriusly need to stop taking any kind of negative feedback to the game as personal as you do, @Replect.
Isn’t this just a rip-off of the The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game from Mondo? They stole the idea and got people to fund them money via Kickstarter?
No. The two games are completely different.
Damn. Wish I hadn't backed it on kickstarter.
razzledazzle15 If you want to find out for yourself if you will like it or not, go try it on TableTop Simulator On Steam: They added the base 4 player game as a free public mod. You can give it a test run yourself to potentially reaffirm your decision.
Thanks Dave. I figure I'll just wait for my copy to arrive and try it myself. On further consideration, Tom's review doesn't seem exactly fair- the thing player doesn't want to exactly play straight, he wants to be less than optimally productive. He also wants to infect others. He also seems to misunderstand the role of the final die roll.
razzle, I think you're going to be very glad you did.
Seems like a typical KS that needed a developers guiding hand.
The art alone was enough to instantly turn me off to this. Who the heck thought this was a good tone for one of the bleakest sci-fi horror stories of all time? The stunt dog in Dead of Winter is positively dignified in comparison.
What's next, Chibi Event Horizon?
The first prerogative for any game i get, is does it look good? so i am glad i am not the only one who rights off a game because of art design
The thing is one of my fave films and i can see your point about the art but i like it myself . But i would like to see a darker toned art work version too would be cool. The thing event cards are not that scary and disappointing to be honest.
As a 3d artist though to avoid uncanny valley i make my art less realist and more stylistic. knowing how the game works i think the art fits the game mechanics and suspension of disbelief very well.
The main reason is the art is done by the designer Anthony and that obviously is his style of painting and its very good at.
I like the gritty comic book style of the art. If "who goes there?" were put into graphic novel form, I suspect it would look similar. Maybe a little darker, but still very cool comic book style art.
Odd, I thought the art was brilliant and meshed perfectly. But then I don't like ugly, grunge style art. To each their own, I guess. I'm thrilled I backed this at the infection level. All the bells and whistles.
I hate the character art.
Welcome to ks Games .
Welcome to Gloomhaven, Rising Sun, Kingdom Death: Monster, Scythe, 7th Continent... Kickstarter has grown up and delivers more and more great games! Stop saying "oh it's a kickstarter game, so it must be rubbish. only real publishers can put out great games!".
Exactly and don't forget Cthulhu Wars was made thanks to Kickstarter also!
Toms reviews are garbage nowadays. Half the time it feels he never played the game fully or read the rule book. Sam and Zee are way better. Leaps and bounds. Tom needs to step it up.
This game is so trash lol. It's yahtzee and rng simulator disguised as a strategy game.
Why should we take seriously the opinions of what is good from a guy who thinks it's cool to ALWAYS wear a douchey hat?