02:00 The game designer and artist is Haakon Gaarder, not Heiko Günther:) Thanks for making this video Radho, and for the kind words! I found most people I've played with either enjoy and exploit that minor memory element, or ignore it.
I liked it, but maybe just a bit too much variation, hard to keep track so many chains and you run out of table space, some production lines are hard to remember which slows the pace down. Overall it looks good and is bit of a slow burner but eventually picks up.
I think 'losing track' of the card you return to the road is a good and intentional cost of the action. You're taking a measured risk to float the card away in exchange for building a basic villager. If someone else picks it up either intentionall or coincidentally then that was the ultimate cost of your action. I love that. I love this game to bits but I'm concerned the fact that the randomness of whether the cards you want are even in the game may be a deal breaker for many people. I think its fair. Look at Wingspan. The whole deck is in play sure but you're unlikely going to see all the birds in one sitting. Even if all the cards are drawn, there will be other players drawing and discarding them. An important measured risk that's part of a good deck/engine builder I think.
I agree about the way in which you let go of certain villagers and they get 'lost' in the mix. I don't think you are supposed have this information to go back to (i.e. leaving markers). If you forget, oh well.
There are those who believe that any trackable information in a game should be public knowledge because "memory should not be part of strategy games" (they say). What they actually mean is that they've played a lot of games on BGA, many of which include the option to play with open information and that is what many people do. They then intellectualise their lack of skill in this area, claiming that memory is not a part of strategy games, even though it can demonstrably be shown to be - from learning chess openings to knowing cards played in bridge, blackjack etc not to mention the number of games in BGGs top 100 with hidden trackables, like Power Grid, 5 Tribes and so on, even Brass Birmingham does not mention inspecting a player's discard pile in the list of things a player can do in their turn - a thing the open trackables lobby would insist on. I have even known players to start recording everyone's moves when told they can't just look at people's hands etc. These people just want to leverage the experience and skill they've obtained playing 500 games on BGA without any impediments, so they have a huge advantage over those who haven't - not that any of them have the self awareness to admit this, even to themselves. The subject of the memories and experience they gained from those 500 games is never brought up.
I always appreciated your runthroughs and final thoughts, Richard. Thanks again! Now that this is back on KS (on account of the expansion), I'm taking another look at it. I want to determine if the expansion is a must have the gives this game another level, because I kinda want it to have another level. I love the art, the table presence, and the basic game play. Although I still get hung up on the 'building' phase since at no time do you ever 'build' anything. Hey, that would be a cool other level. :) I'm curious, did Villagers stay in your collection?
Luck of the draw can be a huge issue, if it feels that ultimately the game was pointless. But if there are always opportunities to pivot, deal with cards that don't come, that's a different matter. Seems you don't see it as a problem, but I do wonder to what extent it might leave a slightly bitter taste.
yeah, from our limited experience with it, if that hail mary doesn't come your way, other opportunities will, and you've got to pivot, as you say. such is the nature of almost all card games, and the good ones give you plenty of those pivot opportunities. i think this one does :)
Not a specific criticism but to all those who say things like "some memory in there but it's not too bad" (I paraphrase) - BGA will be the death of us. Grow up and use your memory! Exercise and improve it. I have to compete against your 5000 hours on BGA playing whatever it is - you can make do with playing games the rest of us are used to.
02:00 The game designer and artist is Haakon Gaarder, not Heiko Günther:) Thanks for making this video Radho, and for the kind words! I found most people I've played with either enjoy and exploit that minor memory element, or ignore it.
d'oh! sorry about that! i've excised the misspoken bit from the video!
i guess we are that rare third kind: exploiting it while not enjoying it! :)
Haakon Gaarder but how do you know? 😂😂
@@rahdo yeah probably lots of people like you out there as well, so good thing you mention it:)
Very proud to have been on the playtest/development team for this. Looking forward to the final product :)
Really looking forward to getting my copy from kickstarting this.
I liked it, but maybe just a bit too much variation, hard to keep track so many chains and you run out of table space, some production lines are hard to remember which slows the pace down.
Overall it looks good and is bit of a slow burner but eventually picks up.
I like the art style and the game overall. Thanks for another fun runthrough!
I think 'losing track' of the card you return to the road is a good and intentional cost of the action. You're taking a measured risk to float the card away in exchange for building a basic villager. If someone else picks it up either intentionall or coincidentally then that was the ultimate cost of your action. I love that.
I love this game to bits but I'm concerned the fact that the randomness of whether the cards you want are even in the game may be a deal breaker for many people. I think its fair. Look at Wingspan. The whole deck is in play sure but you're unlikely going to see all the birds in one sitting. Even if all the cards are drawn, there will be other players drawing and discarding them. An important measured risk that's part of a good deck/engine builder I think.
I agree about the way in which you let go of certain villagers and they get 'lost' in the mix. I don't think you are supposed have this information to go back to (i.e. leaving markers). If you forget, oh well.
There are those who believe that any trackable information in a game should be public knowledge because "memory should not be part of strategy games" (they say). What they actually mean is that they've played a lot of games on BGA, many of which include the option to play with open information and that is what many people do. They then intellectualise their lack of skill in this area, claiming that memory is not a part of strategy games, even though it can demonstrably be shown to be - from learning chess openings to knowing cards played in bridge, blackjack etc not to mention the number of games in BGGs top 100 with hidden trackables, like Power Grid, 5 Tribes and so on, even Brass Birmingham does not mention inspecting a player's discard pile in the list of things a player can do in their turn - a thing the open trackables lobby would insist on. I have even known players to start recording everyone's moves when told they can't just look at people's hands etc.
These people just want to leverage the experience and skill they've obtained playing 500 games on BGA without any impediments, so they have a huge advantage over those who haven't - not that any of them have the self awareness to admit this, even to themselves. The subject of the memories and experience they gained from those 500 games is never brought up.
Does it scale well for number of players? I should have it in my hands in about a week.
i've only played it 2p, but i suspect it will work just fine at any player count. only scaling is there are more cards in the stacks above the road :)
I always appreciated your runthroughs and final thoughts, Richard. Thanks again! Now that this is back on KS (on account of the expansion), I'm taking another look at it. I want to determine if the expansion is a must have the gives this game another level, because I kinda want it to have another level. I love the art, the table presence, and the basic game play. Although I still get hung up on the 'building' phase since at no time do you ever 'build' anything. Hey, that would be a cool other level. :)
I'm curious, did Villagers stay in your collection?
yes, still holding on to it :)
It is a neat game, but I am glad I did not back it. I would not mind playing it, but I am not ecstatic about it.
Luck of the draw can be a huge issue, if it feels that ultimately the game was pointless. But if there are always opportunities to pivot, deal with cards that don't come, that's a different matter. Seems you don't see it as a problem, but I do wonder to what extent it might leave a slightly bitter taste.
yeah, from our limited experience with it, if that hail mary doesn't come your way, other opportunities will, and you've got to pivot, as you say. such is the nature of almost all card games, and the good ones give you plenty of those pivot opportunities. i think this one does :)
This isn't the game I was promised when I backed...
In what way? The KS page is still up and this looks like exactly the same game.
Yeah, how not?
Not a specific criticism but to all those who say things like "some memory in there but it's not too bad" (I paraphrase) - BGA will be the death of us. Grow up and use your memory! Exercise and improve it. I have to compete against your 5000 hours on BGA playing whatever it is - you can make do with playing games the rest of us are used to.