I am not surprised that publishers are currently more reluctant to send you review copies given the fact that you relentlessly point out weaknesses in games. Didn’t you say yourself “honest reviews…regardless of the consequences” ? But note that I assume most of your subscribers (including myself) value your clinical analysis of games way more than those of pure cheerleaders like Rahdo or Man vs Meeple which like every single game and tend to not find any flaws at all. Those kind of reviews are pretty much worthless. Over time, I am sure your subscriber numbers will continue to tick up and eventually it will be harder for publishers not to send you copies. Just keep up the good work !!!
Ha ha thanks! Oh I'm not surprised at all, and consequences be damned - this was mainly to address why these particular asked for titles weren't on my list currently.
I have to agree, I appreciate your honest reviews! What's the value of a hyped reviewer that doesn't see the flaws of a game? Please keep on destroying games, if they deserve it, of course!
@@markusbiewer2756 Of course, ONLY if they deserve it. But man I just see nothing but "positive this and this is amazing that" and frankly after a while, the verdict loses all meaning.
As a former employee of a publisher who sent out review copies, I will say I never once took this into consideration when sending out copies. Previews are different, but the goal as a publisher is to make a game that can withstand the reviewers.
Castles of Burgundy is a classic points salad - can get over 200 with a following wind. It has a points track, regularly updated but there's also significant end game bonuses. Also there are numerous times in the game you get a point here and a point there but also times you can score 30 to 40+ points. Now I come to think of it - Carcassonne is the same I'm sure there was a point or 200 I was going to make here but I can't think what it was. Have a nice day
Same can be said about Russian railroads and Trismegistus. In Russian Railroads, good score will be between 250 and 500 and it can still be tense but it has snowball effect. Trismegistus, while your score is below 100, you can get half of your points in your last turn. But, I'm perfectly fine with that because it's actually a feature of strategy games.
I guess I probably agree that a “happy medium” of points is around 80-100 - but then it’d be dull if every game took the same approach, and it’s nice to play something that takes a different approach from time to time. I’m currently really enjoying Mille Fiori - a fairly recent Knizia point salad where it’s impossible not to score points on your turn and you can easily end up with total scores over 200. Feels like a light-hearted refreshing blast to be constantly racking up the score and occasionally getting a combo-tastic mega points turn.
I like when a good score is 100 points with a 100 point track. Makes it easy to get a feel for how well I did that game, and if you lap the scoreboard you accomplished something.
Barcelona is the first game I've played where I felt "this game has so many points that every move feels meaningless". I have never even felt that with Castles of Burgundy or other games where 200+ is possible. I don't overly tend to care about the amount of points but I agree the happy medium is nice. Especially games between 50-100 points where scoring feels really impactful like Troyes, Keyflower, or Terra Mystica.
Barcelona is quite intricate, and although I consider myself extremely experienced as a gamer, I realised that some elements are not so meaningless as they first seemed, but I only started to realise the hidden depth on my third play. Some of my first and second play criticisms have begun to fade now. How many times did you try it?
A couple of comments about Voidfall. I'm still waiting for my copy so I haven't played yet so these comments are just my impression based on reading the rules and watching Paul Grogan's playthrough. Therefore, scale the grain of salt appropriately! 1) Competitive is probably easier to learn, teach, and set up than co-op/solo. There are more mechanisms, rules, and components required for co-op/solo (e.g. Crisis Board, Heroic Focus cards, Situation cards and War cards necessary to create Alert Deck). 2) Corruption does have an impact even if you put it on a Civilization track you don't really care about since corruption on your player board results in increased Voidborn Fleet power attacking you during the Skirmish phase. So you have to spend actions/resources to prepare to defend against a more powerful attack which could possibly have been used to boost your influence generation. Putting the corruption on a sector can significantly reduce scoring opportunities depending on the Agenda cards in play. So, corruption/skirmishes may not wreck your strategy/game (have a huge impact) but it definitely is something you have to factor into your decision-making and represents a trade-off you have to make. 3) Agree that it looks like a very heavy game but the iconography seems really well done and used to excellent effect on the board/cards to facilitate understanding the game play and action results. To me the game appears heavy because of the complexity of working out the strategy of how to best choose and sequence your actions as opposed to the iconography and/or rules being overly complex. Very much looking forward to receiving my copy and getting a chance to experience it first hand. I agree that it is probably a somewhat niche game but I think it is likely to be considered a very good game by a larger number of people than you're expecting. Totally understand if you don't like some aspects of it or it doesn't fit what you want though!
Voidfall competitive mode is much lighter in actual play than the rulebook would suggest. On first play, without tutorial, everything became clear during the first cycle. Compared to Lacerda games, it would be second lightest, just above Escape Plan. That's my opinion, having played all Lacerdas except CO2.
@@nkorppi Good to know! That was my impression after reading the rulebook and watching Paul Grogan's playthrough. It felt like the iconography and game rules would fairly quickly become intuitive which would allow you to focus on the strategy and tactics. Thanks for the reply!
Corruption has yet to be a major factor for me, there's plenty of ways to avoid or alleviate it. Competitive is definitely easier because you don't have to care about skirmishes or that fiddly crisis board........or set the whole game up yourself!
One reason why points started to inflate in many games is that some games started to introduce multiplier effects for scoring. Once you have any scoring mechanism with a multiplier, then also all other points scored in a game need to adjust accordingly. What really annoys me however (and good to get your perspective on that) is games that award some victory points during the game and some at the end. Why ??? Either award all points live so that the game becomes a transparent race or award all points at the end for maximum surprise. Conscious that it is logistically easier to do both but it still feels odd because everyone knows anyway that it will all come down to the end of game points. It feels like lazy game designing - just get rid of all intra game points. Most of the time they aren’t decisive anyway and most games could do without that additional housekeeping. Otherwise, for me, the sweet spot regarding points is somewhat lower than yours (more like 20-80). Good examples would be Viticulture (c.20-25 points) or Everdell (50-80 points).
Thanks for the video. Watching this made me glad I cancelled my Voidfall pledge. I find Mindclash games in general are more work than they are fun. I'm not saying they aren't fun, but it's not enough fun to justify the work of learning, teaching, setup, clean up, and all the fiddliness and maintenance during the game. I enjoyed Anachrony, but ended up selling it. I was rarely up for the work of setting it up and figuring out which modules to include. Perseverance was an absolute train wreck in my opinion. We played On Mars for the first time recently (it was our first Lacerda) and absolutely loved it. We ended up playing 4 games in a few a days, and will likely play again soon. 2 player games went really quickly, and setup and tear down were nice and quick. I honestly didn't find it that hard to learn or teach, and my wife picked up on it easily. I'm a bit surprised by it's weight rating. To be fair, part of that is probably that I expected it to be so much worse after everything I had heard about it.
Agree on the Mindclash ones but On Mars is far from a streamlined and easy to setup and play Euro. The other Lacerdas are much more accessible whole retaining the heavy appeal...... Well Lisboa is close to On Mars level...
I agree with you that wingspan is in that sweet spot of points scoring. This year, I have lost twice on the tiebreaker of how much food do you have, and both times were in the neighborhood of 100 points. Earth becomes a different game online for people who like to track the points. You can see exactly how many cards are in the compost pile etc. I tend to play these games as you that's a cool card will it maximize what I have versus another card, and I have a friend I play with all the time and love dearly but who will analyze each move regardless whether points are obvious or not. That's why he beat me on the tiebreaker.
Great podcast. Can't say I agree on Dune Imperium, I've never found it to be a game of luck. There might be some advantages, but the winner of our games of Dune are the people who understand where to take advantage of opportunities. Between Broken Meeple, Chairman of the Board, and The Dice Tower, I feel like i know whether I'll like a game before playing it. The three groups contrasted is super helpful. Keep up the great work.
If your deck doesn't spit out the cards you need to go places that are critical it can mess plans up entirely. Also you might invest in a good card and then you shuffle your deck and it doesn't turn up for ages.
I felt the same about Barcelona at first, but surprisingly, I like it more and more. Scores are around 160 to 280.... so you can just consider them as half-points and it becomes a great 100 point game ranging from 80 to 140. What at first felt like incidental/meaningless/uninteresting point gains, on third play felt more controlled/achieved and not so arbitrary. Take Spirit Island, for example: I have had the opposite trajectory in how I feel about it. The symbols on the cards started to feel unearned/easy to collect over more plays. And the discs coming off the player board automatically each round (and win conditions getting easier over time) felt incredibly unearned, although I get that surviving a round without losing IS the intended achievement. Barcelona is interesting in that after a play or two one Feels like one has seen what it has to offer, and one is ready to state criticisms... but with more plays, that illusion really begins to fade, as the depth comes through. What happens in the game starts to revolve more around player control/expression. It transforms how the game feels.
As was stated, critical reviews are crucial for screening games. I am contemplating Voidfall, but it is likely too complex. I agree with Lacerdas being the sweet spot for point scoring. I held off on Dune Imperium until this year because of the low point scoring. while I enjoy the game, it is too swingy to be taken seriously.
I'm a Lacerda fan, and my take is that Voidfall is not heavier eurogame than a Lacerda game. Even without a tutorial scenario, how to play well became clear much faster than for a Lacerda game. What is more complex-looking is the Voidfall rulebook before first play, but this feeling evaporates during first play.
Actually it's clearly explained what the key differences are (the lack of a points track, the issue with more impactful point swings etc). Sure the bias isn't the other way round?
Luckily I run a large meet up group and have found 5 other players who love heavy games. For reference, we played Mosaic with the Wars and Disasters expansion last week ( not a heavy game by far ). We started setup at 6:00pm and finished a 6 player game just after midnight, and we all enjoyed the game. I don't mind long set ups and games as long as I'm able to stay engaged. Voidfall I think is meant for these kind of groups. Question is....Twilight Imperium or Voidfall?
Voidfall is more enjoyable then TI4 for sure - both are a fath to set up and teach and learn and play. Though maybe TI4 has less rules overall. 6 hours I would have gone insane playing that game! I think Voidfall is perfectly suited to your group!
In relation to your suggested "50 to 150 points" scale... how would you judge a game like Ark Nova on its "your score is your points difference between your two 'scoring' tracks" where most of the time players will be close to 0 (maybe 20 above, maybe 20 below)? And regarding the recent rule change which basically rescales that so all scores are +100vp at the end (thus putting the points into the range of roughly 80 to 120 instead of -20 to 20)? Does that make a psychological enough effect to fit your points scale, even though technically it's just adding 100 to the original rules' scores which were -20 to 20? (also obviously that range is just an example; I've seen players score -80 in Ark Nova before) Also what about games with crazy ranges of scoring, like Tapestry? You could score just over 100, or you could go faction-combo-crazy and get over 500. The average is probably 150, but the range is far greater.
Tapestry is just a broken mess, the scoring is the least of its many problems 😅 Ark Nova is kind of different because of the crossing markers but all points gained feel needed and sometimes you've spent a few turns working up to play that great animal card.
Those House trays are only an issue for the tutorial. After that the fallen houses/techs you use for each scenario match. I think Ian did a fantastic job with the iconography. After the first play I am surprised you had to do more than occasionally reference the player aid. I think you should be careful about how you phrase some of your comments. Every person that loves a game is not a shill if they are a reviewer or a fan-boy if an end consumer. You make it sound like your opinion is the only correct one sometimes and that comes across as very arrogant. I think some of your time/complexity issues will disappear after more plays. I can reset a scenario in about 10 minutes if I want to replay it, even changing out which House I am playing. I am averaging 75-90 minutes per solo game depending on the scenario and how many focus cards get played. That time is post game board setup - so starting with choosing my origin and then the first galactic event.
To one of your other points though - It can be thrilling to not score any points until the end. A bit like Eurovision, Concordia is a great example of this process being the only exciting part of the entire evening
I played Cooper Island. If you are new in the game you get 15 points. If you are good AND lucky you can get 30+ points. You should never play this game with more than 2 players. One thing I don't understand is: Why luck is so important is such heavy game?
i think almost all of the Minclash games suffer from brutal setup, so i expect Voidfall to carry on with that. Perseverance ep2 is so bad i generally wont even play it. i like it much more than you do by the sound of it but not enough to want to set up ep2. i can see (my copy hasnt arrived) how Voidfall might be worse. its one of the things i look out for during playthroughs. not enough content creators really point out how bad setup is in some games. Euthia is a game that particularly comes to mind in how little coverage there was for its setup i prefer 50-100pt systems. i can enjoy others but it is my preference. its one of the things i think Voidfall will be lower on my preference list for. Paul just got 214 with Mark in their playthrough. thats a lot of points. it was on easy but i dont know if higher difficulties will reduce points or require more
I'm really glad I didn't pass. Competitive two player mode was easy and very sandboxy. The myth of the game being unwieldy must come from the purported need for tutorial scenario (not needed in my experience) and the very technically written rulebook, which only makes sense after one play. I think the complexity is just above Escape Plan.
@nkorppi that's fair. For me personally I think I would struggle to table it enough. I've already got enough high weight games in my collection. Plus games I'd rather table solo and don't often get to play 2 player.
@@arronthrossell3434 Makes sense. My hunch is that the real fountain of joy (and most fast-paced) in Voidfall is the two player competitive (maybe also three player). I can imagine playing it 20 times per year at around 3 hours per game.
I wouldn't take not getting review copies so hard. You'll get freebies no matter what you say after your content grows to the size of a Dice Tower, NPI, or SUSD
Voidfall is almost too big of a game space wise. I have enjoyed my plays but it has been a mission to get the game arranged and fitting on my table. I think big box games are making themselves stay on the shelf. It becomes too much effort to sort through 4 layers of inserts to take out the right deck and board and components. It just makes thebgame harder to table. I do prefer a game with 100 points. Its a nice bumber that we are all familiar with ehete you can easily quantify thr valuae of a 10 point contract or 6 point card. When the game goes over 250 its harder to see thr value of points. If we took it to the extremes and said would you prefer a game to 10 points or a game to 1000 i think most people would be more easiky able to strategise the 10. I also think its about how many things give you points. I much prefer a game that give you points from one of 5 sources that a game that gives you points from 25 sources. Played everdell today with 5 players. Got to game end and it eas easy to see what 6/7 areas if points there were. Whereas i played teotihuacan recently and players were forgetting points all the time. An action might have 4 instances of points. Players might miss one hete and there. It was interesting how transparent moves in some games are comoated to otherss
Regarding big box games, you're right! I have the Everdell Complete Collection. Just thinking of sorting through all that components just to play a game, I leave it on the shelf. Not even talking about taking this big heavy box to a friend's house.
The competitive mode of Voidfall definitely is not Mage Knight length nor complexity. It's just above Escape Plan... If you get used to the iconography and don't worry too much about the rulebook until after one play, Voidfall is pretty simplistic. Didn't try solo yet. I've had Mage Knight games go 12 hours or more. Voidfall was 4h for a first game.
you talk about Voidfall and then games you won't review for different reasons. you should have known Voidfall is not for you or your group. For future reference.
I don't think he should know it. He has Lacerda and Mindclash games that he enjoys on his shelf. He should be able to handle Voidfall (which is simpler than some of those games). Starting with solo/co-op is probably a mistake though. The competitive mode for Voidfall is really playable and flows fast... if one is good at grokking new iconography.
I am not surprised that publishers are currently more reluctant to send you review copies given the fact that you relentlessly point out weaknesses in games. Didn’t you say yourself “honest reviews…regardless of the consequences” ?
But note that I assume most of your subscribers (including myself) value your clinical analysis of games way more than those of pure cheerleaders like Rahdo or Man vs Meeple which like every single game and tend to not find any flaws at all. Those kind of reviews are pretty much worthless.
Over time, I am sure your subscriber numbers will continue to tick up and eventually it will be harder for publishers not to send you copies. Just keep up the good work !!!
Ha ha thanks! Oh I'm not surprised at all, and consequences be damned - this was mainly to address why these particular asked for titles weren't on my list currently.
I have to agree, I appreciate your honest reviews! What's the value of a hyped reviewer that doesn't see the flaws of a game? Please keep on destroying games, if they deserve it, of course!
@@markusbiewer2756 Of course, ONLY if they deserve it. But man I just see nothing but "positive this and this is amazing that" and frankly after a while, the verdict loses all meaning.
@@TheBrokenMeeple That's why I go to your channel before I buy any game!
As a former employee of a publisher who sent out review copies, I will say I never once took this into consideration when sending out copies. Previews are different, but the goal as a publisher is to make a game that can withstand the reviewers.
Castles of Burgundy is a classic points salad - can get over 200 with a following wind. It has a points track, regularly updated but there's also significant end game bonuses. Also there are numerous times in the game you get a point here and a point there but also times you can score 30 to 40+ points.
Now I come to think of it - Carcassonne is the same
I'm sure there was a point or 200 I was going to make here but I can't think what it was. Have a nice day
Same can be said about Russian railroads and Trismegistus. In Russian Railroads, good score will be between 250 and 500 and it can still be tense but it has snowball effect. Trismegistus, while your score is below 100, you can get half of your points in your last turn. But, I'm perfectly fine with that because it's actually a feature of strategy games.
Experiment. Play a board game, and every time you gain a point, eat a Skittle! If you finish the game feeling sick, there's inflated point scoring!
Dune imperium would be the only game I'd try this out with! 😂
Yeah maybe isle of trains to finish a packet!
I guess I probably agree that a “happy medium” of points is around 80-100 - but then it’d be dull if every game took the same approach, and it’s nice to play something that takes a different approach from time to time.
I’m currently really enjoying Mille Fiori - a fairly recent Knizia point salad where it’s impossible not to score points on your turn and you can easily end up with total scores over 200. Feels like a light-hearted refreshing blast to be constantly racking up the score and occasionally getting a combo-tastic mega points turn.
I like when a good score is 100 points with a 100 point track. Makes it easy to get a feel for how well I did that game, and if you lap the scoreboard you accomplished something.
Barcelona is the first game I've played where I felt "this game has so many points that every move feels meaningless". I have never even felt that with Castles of Burgundy or other games where 200+ is possible. I don't overly tend to care about the amount of points but I agree the happy medium is nice. Especially games between 50-100 points where scoring feels really impactful like Troyes, Keyflower, or Terra Mystica.
Barcelona is quite intricate, and although I consider myself extremely experienced as a gamer, I realised that some elements are not so meaningless as they first seemed, but I only started to realise the hidden depth on my third play. Some of my first and second play criticisms have begun to fade now. How many times did you try it?
A couple of comments about Voidfall. I'm still waiting for my copy so I haven't played yet so these comments are just my impression based on reading the rules and watching Paul Grogan's playthrough. Therefore, scale the grain of salt appropriately!
1) Competitive is probably easier to learn, teach, and set up than co-op/solo. There are more mechanisms, rules, and components required for co-op/solo (e.g. Crisis Board, Heroic Focus cards, Situation cards and War cards necessary to create Alert Deck).
2) Corruption does have an impact even if you put it on a Civilization track you don't really care about since corruption on your player board results in increased Voidborn Fleet power attacking you during the Skirmish phase. So you have to spend actions/resources to prepare to defend against a more powerful attack which could possibly have been used to boost your influence generation. Putting the corruption on a sector can significantly reduce scoring opportunities depending on the Agenda cards in play. So, corruption/skirmishes may not wreck your strategy/game (have a huge impact) but it definitely is something you have to factor into your decision-making and represents a trade-off you have to make.
3) Agree that it looks like a very heavy game but the iconography seems really well done and used to excellent effect on the board/cards to facilitate understanding the game play and action results. To me the game appears heavy because of the complexity of working out the strategy of how to best choose and sequence your actions as opposed to the iconography and/or rules being overly complex.
Very much looking forward to receiving my copy and getting a chance to experience it first hand. I agree that it is probably a somewhat niche game but I think it is likely to be considered a very good game by a larger number of people than you're expecting. Totally understand if you don't like some aspects of it or it doesn't fit what you want though!
Voidfall competitive mode is much lighter in actual play than the rulebook would suggest. On first play, without tutorial, everything became clear during the first cycle. Compared to Lacerda games, it would be second lightest, just above Escape Plan. That's my opinion, having played all Lacerdas except CO2.
@@nkorppi Good to know! That was my impression after reading the rulebook and watching Paul Grogan's playthrough. It felt like the iconography and game rules would fairly quickly become intuitive which would allow you to focus on the strategy and tactics. Thanks for the reply!
Corruption has yet to be a major factor for me, there's plenty of ways to avoid or alleviate it.
Competitive is definitely easier because you don't have to care about skirmishes or that fiddly crisis board........or set the whole game up yourself!
One reason why points started to inflate in many games is that some games started to introduce multiplier effects for scoring. Once you have any scoring mechanism with a multiplier, then also all other points scored in a game need to adjust accordingly.
What really annoys me however (and good to get your perspective on that) is games that award some victory points during the game and some at the end. Why ??? Either award all points live so that the game becomes a transparent race or award all points at the end for maximum surprise. Conscious that it is logistically easier to do both but it still feels odd because everyone knows anyway that it will all come down to the end of game points. It feels like lazy game designing - just get rid of all intra game points. Most of the time they aren’t decisive anyway and most games could do without that additional housekeeping.
Otherwise, for me, the sweet spot regarding points is somewhat lower than yours (more like 20-80). Good examples would be Viticulture (c.20-25 points) or Everdell (50-80 points).
Thanks for the video. Watching this made me glad I cancelled my Voidfall pledge. I find Mindclash games in general are more work than they are fun. I'm not saying they aren't fun, but it's not enough fun to justify the work of learning, teaching, setup, clean up, and all the fiddliness and maintenance during the game. I enjoyed Anachrony, but ended up selling it. I was rarely up for the work of setting it up and figuring out which modules to include. Perseverance was an absolute train wreck in my opinion. We played On Mars for the first time recently (it was our first Lacerda) and absolutely loved it. We ended up playing 4 games in a few a days, and will likely play again soon. 2 player games went really quickly, and setup and tear down were nice and quick. I honestly didn't find it that hard to learn or teach, and my wife picked up on it easily. I'm a bit surprised by it's weight rating. To be fair, part of that is probably that I expected it to be so much worse after everything I had heard about it.
Agree on the Mindclash ones but On Mars is far from a streamlined and easy to setup and play Euro. The other Lacerdas are much more accessible whole retaining the heavy appeal...... Well Lisboa is close to On Mars level...
I agree with you that wingspan is in that sweet spot of points scoring. This year, I have lost twice on the tiebreaker of how much food do you have, and both times were in the neighborhood of 100 points. Earth becomes a different game online for people who like to track the points. You can see exactly how many cards are in the compost pile etc. I tend to play these games as you that's a cool card will it maximize what I have versus another card, and I have a friend I play with all the time and love dearly but who will analyze each move regardless whether points are obvious or not. That's why he beat me on the tiebreaker.
Great podcast. Can't say I agree on Dune Imperium, I've never found it to be a game of luck. There might be some advantages, but the winner of our games of Dune are the people who understand where to take advantage of opportunities.
Between Broken Meeple, Chairman of the Board, and The Dice Tower, I feel like i know whether I'll like a game before playing it. The three groups contrasted is super helpful. Keep up the great work.
If your deck doesn't spit out the cards you need to go places that are critical it can mess plans up entirely. Also you might invest in a good card and then you shuffle your deck and it doesn't turn up for ages.
I felt the same about Barcelona at first, but surprisingly, I like it more and more. Scores are around 160 to 280.... so you can just consider them as half-points and it becomes a great 100 point game ranging from 80 to 140. What at first felt like incidental/meaningless/uninteresting point gains, on third play felt more controlled/achieved and not so arbitrary. Take Spirit Island, for example: I have had the opposite trajectory in how I feel about it. The symbols on the cards started to feel unearned/easy to collect over more plays. And the discs coming off the player board automatically each round (and win conditions getting easier over time) felt incredibly unearned, although I get that surviving a round without losing IS the intended achievement. Barcelona is interesting in that after a play or two one Feels like one has seen what it has to offer, and one is ready to state criticisms... but with more plays, that illusion really begins to fade, as the depth comes through. What happens in the game starts to revolve more around player control/expression. It transforms how the game feels.
As was stated, critical reviews are crucial for screening games.
I am contemplating Voidfall, but it is likely too complex.
I agree with Lacerdas being the sweet spot for point scoring.
I held off on Dune Imperium until this year because of the low point scoring. while I enjoy the game, it is too swingy to be taken seriously.
I'm a Lacerda fan, and my take is that Voidfall is not heavier eurogame than a Lacerda game. Even without a tutorial scenario, how to play well became clear much faster than for a Lacerda game. What is more complex-looking is the Voidfall rulebook before first play, but this feeling evaporates during first play.
Earth gets the pass, but Dune gets the rant. That's just rationalization following your biases, not the other way around.
Actually it's clearly explained what the key differences are (the lack of a points track, the issue with more impactful point swings etc). Sure the bias isn't the other way round?
@@TheBrokenMeeple I am a huge fan of both these games - Dune is exceptionally good.
Luckily I run a large meet up group and have found 5 other players who love heavy games. For reference, we played Mosaic with the Wars and Disasters expansion last week ( not a heavy game by far ). We started setup at 6:00pm and finished a 6 player game just after midnight, and we all enjoyed the game. I don't mind long set ups and games as long as I'm able to stay engaged. Voidfall I think is meant for these kind of groups. Question is....Twilight Imperium or Voidfall?
Voidfall is more enjoyable then TI4 for sure - both are a fath to set up and teach and learn and play. Though maybe TI4 has less rules overall. 6 hours I would have gone insane playing that game! I think Voidfall is perfectly suited to your group!
In relation to your suggested "50 to 150 points" scale... how would you judge a game like Ark Nova on its "your score is your points difference between your two 'scoring' tracks" where most of the time players will be close to 0 (maybe 20 above, maybe 20 below)? And regarding the recent rule change which basically rescales that so all scores are +100vp at the end (thus putting the points into the range of roughly 80 to 120 instead of -20 to 20)? Does that make a psychological enough effect to fit your points scale, even though technically it's just adding 100 to the original rules' scores which were -20 to 20? (also obviously that range is just an example; I've seen players score -80 in Ark Nova before)
Also what about games with crazy ranges of scoring, like Tapestry? You could score just over 100, or you could go faction-combo-crazy and get over 500. The average is probably 150, but the range is far greater.
Tapestry is just a broken mess, the scoring is the least of its many problems 😅
Ark Nova is kind of different because of the crossing markers but all points gained feel needed and sometimes you've spent a few turns working up to play that great animal card.
Completely agree with you about Voidfall. I'm sure it's great but not for me.
Those House trays are only an issue for the tutorial. After that the fallen houses/techs you use for each scenario match.
I think Ian did a fantastic job with the iconography. After the first play I am surprised you had to do more than occasionally reference the player aid.
I think you should be careful about how you phrase some of your comments. Every person that loves a game is not a shill if they are a reviewer or a fan-boy if an end consumer. You make it sound like your opinion is the only correct one sometimes and that comes across as very arrogant.
I think some of your time/complexity issues will disappear after more plays. I can reset a scenario in about 10 minutes if I want to replay it, even changing out which House I am playing. I am averaging 75-90 minutes per solo game depending on the scenario and how many focus cards get played. That time is post game board setup - so starting with choosing my origin and then the first galactic event.
But they are not just games! It's my life! :D
To one of your other points though - It can be thrilling to not score any points until the end. A bit like Eurovision, Concordia is a great example of this process being the only exciting part of the entire evening
I played Cooper Island. If you are new in the game you get 15 points. If you are good AND lucky you can get 30+ points. You should never play this game with more than 2 players. One thing I don't understand is: Why luck is so important is such heavy game?
You are very welcome to move to Finland! Or any other Nordic country.
He he thanks! Certainly wouldn't say no to a visit at least!
i think almost all of the Minclash games suffer from brutal setup, so i expect Voidfall to carry on with that. Perseverance ep2 is so bad i generally wont even play it. i like it much more than you do by the sound of it but not enough to want to set up ep2. i can see (my copy hasnt arrived) how Voidfall might be worse. its one of the things i look out for during playthroughs. not enough content creators really point out how bad setup is in some games. Euthia is a game that particularly comes to mind in how little coverage there was for its setup
i prefer 50-100pt systems. i can enjoy others but it is my preference. its one of the things i think Voidfall will be lower on my preference list for. Paul just got 214 with Mark in their playthrough. thats a lot of points. it was on easy but i dont know if higher difficulties will reduce points or require more
Perseverance is so bad with regards to setup, rules bloat and lack of actions in each game.
I'm glad I passed on voidfall.
I'm really glad I didn't pass. Competitive two player mode was easy and very sandboxy. The myth of the game being unwieldy must come from the purported need for tutorial scenario (not needed in my experience) and the very technically written rulebook, which only makes sense after one play. I think the complexity is just above Escape Plan.
@nkorppi that's fair. For me personally I think I would struggle to table it enough. I've already got enough high weight games in my collection. Plus games I'd rather table solo and don't often get to play 2 player.
@@arronthrossell3434 Makes sense. My hunch is that the real fountain of joy (and most fast-paced) in Voidfall is the two player competitive (maybe also three player). I can imagine playing it 20 times per year at around 3 hours per game.
I wouldn't take not getting review copies so hard.
You'll get freebies no matter what you say after your content grows to the size of a Dice Tower, NPI, or SUSD
Certainly I don't want stuff turning up unannounced! :P
I hope you're wrong about Voidfall, still waiting for my copy.
Don't move to Scandanavia they talk funny 🙂
Review is up 😉
Voidfall is almost too big of a game space wise. I have enjoyed my plays but it has been a mission to get the game arranged and fitting on my table.
I think big box games are making themselves stay on the shelf. It becomes too much effort to sort through 4 layers of inserts to take out the right deck and board and components. It just makes thebgame harder to table.
I do prefer a game with 100 points. Its a nice bumber that we are all familiar with ehete you can easily quantify thr valuae of a 10 point contract or 6 point card. When the game goes over 250 its harder to see thr value of points.
If we took it to the extremes and said would you prefer a game to 10 points or a game to 1000 i think most people would be more easiky able to strategise the 10.
I also think its about how many things give you points. I much prefer a game that give you points from one of 5 sources that a game that gives you points from 25 sources.
Played everdell today with 5 players. Got to game end and it eas easy to see what 6/7 areas if points there were. Whereas i played teotihuacan recently and players were forgetting points all the time. An action might have 4 instances of points. Players might miss one hete and there. It was interesting how transparent moves in some games are comoated to otherss
It takes up my WHOLE table
Regarding big box games, you're right! I have the Everdell Complete Collection. Just thinking of sorting through all that components just to play a game, I leave it on the shelf. Not even talking about taking this big heavy box to a friend's house.
The tension behind partially hidden scores is fantastic!
You forgot to mention Pret-A-Porter as a game that suffers from inflated point scores. 🙄
A good call, yeah that one does get a bit out of hand also.
Mage Knight complexity level and duration.....
I think Voidfall overtakes MK in both regards!
@@TheBrokenMeeple Damn....
The competitive mode of Voidfall definitely is not Mage Knight length nor complexity. It's just above Escape Plan... If you get used to the iconography and don't worry too much about the rulebook until after one play, Voidfall is pretty simplistic. Didn't try solo yet. I've had Mage Knight games go 12 hours or more. Voidfall was 4h for a first game.
you talk about Voidfall and then games you won't review for different reasons.
you should have known Voidfall is not for you or your group.
For future reference.
I own 3 other Mindclash games. It's certainly within my remit. For current reference.
I don't think he should know it. He has Lacerda and Mindclash games that he enjoys on his shelf. He should be able to handle Voidfall (which is simpler than some of those games). Starting with solo/co-op is probably a mistake though. The competitive mode for Voidfall is really playable and flows fast... if one is good at grokking new iconography.