Arborea | Rahdo's Prototype Thoughts
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ม.ค. 2023
- Arborea Crowdfunding link: www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
Help Rahdo Run: / rahdo ❤️ Code of conduct: conduct.rahdo.com 🙂 And now...
A video outlining gameplay for the boardgame Arborea.
For more game info, boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
Part I: Gameplay Runthrough
• Rahdo Previews►►► Arborea
Part II: Extended Gameplay
• Arborea | Rahdo's Exte...
Part III: Final Thoughts
• Arborea | Rahdo's Prot...
Hey everybody! As an update since I filmed this, the developers have reworked their animal color scheme so the animals and their preferred terrain will match now! :)
I've just seen it in the KS page. Very good!
This game looks RIGHT up my alley. I love the fresh take on player interaction here. The art is fantastic as well. Ill be getting this one!
Just FYI, container prices at least from China to US are at pre-pandemic levels. Aside from inflation from other sources, at least that part of producing board games shouldn't be adding to the costs anymore.
Glad you like it! I do too 🤠👍
Hell yeah, can't wait to play this one! :)
Really well balanced review. Yes, the first reaction is 'Bitoku-vibe' but I'm sure it's not just the same. Love your enthusiasm. I also agree about the color scheme. To me it would be imperative that colors match better. I have what I call 'color dyslexia', I match colors together easily by instinct. So much so I have to keep my tokens separate according to colors or else will end up picking the wrong one if two are similar in color or shade. Or I'll move the wrong meeple multiple times. If my character has a blue shirt (like in Arnak), I know I'd best take the blue markers or else I'll move the wrong guy lol And I pick my AI color to clash as much as possible with mine. Also with so many people being color-blind, it might mess with them even more.
it turns out they've already updated the color scheme so the animals match their preferred environments :)
I have been resistant to backing any KS projects since My Father's Works due to the escalating costs of both shipping and local tax/import burdens. This looks very likely to be my exception to waiting for the retail edition to arrive at my FLG.
Hi Radho, thank you for your review. What do you think about the config for 2 players ? For example, Bitoku has no interest for me in this config; Is it similar for you ?
i think both games work equally well at 2p. both games do feature elements of interacting with other players stuff, and if anything that's a bit more prevalent in arborea.
So i know you feel it was similar to Tzolkin, but I didn’t recall you saying if you thought it was better or as good as etc. I don’t actually know the other game it’s getting compared to since I haven’t been able to game much the last few years heh. I think the art here is super nice. But I’m also worried that if it’s all that similar to Tzolkin, I’ll just keep picking Tzolkin.
i didn't say because i've only played a prototype of arborea and it was still going through some tweaking and whatnot. my gut tells me if i had to choose i'd still take tzolkin, in part because it's got a lot of fantastic expansion content and also because the gears are just so dang cool. if looking only at the base games and if tzolkin had used a "sliding tiles" approach ala arborea, they'd be pretty evenly matched i think, with arbora maybe taking the lead :)
Wait...if it's nothing like Bitoku mechanically, then why is it a "Bitoku-killer"? I assume because you like it more than Bitoku, but I guess it would also be considered a "Carpe Diem-Killer" if you like it more than that game as well.
What would be more interesting to know, is if you think it's a "Tzolkin-Killer" given the fact that you think they are similar in the time mechanism. Curious to hear your thoughts! Regardless thanks for the video!
good question: i'd say it would be a tzolking killer *IF* tzolkin didn't use the gears... you can imagine a tzolkin that uses the same 'slide strips along a row" approach, and if that's how they'd done it, i'd choose to play arborea over tzolkin.
but those gears are VERY cool and up the fun factor significantly i think, so at this point, i'd still go for tzolkin :)
@@rahdo thanks for the clarification! very very very interesting :). Thanks for all your thoughts and comments, as usual, love your stuff!!!!
Hey Rahdo! I apologize if you covered this in your video, but I would love to know your thoughts on Arborea as a 2-player game?
oh i think it's great. i only play games as 2p, so all of my thoughts are from that perspective, unless i say otherwise :)
Game looks really good and has interesting resource management system and plays fun. However this card puzzle looks...(I do not know how to put it in good way)...disapointing maybe? I think it is a lost of potential. There might be other system other than just putting critters on color simple dots. So very abstract system that is not corresponding even in art way to other areas on the board.
as it turns out they developers have already changed the color scheme so that the animals do match the locations they want to go to. and we found it a very compelling puzzle because often you can get an animal when you don't have the environment you need, but you need the animal anyway, so do you place it hoping to update the terrain later, or do you keep the animal corralled hoping to release it later. a gamble either way that increases the tension.
plus i just LOVE card patchwork games :)
@@rahdo I also love that kind of patchwork abstract games but only once they are a separate games. They feel more crunchy and sometimes bring some really cool new ideas. I feel that when they are introduced to be a part of bigger game they are simplified and are bringing abstract puzzle to thematic game. I feel that it somehow kills the theme because people on the board are working hard with resources, resting at home only just to fix last abstract puzzle. It was also introduced to highly thematic game (for me) Hippocrates which is really really great but the way they solved curing people is just not satisfying to me. I believe that final part of this game should be kind of final scene when wathing a movie but instead we have abstract puzzle. That is why I think it is lost opportunity here. But maybe it is just me 😀
well in this one it's certainly not an abstract thing that exists outside the theme. we''re literally spirits of nature trying to rebuild a devastated planet, so patching together environments is what we're ultimately here to do. and the design is very smart that you're not supposed to start working on that part of the game until the next player's turn starts, so you can puzzle it out while waiting for your next turn to come around :)
Hey Rahdo, I'm interested in Arborea and happy to hear it's not a Bitoku clone, and I'm a fan of your reviews.
Nevertheless, like a couple of others here, I was bothered by them leaving the "for me" out on the KS page quotation. When I first read it, it struck me as uncharacteristically brash, and I was glad to find the original statement came with an important qualifier.
I think they did you, their customers, and the creators of Bitoku a disservice. Just seems like a bad-faith marketing move. I don't want to assume that of them, though. Perhaps they were going for brevity and didn't realize how it could come across.
i'd guess from their perspective, the 'for me' is implicit because all reviews of everything are subjective personal opinions and not objective fact. but it's true that viewers often don't take it that way (which is why i always try to make sure to add those caveats when i actually say them). but movie posters have been cherry picking quotes forever, so this is i guess par for the course. but still, no harm in letting the publisher know how you feel
How is this a Bitoku killer? It has way less options, choices and is much simpler than Bitoku. You could say it's maybe like a Bitoku baby.
Also, that shared pool of resources is the worst possible thing with higher number of players. Imagine in 4 players you generate something but you don't have enough of another thing, well you are forced to leave it there. Then someone else comes and uses it and maybe they don't generate the stuff you need, they generate something else. Eventually sure, someone might generate what you need, but there will be a few turns of cat and mouse game where you just try to go for the same path over and over again because you just generate stuff and someone else uses it.
So 2 players seems to be working but 4 it's gonna be a very frustrating experience.
as i said in the video, "for me" it's a bitoku killer. for you it might not be. but in the end, it's more innovative, more fun and mroe engaging. and you always get first dibs on whatever resources you generate are, so no one can take them from you if you plan well and generate them and then immeidately use them, so your concern would only come about from treating it the as "baby bitoku" (i.e. assuming it's a simple game without lots of opportunity for long term planning, which is not the case) :)
@@rahdo you get first dibs only on resources generated that round, which is not all that helpful if you need more than 1 type. and sure, it takes some planning, but no where near as much as in Bitoku. so i think my initial assessment stands.
if you're worried about getting multiple resource types at the same time, then queue up all of your pilgrims on their trails and activate them all at the same time, instead of activating them immediately when they hit their trails. this is why you can activate 2 (or 3 with a fee) at once, specifically to ensure you always get exacdtly what you want without interferance. it just requires more long term planning than you're giving the game credit for :)
I fully get that your videos are hype videos. Showbiz and excitement for the sponsor. And I’m not bothered by that. I typically like your reviews.
But how is something a “killer” of something else that is completely different? It would be like saying Cascadia was a Wingspan killer. They are both fantastic but really? Just because they are both animals? They are completely different games.
Let’s tone back the hype and give genuine reactions and thoughts. I want to back a game because of authentic reviews. Not hype.
i could totally see cascadia being a wingspan killer for some folks (or vice versa). if the enthusaism you have for one game makes you unlikely to play another game, for whatever reason, then i'd say the one game 'killed' the other for you.
regardless, i wouldn't say that's an apt comparison to this case. here it's more like saying that birdwatchers killed wingspan for you, or vice versa. both card management games about birds with radically different gameplay (just like how bitoku & arborea are worker placement games about forest spirits and communing with nature with radically different gameplay), and i can totally see why someone would choose one over the other :)
and that's the case here for me with arborea. i thought bitoku was really really great, but i can't imagine i would choose to play it over arborea. and that, i assure you, is a 100% "genuine reaction and thought"! :)
p.s. i went back to double check, and was happy to see that i very clearly stated "FOR ME, this is a bitoku killer". the "for me" is pretty important, and maybe you missed that part? again, i 100% assure you that this is a simple statement of fact!
@@rahdo They conveniently left out the “for me” in the Kickstarter campaign page :)
ah, well that's a bit cheeky i suppose, but the video is still there so folks can go and check "what the?!? did he really say that!!!?" :) (it was at around 6:04 that i said it!)
@@rahdo Sure, which gets back to the Hollywood and pizzazz. Like I said, I totally get it, but it was laid on a little thick this time is all. :)
the ‘for me’ is inherent in any opinion for this kind of stuff. Even ones that come off as more ‘authoritative’ (for example, if the designer considers a sequel better than the original) are inherently opinion. So from my perspective of someone who grew up with an editor and copy writer as a parent (though, to be fair, I’m not them and I may be wrong) it seems honestly just succinct to remove the ‘for me’, rather than nefarious. This is not the first time I’ve seen this come up. I’ve seen other posts where folks apparently ‘need’ to hear that something is just someone’s ‘opinion’ rather than it being glaringly obvious because it simple obviously is an opinion. Not sure if it’s a culture shift thing or a language shift or just ignorance (I don’t mean that in a condescending way, but a literal one, I’m ignorant of many thing).