I’m so glad you enjoyed the game! It’s incredibly rewarding to see it resonating with others, and I’m thrilled that the experience was positive for you.🥰
Thanks for the review. I love your style of reviewing I feel like this is like a buddy of mine telling me about a game they played, just they got the rules right. 😂 I would like to ask about something that I have come across in your videos before. It seems Ferrell 'always' wins, that is the gist I get at least. My wife and I have a similar issue where I usually win and I will admit that I will 'throw' a game just to keep her playing. I just wonder how you handle this, feel free not to answer as this may be a more personal answer than you want to give. Thanks for your work
I'd rather die than gift Tallie a win. She could be on her deathbed and I wouldn't consider holding back 😅😅. We're famiously competitive as why we tend to avoid coops. However, I might instead play a game she always wins, like Quacks...
It can be pretty annoying I’m not going to lie 😅 I do get a bit annoyed when I get smashed for the 6th game in a row but usually it’s just a few minutes of annoyance vs hours of fun playing the game so I just have to ride out the feelings 😂 I think it’s a lot because we both love heavy euros which I’m just not good at so our plays are weighted towards this sort of thing, if I need a break from getting beaten then we’ll pull out something I can win at, something push your luck Farrell is less good at for example! If we played more of these types of games I think the win rate would be a bit more evenly distributed 😅 - Tallie
Nice review, this had completely slipped under my radar. Out of interest, how big is the box compared to an EGG Lacerda? And when you say it's heavy is it Lacerda levels or more on a par with Brass?
Fantastic preview! I'm excited for this to hit Kickstarter. Thank you for going to the effort to cover this game. Out of curiosity, will you two be attending Essen Spiel? As one of my favourite channels, I've wondered if you attend public events or prefer to enjoy games exclusively at home.
Thank you! We will not, although it was briefly talked about at one point. It's not so much that we don't want to go, just it's a lot of hassle having the dogs since if we both go we have to sort that and we also don't really know what to expect from a con!
Wow great review! I don't really play heavy euro game, but you definitely got me interested, lol. The kickstarter page says that this game is inspired by Terra Mystica and Terraforming Mars. How does it play comparing to these 2 games? Thank you!
Actually I was a bit surprised when I saw that on the page as I don't think it's too much like either. There is some symbol matching similar to TM, and the different faction abilities are unique like Terra Mystica, but I don't really see too much of either in it besides broad strokes (filling up a map with buildings that each do different types of things).
if you dont play euro games dont back this, basically they will lure you with cute components thats the selling point of this game like flamecraft's art. remember when flamecraft was inside the top 100 games i think it was 60+ bcuz its just cute now its on 377 XD in just a year. as for this kickstarter this is like a tactic for them the cuteness is the selling point so some people will think "this is heavy euro but its cute" it kinda plays with your mind its cute it will look like a easy heavy game u know what i mean? kinda "i think its time for me to play a heavy euro game bcuz this is cute". and the box! omg its too big that alone can be a reason that this game will collect dust. this game is like those vital lacerda game were you take it out open it and you set it up for freaking 30mins and put it back on the box and dont forget the rulebook XD did you noticed that they didnt show the rulebook? maybe bcuz its a 20 pages rulebook hahaha. You read the rulebook u learn the game now the nxt problem would be teaching the game to your friends again if u dont play heavy euro games dont back this :)theres alot of small moving components which lead to complex rules and the fiddly ness? of this game will kill you XD theres alot of heavy euro that doesnt have these problems like Feast for odin feast for odin is heavy but it looks like a heavy game hahah but its actually easy the only thing u need to learn is the cards but the art might not attract you :)
@@TpDgreat Thanks for the advice! I didn't enjoy Flamecraft either. It is too light for my taste. I am actually looking for a fun heavy euro game to play with my 12 year old daughter. We have played many games together including Jaws of Lion, Terraforming Mars, Aeon Trespass Odyssey(damn 90 pages of rules that requires 3 times reading!), Brass, Too Many Bones, etc. The problem with some of the top rated heavy euro is: the art is ugly. It is hard to get kids to play ugly art games. This one looks promising on the art, and the nice Boardofit people shared their enthusiasm too! I have never heard any board game reviewer saying that they are upset to send the prototype to the next reviewer!
You are by no means the first, but board game media has to come to terms with the professionalisation of criticism. Receiving something "for free", whether a review copy or the promise of a future retail copy is payment. Moreover, it is not simply the monetary value of the product in question, but the future relationship with a publisher/ designer. Folks can insist that they are uniquely insulated from such persuasion, but by accepting payment from publishers/ designers you remove yourselves from the position of a consumer (when your own money is on the line). A critic is supposed to represent the interests of the consumer/ audience. I appreciate boardgames is in an awkward phase historically whereby the audience isn't large enough to support much by way of genuine critique. Of course anyone is free to make whatever content they wish, consume whatever content they wish etc. and I appreciate you being clear at the beginning that you have received a review copy and the promise of a future copy. However, it just jars with me when people follow up that admission with... "But that's not very much really and it hasn't influenced my judgement in the slightest". You can't serve 2 masters equally...
Take what you will from it - we never profess to be an independent board game reviewer free of any stigma like NPI, or claim to be journalists. Your point is completely valid, but like...we're also two people who do this for fun. We have separate full time careers. We tell you what we think about games and that's it. We spent years doing this before we even got sent games for review. I think you've gotta ask what you're expecting from us being who we are. Also pretty much any reviewer of any level in any media, technology or content is often provided what they review for review. Furthermore, in this situation - this is a prototype, which can't be bought, so either there is 0 coverage of this game, or we are provided it by the publisher. We do as good we can, which is not be paid for anything we do ever beyond the review copy we receive, and we don't have a patreon to ask for money from viewers as literally every other channel does. We totally fund ourselves. I would also add I think we were pretty fair and spent a solid amount of time discussing what we did not like or would change in this video, on top of historically being known for being honest. We've provided negative reviews of provided games and even had angry emails from publishers, so I don't really think it's unfair to say we say it like it is. Honestly, being reviewers we have more games than we could play comfortably, so getting "more" isn't the incentive you might think in terms of swaying our opinion. Again, your view is completely fair and it's a real issue in any form of media, but just trying to express our side.
@@BoardOfItReviews thanks for the reply. I think the points you make reflect the common responses of other channels who stress their amateur/ non professional status. I acknowledged that obviously anyone is free to make whatever they want, free to consume whatever they want. I also acknowledged that it's a bigger industry-wide issue that is as much a question for us as consumers as it is for "content creators"; essentially are we as consumers prepared to pay for independent reviewers/ criticism? It seems only a few have been successful in that regard. The single point of issue is, and I'm not sure if this was clear based on your reply, is that it's contradictory to claim a review is unbiased whilst acknowledging a financial/ business relationship with a publisher/ designer. The fact you've got lots of games to play is neither here nor there. It's not your money on the line, you are not representing the consumer. Presumably if you didn't like the game you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making a video about it. As you point out actually, the game isn't even for sale yet... it's about to go on crowdfunding... so who does this video serve fundamentally?
@@redshoes1987 But nothing in any review is totally free of bias, because reviews are opinion pieces shaped by your personal views, likes and dislikes. I think it's very much on the consumer to shop around with reviews for something they want to spend their money on, to find reviewers they trust or who align with their tastes. If I give a bad review to a family weight game because I don't like lighter games, that doesn't say it's objectively a bad game. In the same way, I personally think it's disingenuous to the work people do in this space to align free with positive coverage. We were so clear on separating these lines in this video because you so often get previews that are totally paid for hype videos, and we wanted to state how much we personally liked this game. Similarly, being provided something for review doesn't inarguably mean that I'm going to be positive and lie about my true feelings. Sure, it may bias my feelings, which is never in doubt, but only in the same way any game from a designer I like is biased, or of a genre I like is biased. I can totally accept your opinion Of course, there are people who 100% lie and hype games up and are utterly biased, but this goes back to it being on the consumer to find review content you are happy to align with. You make a point of "representing the consumer" but that's not something we ever agreed to. We just upload videos of our opinions on a hobby as a bit of fun and people can watch them or not. Thankfully, as we are honest and straightfoward, people come back to watch! Cancel Reply
@@BoardOfItReviews I appreciate the replies. Of course I accept there are biases to every opinion and that there isn't such a thing as an objective review. However I think you are still missing the point slightly. The fact that you have probably never explicitly stated "I represent consumers" dodges the implicit nature of the claim by producing "review" content aimed at consumers. Presumably you make content because you want it to be received, understood and in some way to influence an audience; an audience of board game consumers. In fact your handle in these replies underlines the fact that you view yourself as reviewers rather than publicists or any other media communications role. Of course there is a spectrum... A channel like Rhado is clearly much closer to being a publicist/ promoter than your channel and hence it's unlikely anyone goes to Rhado for review content. Likewise, you are of course free to do whatever you like with your channel. None of this really bothers me: as soon as you declared your interests (which I admire you for) then I knew not to treat the content as a review in the purest sense. It was just the issue that you followed up the declaration of interest with an insistence that in spite if this the "review" is not biased. That led me to thinking you're trying to have your cake and eat it here, and I see this as a common issue in board game media.You can't be a reviewer who has financial/ business relationships with the products/ companies you are reviewing because you no longer represent the consumer. I think we are unlikely to agree on this final point so will leave it there, but I appreciate your replies and wish you the best for the future.
It’s really not this serious. They play board games, talk about board games, receive some board games to review, review said board games, then we watch to decide if we’re interested in aforementioned board games. It’s free information for the end user to use as they will. Enjoy it for what it is
I’m so glad you enjoyed the game! It’s incredibly rewarding to see it resonating with others, and I’m thrilled that the experience was positive for you.🥰
It makes us look forward to try more of your games!
Thanks for the review. I love your style of reviewing I feel like this is like a buddy of mine telling me about a game they played, just they got the rules right. 😂
I would like to ask about something that I have come across in your videos before. It seems Ferrell 'always' wins, that is the gist I get at least. My wife and I have a similar issue where I usually win and I will admit that I will 'throw' a game just to keep her playing. I just wonder how you handle this, feel free not to answer as this may be a more personal answer than you want to give.
Thanks for your work
I'd rather die than gift Tallie a win. She could be on her deathbed and I wouldn't consider holding back 😅😅. We're famiously competitive as why we tend to avoid coops. However, I might instead play a game she always wins, like Quacks...
It can be pretty annoying I’m not going to lie 😅 I do get a bit annoyed when I get smashed for the 6th game in a row but usually it’s just a few minutes of annoyance vs hours of fun playing the game so I just have to ride out the feelings 😂 I think it’s a lot because we both love heavy euros which I’m just not good at so our plays are weighted towards this sort of thing, if I need a break from getting beaten then we’ll pull out something I can win at, something push your luck Farrell is less good at for example! If we played more of these types of games I think the win rate would be a bit more evenly distributed 😅 - Tallie
How much player interaction is there in this game? Are you only focusing on tracks for bonuses and your own player board?
Pretty much none. Competition for the worker placement spaces, but it's more that they cost more than blocked off.
Nice review, this had completely slipped under my radar. Out of interest, how big is the box compared to an EGG Lacerda? And when you say it's heavy is it Lacerda levels or more on a par with Brass?
The box is basically the same size - not sure if that is the final size! More on Lacerda levels for sure, but I think slightly easier to grasp.
How long does this game take to play? Is BGG correct when it says 100-200 min?
Yea that's pretty accurate actually. I will say time flies when you are playing though!
Fantastic preview! I'm excited for this to hit Kickstarter. Thank you for going to the effort to cover this game.
Out of curiosity, will you two be attending Essen Spiel? As one of my favourite channels, I've wondered if you attend public events or prefer to enjoy games exclusively at home.
Thank you! We will not, although it was briefly talked about at one point. It's not so much that we don't want to go, just it's a lot of hassle having the dogs since if we both go we have to sort that and we also don't really know what to expect from a con!
@@BoardOfItReviews That makes sense! I have to leave my shepherd at home, and it is indeed a hassle even with just the one.
When people mention Euro styles of games, what exactly do they mean? I’ve looked it up online before but didn’t really get a satisfactory answer.
Low luck and often non-confrontational gameplay. If there is confrontation, it's usually indirect.
Ah I see, so basically my favorite types of games then. Thanks for the quick reply!
@@Zgf72 Euro games typically are games that require long-term planning and reward players who plan out the most optimal moves
Wow great review!
I don't really play heavy euro game, but you definitely got me interested, lol.
The kickstarter page says that this game is inspired by Terra Mystica and Terraforming Mars. How does it play comparing to these 2 games?
Thank you!
Actually I was a bit surprised when I saw that on the page as I don't think it's too much like either. There is some symbol matching similar to TM, and the different faction abilities are unique like Terra Mystica, but I don't really see too much of either in it besides broad strokes (filling up a map with buildings that each do different types of things).
if you dont play euro games dont back this, basically they will lure you with cute components thats the selling point of this game like flamecraft's art. remember when flamecraft was inside the top 100 games i think it was 60+ bcuz its just cute now its on 377 XD in just a year.
as for this kickstarter this is like a tactic for them the cuteness is the selling point so some people will think "this is heavy euro but its cute" it kinda plays with your mind its cute it will look like a easy heavy game u know what i mean? kinda "i think its time for me to play a heavy euro game bcuz this is cute". and the box! omg its too big that alone can be a reason that this game will collect dust. this game is like those vital lacerda game were you take it out open it and you set it up for freaking 30mins and put it back on the box and dont forget the rulebook XD
did you noticed that they didnt show the rulebook? maybe bcuz its a 20 pages rulebook hahaha. You read the rulebook u learn the game now the nxt problem would be teaching the game to your friends
again if u dont play heavy euro games dont back this :)theres alot of small moving components which lead to complex rules and the fiddly ness? of this game will kill you XD
theres alot of heavy euro that doesnt have these problems like Feast for odin feast for odin is heavy but it looks like a heavy game hahah but its actually easy the only thing u need to learn is the cards but the art might not attract you :)
@@TpDgreat Didn't show the rulebook cuz it's a prototype and we had to print it out ourselves -FYI.
@@BoardOfItReviews oh, i see thank you i wonder how many pages are in the rulebook. :)
@@TpDgreat
Thanks for the advice! I didn't enjoy Flamecraft either. It is too light for my taste.
I am actually looking for a fun heavy euro game to play with my 12 year old daughter. We have played many games together including Jaws of Lion, Terraforming Mars, Aeon Trespass Odyssey(damn 90 pages of rules that requires 3 times reading!), Brass, Too Many Bones, etc.
The problem with some of the top rated heavy euro is: the art is ugly. It is hard to get kids to play ugly art games. This one looks promising on the art, and the nice Boardofit people shared their enthusiasm too! I have never heard any board game reviewer saying that they are upset to send the prototype to the next reviewer!
Love your reviews! Thanks for all the hard work that goes into them.
Thank you! So nice to hear!
When is the kickstarter?
I think in November but haven't heard a set date. I would sign up with the link in the description so you can be notified when it goes live.
@@BoardOfItReviews ouch so long! I want it now 😛
You are by no means the first, but board game media has to come to terms with the professionalisation of criticism. Receiving something "for free", whether a review copy or the promise of a future retail copy is payment. Moreover, it is not simply the monetary value of the product in question, but the future relationship with a publisher/ designer. Folks can insist that they are uniquely insulated from such persuasion, but by accepting payment from publishers/ designers you remove yourselves from the position of a consumer (when your own money is on the line). A critic is supposed to represent the interests of the consumer/ audience. I appreciate boardgames is in an awkward phase historically whereby the audience isn't large enough to support much by way of genuine critique. Of course anyone is free to make whatever content they wish, consume whatever content they wish etc. and I appreciate you being clear at the beginning that you have received a review copy and the promise of a future copy. However, it just jars with me when people follow up that admission with... "But that's not very much really and it hasn't influenced my judgement in the slightest". You can't serve 2 masters equally...
Take what you will from it - we never profess to be an independent board game reviewer free of any stigma like NPI, or claim to be journalists. Your point is completely valid, but like...we're also two people who do this for fun. We have separate full time careers. We tell you what we think about games and that's it. We spent years doing this before we even got sent games for review. I think you've gotta ask what you're expecting from us being who we are. Also pretty much any reviewer of any level in any media, technology or content is often provided what they review for review.
Furthermore, in this situation - this is a prototype, which can't be bought, so either there is 0 coverage of this game, or we are provided it by the publisher. We do as good we can, which is not be paid for anything we do ever beyond the review copy we receive, and we don't have a patreon to ask for money from viewers as literally every other channel does. We totally fund ourselves.
I would also add I think we were pretty fair and spent a solid amount of time discussing what we did not like or would change in this video, on top of historically being known for being honest. We've provided negative reviews of provided games and even had angry emails from publishers, so I don't really think it's unfair to say we say it like it is. Honestly, being reviewers we have more games than we could play comfortably, so getting "more" isn't the incentive you might think in terms of swaying our opinion.
Again, your view is completely fair and it's a real issue in any form of media, but just trying to express our side.
@@BoardOfItReviews thanks for the reply. I think the points you make reflect the common responses of other channels who stress their amateur/ non professional status. I acknowledged that obviously anyone is free to make whatever they want, free to consume whatever they want. I also acknowledged that it's a bigger industry-wide issue that is as much a question for us as consumers as it is for "content creators"; essentially are we as consumers prepared to pay for independent reviewers/ criticism? It seems only a few have been successful in that regard. The single point of issue is, and I'm not sure if this was clear based on your reply, is that it's contradictory to claim a review is unbiased whilst acknowledging a financial/ business relationship with a publisher/ designer. The fact you've got lots of games to play is neither here nor there. It's not your money on the line, you are not representing the consumer. Presumably if you didn't like the game you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making a video about it. As you point out actually, the game isn't even for sale yet... it's about to go on crowdfunding... so who does this video serve fundamentally?
@@redshoes1987 But nothing in any review is totally free of bias, because reviews are opinion pieces shaped by your personal views, likes and dislikes. I think it's very much on the consumer to shop around with reviews for something they want to spend their money on, to find reviewers they trust or who align with their tastes. If I give a bad review to a family weight game because I don't like lighter games, that doesn't say it's objectively a bad game.
In the same way, I personally think it's disingenuous to the work people do in this space to align free with positive coverage. We were so clear on separating these lines in this video because you so often get previews that are totally paid for hype videos, and we wanted to state how much we personally liked this game.
Similarly, being provided something for review doesn't inarguably mean that I'm going to be positive and lie about my true feelings. Sure, it may bias my feelings, which is never in doubt, but only in the same way any game from a designer I like is biased, or of a genre I like is biased. I can totally accept your opinion
Of course, there are people who 100% lie and hype games up and are utterly biased, but this goes back to it being on the consumer to find review content you are happy to align with.
You make a point of "representing the consumer" but that's not something we ever agreed to. We just upload videos of our opinions on a hobby as a bit of fun and people can watch them or not. Thankfully, as we are honest and straightfoward, people come back to watch!
Cancel
Reply
@@BoardOfItReviews I appreciate the replies. Of course I accept there are biases to every opinion and that there isn't such a thing as an objective review. However I think you are still missing the point slightly. The fact that you have probably never explicitly stated "I represent consumers" dodges the implicit nature of the claim by producing "review" content aimed at consumers. Presumably you make content because you want it to be received, understood and in some way to influence an audience; an audience of board game consumers. In fact your handle in these replies underlines the fact that you view yourself as reviewers rather than publicists or any other media communications role. Of course there is a spectrum... A channel like Rhado is clearly much closer to being a publicist/ promoter than your channel and hence it's unlikely anyone goes to Rhado for review content. Likewise, you are of course free to do whatever you like with your channel. None of this really bothers me: as soon as you declared your interests (which I admire you for) then I knew not to treat the content as a review in the purest sense. It was just the issue that you followed up the declaration of interest with an insistence that in spite if this the "review" is not biased. That led me to thinking you're trying to have your cake and eat it here, and I see this as a common issue in board game media.You can't be a reviewer who has financial/ business relationships with the products/ companies you are reviewing because you no longer represent the consumer. I think we are unlikely to agree on this final point so will leave it there, but I appreciate your replies and wish you the best for the future.
It’s really not this serious. They play board games, talk about board games, receive some board games to review, review said board games, then we watch to decide if we’re interested in aforementioned board games. It’s free information for the end user to use as they will. Enjoy it for what it is