Thanks for the kind words about the game Jamey! Building on that base system of challenge effects, we spent a bunch of time designing the dynamics of the challenge effects of each terrain set to interact in ways that formed a little "ecology" that evoked what you might expect to see in that kind of environment. To your predator and prey example, the AI will often interact with itself as much as it interacts with the players, which (we hope) creates a sort of puzzle where you have to decide when to let nature take its course vs when to intervene yourself.
The way the path cards interact with each other is absolutely my favorite part of the game. When there are territorial animals in play and they’ll attack and exhaust each other completely without your intervention. So cool!
My favorite thing about the game is that there is no default action to harm the creatures around you. Sure there are weapons and things you can equip to do that, but it really discourages fighting your way out or hurting your way out of a situation. The game is more about being an observer than it is about being an active agent of chaos (a murder hobo to use DnD parlance). That has felt like a particularly great thematic departure from most campaign games where you are a god exercising your will on the land. The land, in this game, is the active agent.
also my favorite aspect of playing the game. Ive even taken to just saying "And then the world comes alive..." to new players when challenge effects trigger.
I’ve been playing EBR nonstop since I’ve received my copy. It is an absolutely brilliant game, and I agree - the world feels “alive” around you, moving to its own agenda regardless of your actions. I like that, in this campaign-style game, new cards acquisitions and modifications to your deck can only happen through interacting with certain people and locations. You unlock new cards through helping others or completing missions, but you also can make permanent changes to your deck by going to the market or speaking to elders. It gives the player more decisions when traveling around the map.
I agree with all of this! I love how this mechanism has the game responding to what you are doing in a fairly organic way and how it is totally related to what you have in play at the time. It's a great game! I am on Day 7 so far, but see myself playing this a lot!
Return to Dark Tower is another co-op game that doesn't have AI turns per se, but batches the AI events at the end of each player's turn. Since there can be a mix of good and bad events, I find it fun to resolve my end-of-turn events in that game.
I haven't gotten through the story yet since receiving my copy, but got through the tutorial/prologue with hopes of getting my group started on a playthrough soon. Jamey, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the relatively non-confrontational approach the EBG team took when designing the mechanics for this system. There's a tiny bit as you can do harm to different beings, but it's a far cry from other games that really lean into combat/hunting.
This is one of the things I like - so much more relaxing than other games that put you in more of a survival mode, always 1 step away from certain death! But I have found stressful events and days even though there is no direct combat.
Oh, I'm always excited about games that give you options other than combat. I'm currently playing the Roll Player Adventures expansion, which is fantastic, and it often provides that option. Sometimes I do choose combat, but these types of games are so much more thematically rich to me when the solution isn't just to smash and stab.
I had this preordered but my order was just cancelled lol gonna wait for the next kickstarter and see if it still looks interesting to me. So with a system like this, the world only progresses when you interact with it as opposed to a system where the game progresses each turn despite what you do. It does seem quite smooth playing. One of the things that makes video games seem more real is when the world progresses regardless of your input, such as characters going about their routine or day turning to night. The game I’m working on currently has the players act simultaneously, then time passes for everyone, and then the enemy acts. I tried having the action you choose determine how time passes for you but it was just more prone to mistakes than having time pass for everyone at the same time. I think there is also something to be said about players doing something simultaneously as opposed to discrete turns for each player. There is a oneness, a togetherness to it. Like drawing from your bag at the same time in quacks or revealing the action you chose in roll for the galaxy.
They're both very different games in terms of how you perform actions/skill checks (one offers a much more streamlined, less grindy system than the other). Both offer a great sense of freedom, with 7th Citadel broken up into scenarios and EBR more of a series of sidequests. EBR allows the surrounding world to be brought to life (while addign a lot of steps and triggers to remember for even simple actions), while the 7th Citadel's world is focused on each location card (each of which offers a lot to look at and consider).
0:10 Random thing I happened to notice: the logo screen is cool, but the O in Stonemaier over-rotates a bit in the animation, so that it ends up cockeyed. I'm not usually too OCD about stuff, but there's so much symmetry and precision in that image that it looks off.
Thanks for the kind words about the game Jamey! Building on that base system of challenge effects, we spent a bunch of time designing the dynamics of the challenge effects of each terrain set to interact in ways that formed a little "ecology" that evoked what you might expect to see in that kind of environment. To your predator and prey example, the AI will often interact with itself as much as it interacts with the players, which (we hope) creates a sort of puzzle where you have to decide when to let nature take its course vs when to intervene yourself.
It really brings the world to life! :)
The way the path cards interact with each other is absolutely my favorite part of the game. When there are territorial animals in play and they’ll attack and exhaust each other completely without your intervention. So cool!
My favorite thing about the game is that there is no default action to harm the creatures around you. Sure there are weapons and things you can equip to do that, but it really discourages fighting your way out or hurting your way out of a situation. The game is more about being an observer than it is about being an active agent of chaos (a murder hobo to use DnD parlance). That has felt like a particularly great thematic departure from most campaign games where you are a god exercising your will on the land. The land, in this game, is the active agent.
I really like that aspect too.
also my favorite aspect of playing the game. Ive even taken to just saying "And then the world comes alive..." to new players when challenge effects trigger.
I’ve been playing EBR nonstop since I’ve received my copy. It is an absolutely brilliant game, and I agree - the world feels “alive” around you, moving to its own agenda regardless of your actions.
I like that, in this campaign-style game, new cards acquisitions and modifications to your deck can only happen through interacting with certain people and locations. You unlock new cards through helping others or completing missions, but you also can make permanent changes to your deck by going to the market or speaking to elders. It gives the player more decisions when traveling around the map.
I agree with all of this! I love how this mechanism has the game responding to what you are doing in a fairly organic way and how it is totally related to what you have in play at the time. It's a great game! I am on Day 7 so far, but see myself playing this a lot!
Return to Dark Tower is another co-op game that doesn't have AI turns per se, but batches the AI events at the end of each player's turn. Since there can be a mix of good and bad events, I find it fun to resolve my end-of-turn events in that game.
Thanks for sharing. Have my copy, but have only played through one day so far.
I haven't gotten through the story yet since receiving my copy, but got through the tutorial/prologue with hopes of getting my group started on a playthrough soon.
Jamey, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the relatively non-confrontational approach the EBG team took when designing the mechanics for this system. There's a tiny bit as you can do harm to different beings, but it's a far cry from other games that really lean into combat/hunting.
This is one of the things I like - so much more relaxing than other games that put you in more of a survival mode, always 1 step away from certain death! But I have found stressful events and days even though there is no direct combat.
Oh, I'm always excited about games that give you options other than combat. I'm currently playing the Roll Player Adventures expansion, which is fantastic, and it often provides that option. Sometimes I do choose combat, but these types of games are so much more thematically rich to me when the solution isn't just to smash and stab.
I had this preordered but my order was just cancelled lol gonna wait for the next kickstarter and see if it still looks interesting to me.
So with a system like this, the world only progresses when you interact with it as opposed to a system where the game progresses each turn despite what you do. It does seem quite smooth playing.
One of the things that makes video games seem more real is when the world progresses regardless of your input, such as characters going about their routine or day turning to night.
The game I’m working on currently has the players act simultaneously, then time passes for everyone, and then the enemy acts. I tried having the action you choose determine how time passes for you but it was just more prone to mistakes than having time pass for everyone at the same time.
I think there is also something to be said about players doing something simultaneously as opposed to discrete turns for each player. There is a oneness, a togetherness to it. Like drawing from your bag at the same time in quacks or revealing the action you chose in roll for the galaxy.
How would you compare EBR to 7th citadel?
They're both very different games in terms of how you perform actions/skill checks (one offers a much more streamlined, less grindy system than the other). Both offer a great sense of freedom, with 7th Citadel broken up into scenarios and EBR more of a series of sidequests. EBR allows the surrounding world to be brought to life (while addign a lot of steps and triggers to remember for even simple actions), while the 7th Citadel's world is focused on each location card (each of which offers a lot to look at and consider).
0:10 Random thing I happened to notice: the logo screen is cool, but the O in Stonemaier over-rotates a bit in the animation, so that it ends up cockeyed. I'm not usually too OCD about stuff, but there's so much symmetry and precision in that image that it looks off.
Interesting! I often forget to use the animation.