Thank you for the review. I am the designer of Revenant. The prototype you have available is admittedly too tight on resources and has too much pressure from the Voidborn. We were extremely busy just before the Essen conference, and we had to get demo prototypes ready fast. We noticed the balance issues too late (these demo prototypes had already been sent to printing). We gathered a lot of feedback from the Essen SPIEL demos (or we could call them "live tests"). Your feedback here confirms the same things we found. The pressure from Voidborn is too high. The improvements we are testing to lower the pressure include: - Reduction of the amount of Voidborn spawning (both from Sonar cards and from the die) - Introduction of 3 dice, one for each of the player-counts. So, in a 2-player game you roll a die with lower numbers. - Increase in the amount of ships starting on the board. This gives the fleet a higher hotpoint-count, and thus provides a larger buffer (it is also something that helps the gameplay in one of the mini-expansions). Most importantly it allows players to relax a bit more, because the fleet is not immediate threat of getting destroyed. - Added a limit to the amount of Voidborn that can be in a sector. We also added improvements to loosen up the resource economy, to make it easier to play cards etc. - We've adjusted some pricing here and there, to help the resource economy be a bit more flexible. - The discount you get when playing a card, is now for any 1 of the resources on the cards cost (before it was just the top ressource). This small adjustment makes it a lot easier to play more cards. - We are keeping the ability to trade Hidden Influence for any resource. This is a rule printed on the boards, but one we were testing to remove (it might have been removed from that version you have, - but I can't remember). But we are keeping it because the games needs the looseness. I hope this gives a bit of insight into the work we are doing to make this the best Revenant game possible. Our testing, balancing and improvement work will continue until February/March.
Thanks so much for chipping in here, and of course, while I never feel a game has to be changed for my own tastes... As a game that I did enjoy, it's nice to hear 🙂
"this is a prototype... based on if they change X or not it's either # or #"..... Statements like this are why I love your videos Alex. Acknowledging you don't have the final product (obviously here), and giving possible rankings based on the paths the developer can take. Thanks for always going the extra mile as well as explaining it :)
Excellent review, many thanks ! I love both The Great Wall and Voidfall so I was really keen on this game. I had a chance to play the prototype at Essen and had some similar feelings - ie the Voidborne just exploding and overwhelming the players to the extent that players just give up trying to defeat them. So I am much more hesitant in backing it now… Let’s see. I also really appreciate that you give your personal ratings for prototypes of crowdfunding campaigns !
Great comparison to great wall. Amazing game that is also dragged down by AP, which seems like this game will also suffer from. Despite being one of my favorite games, I sold great wall cause it took our group minimum 4hours. Likely wont risk it with Revenant
I’m usually a fan of Mindclash heavy games, but this one, I find myself trying to find something appealing about it to me. I’ve watch a number of playthroughs. Maybe I’m just missing something. I’ll be a $1 back and see if it clicks at some point.
You need to review it as you have it now not what it may be. You can review the final game on its official release, but you’re not gonna say in the future review, “Well, it was bad back then so I can’t give it a better review”. Just as you shouldn’t say now that “It could be better so I’m not giving it a worse score”. Prototype or not
Disagree. I think he handled it perfectly. He rated it as it is now (like you want) *and* indicated what small changes could make it better (which, per the designer are changes already in the works.) Doing both is the best imo.
Thank you for the review. I am the designer of Revenant. The prototype you have available is admittedly too tight on resources and has too much pressure from the Voidborn. We were extremely busy just before the Essen conference, and we had to get demo prototypes ready fast. We noticed the balance issues too late (these demo prototypes had already been sent to printing). We gathered a lot of feedback from the Essen SPIEL demos (or we could call them "live tests"). Your feedback here confirms the same things we found.
The pressure from Voidborn is too high. The improvements we are testing to lower the pressure include:
- Reduction of the amount of Voidborn spawning (both from Sonar cards and from the die)
- Introduction of 3 dice, one for each of the player-counts. So, in a 2-player game you roll a die with lower numbers.
- Increase in the amount of ships starting on the board. This gives the fleet a higher hotpoint-count, and thus provides a larger buffer (it is also something that helps the gameplay in one of the mini-expansions). Most importantly it allows players to relax a bit more, because the fleet is not immediate threat of getting destroyed.
- Added a limit to the amount of Voidborn that can be in a sector.
We also added improvements to loosen up the resource economy, to make it easier to play cards etc.
- We've adjusted some pricing here and there, to help the resource economy be a bit more flexible.
- The discount you get when playing a card, is now for any 1 of the resources on the cards cost (before it was just the top ressource). This small adjustment makes it a lot easier to play more cards.
- We are keeping the ability to trade Hidden Influence for any resource. This is a rule printed on the boards, but one we were testing to remove (it might have been removed from that version you have, - but I can't remember). But we are keeping it because the games needs the looseness.
I hope this gives a bit of insight into the work we are doing to make this the best Revenant game possible. Our testing, balancing and improvement work will continue until February/March.
Great info, and I appreciate how much Mindclash commits to play-testing and making adjustments.
Thanks so much for chipping in here, and of course, while I never feel a game has to be changed for my own tastes... As a game that I did enjoy, it's nice to hear 🙂
"this is a prototype... based on if they change X or not it's either # or #"..... Statements like this are why I love your videos Alex. Acknowledging you don't have the final product (obviously here), and giving possible rankings based on the paths the developer can take. Thanks for always going the extra mile as well as explaining it :)
Excellent review, many thanks ! I love both The Great Wall and Voidfall so I was really keen on this game. I had a chance to play the prototype at Essen and had some similar feelings - ie the Voidborne just exploding and overwhelming the players to the extent that players just give up trying to defeat them. So I am much more hesitant in backing it now… Let’s see.
I also really appreciate that you give your personal ratings for prototypes of crowdfunding campaigns !
Amazing review! Helped me a lot to take a decision on that campaign! Great job Alex, as usual!
Great comparison to great wall. Amazing game that is also dragged down by AP, which seems like this game will also suffer from. Despite being one of my favorite games, I sold great wall cause it took our group minimum 4hours. Likely wont risk it with Revenant
Great Preview!
I’m usually a fan of Mindclash heavy games, but this one, I find myself trying to find something appealing about it to me. I’ve watch a number of playthroughs. Maybe I’m just missing something. I’ll be a $1 back and see if it clicks at some point.
You need to review it as you have it now not what it may be.
You can review the final game on its official release, but you’re not gonna say in the future review, “Well, it was bad back then so I can’t give it a better review”. Just as you shouldn’t say now that “It could be better so I’m not giving it a worse score”.
Prototype or not
Disagree. I think he handled it perfectly. He rated it as it is now (like you want) *and* indicated what small changes could make it better (which, per the designer are changes already in the works.) Doing both is the best imo.