Wow, this comment aged wonderfully actually!

Hello Future You, you did a good job

Not if you know German. Die Nische (Cooperative Boardgame Reviewer) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/edZ4n5qQssrciqs.html

@@daodasbrot4817 Still very few :P

@@daodasbrot4817 Von Stress-Test kann in dem verlinkten Video aber keine Rede sein. ^^

@@nerdybox Ne, aber dafür ein Wissenschaftliches Review mit echten Argumenten. Und er behält Recht, außer man ist ein Fan Boy des Spiels :-)

@@daodasbrot4817 Ich bin jetzt kein Fanboy und kann durchaus nachvollziehen wenn man das Spiel nicht mag. Scheint dir ja auch so zu gehen. Ob er Recht hat... liegt vielleicht im Auge des Betrachters. Trotzdem ist es unprofessionell. Ich kann nicht nur die ersten 15 Minuten von Herr der Ringe schauen und mir dann eine fundierte Meinung einbilden. Das meine ich und damit ist es um Welten entfernt von NPI oder einem Stress-Test.

I am playing with my wife and we are having a great time as well. I agree with most all of the points made in the video, however, I am still having fun and to me that is the ultimate measure. I appreciate that the point of the video is to logically point out what NPI feels the flaws are to inform buying decisions. Can't ask for more than that. Enjoy the game Josh and keep up the great work NPI.

I'm the same. Game of 2019 for me.

I theorize the primary culprit would be board game fatigue.

@Josh Duffus How old is your son? I'm thinking about playing the campaign with mine...

@@nicolasdelattre8833 11

The great wall: hold my pint!

Thank you! A lofty goal but it's exactly the reason why we chose to make this video. Glad to hear it resonates.

It's great to have a counter point. I disagree overall, but it's great for generating debate.

This is why people still play RPGs. No game mechanic beats a good game master.

tedious mechanics which are inflating playtime are not just an infancy issue of boardgame campaigns. They are, in fact, pretty common in video games: fetch quests survival and ingredient hunt grind for marginal progress The first question I need to ask myself when creating a game (aka: an agreed upon ruleset for a limited set of actions to reach a defined goal) is "What is my theme?" Brutal? Tragic? Action? Comedy? Suspense? Survival? Tedious time sinks within survival themes mostly distract from the "handrcrafted quests". What is supposed to create fun? The rabbit hunt relying on dice variance preventing you further to progress the awesomly written story? Or exploring the story and the consequences of your actions in a grim world where consequence means a life changing event for involved parties?

Myself and my gf are going to start soon. We want to have fun and are not huge gamers (due to time constraints with 2 kids) but we do have a fair collection of games in the stash. Have you been playing core rules or story mode?

Dougie Todd We did core rules and in chapter 7 added the advanced resource rule of a cap of 20 because we felt we needed more of a challenge. The rules are great in the sense you can tailor them and adjust as you see fit. The goal is to have fun but feel like you are being challenged. I highly recommend going to AR’s website and reading the updated rule book and the updated faq before you play. Lastly, remember to take good notes, refer to the map, have each player excel at different things, stay in a party as often as possible and don’t be afraid to run from encounters!

@@Bandit-137 that's great info, thanks. I will get the latest FAQ and such before we play. Cheers

Agreed! We're winning at the game of life against the evil Kickstarter...this battle at least.

People play Korean MMOs too. Tainted Grail is the Korean MMO of board games.

Honestly? Most likely, yeah.

Bummer. 7th Continent was a bit of a missed opportunity for me and I was hoping this would improve on what was a great idea but not so great execution. Sad face.

I'm a bit late, but have just recently tried Tainted Grail. I was expecting not to like 7th Continent, but ended up enjoying it a lot. But as for Tainted Grail, I agree with everything Efka said about it. I found the central gameplay very frustrating, and ended up just giving up halfway through the second chapter. I really wanted to enjoy this one, and was quite disappointed by it.

I think I'll be playing in story mode. Too many games to play, too many minis to paint and too little time. I want to enjoy it so we will see how it goes but at least as I'm all in I can sell it if I don't like it and get probably all the money back.

Where are the rules on story mode?

@@Anthony-bf9qd page 22 of the manual. Simply scale all costs and events as if one less player was at the table. Ie, if you play with two players, Story mode makes you pay half as much for Menhirs.

I agree. Wife and I are about to wrap up T7C, including the WGUMCD expansion, and never had a "sudden" death moment. I can see how that can happen in our current and final curse but the game has warned us about it and how to avoid them with proper preparations. Looking forward to starting our TG campaign immediately afterwards. Hopefully it will carry us through until the 7th Citadel is released.

That's all Elaine.

Couldn't agree more. Lots of these games are immediately sold on the second hand market anyway. I was super close to backing Nemesis, but waited until retail and only bought a copy after REAL reviews and opinions were available. What's funny is games like Jaws, Horrified, O.P. Arena are fun, easy to teach and have plenty of replay-ability yet they only cost $30.00. I love my copy of Big Trouble in Little China...but I play Artic Scavengers: Recon way more often.

I decided I bought my last game. Thanks to the internet, I have like 100 missions. Tough decision going cold turkey. (Lustily staring at Nemesis, hmmm...)

S L Funny you should mention Nemesis as the one and only Kickstarter game I’ve ever backed was Lords of Hellas (Another Awaken Realms game as I’m sure you know). LoH probably cost me about $250 in the end (I went “all in”) and while the game turned out to be pretty fun (thankfully!) I have yet to even unbox the mountains of expansions/Addons that came with it a year later. Turns out, it’s just too much. I can say with absolute certainty that I will never back another Kickstarter board game. This last week a few of us from work got together and played Lords of Waterdeep (An “oldie” that we still love to play) and had a blast! My gf and I play Space Base more than I’d like to admit. I still love to whip out Race for the Galaxy or we’ll duke it out in Kemet. My point being, we have PLENTY of games to play! While I got rid of many, I still have three shelves full (smaller “ladder” shelves from Lowes...I never did the IKEA thing). Hell, just recently we finally played Castles of Burgundy - a game I had gotten for practically nothing and that sat on my shelf for two years! It’s an incredible game! I finally realized that the purchase of board games could really go on forever. I think last year the number was right around 3000 for new board games on Kickstarter? I see pictures of people now with whole rooms full of games and to be honest, I feel sorry for them. I used to be that guy. Funny, I feel like I’m talking about drug addiction, lol! One night, several friends came over for a game. One of them piped up, “Can we just play something we already know? I don’t feel like learning anything new right now.” Another agreed and said, “I found Scythe intriguiging but we’ve only played it once and I don’t feel like I had a chance to really understand and enjoy it.” That’s when I knew I’d gone too far. Hell, I could literally play Terraforming Mars many many more times (we love that game) and that doesn’t speak to the fact I had countless unplayed (or rarely played) games aligning my wall. Anyway, just rambling. Stopping my collection addiction and getting back to brass tacks - actually playing a manageable number of games we enjoy over and over - is where it’s at. It’s where my love of the hobby started and I’m happy to be back there again!

Joe heey My new rule is that I have to have played a game to justify purchasing it and unless the game is unique (very unlikely these days) then I have to get rid of a game to make room for the new one. For example, I do still have Wingspan on my radar. I’m not in any rush to buy it and if I find it somewhere cheap Ill probably pick it up. We recently played it at a board game meetup and turns out - it is pretty damn fun. It didn’t blow us out of the water but it’s one the gf and I could play often. Anyway, if you stick with the rule that you cant buy a game unless you’ve tried it, you’ll do well, ha!

@@Tennethums1 try it before you buy it!?!??! How am I gonna get all those sweet, sweet extras before anyone else? Get rid of a game!?!? I, sadly, have come to the realization that Im just going to have to stop. Ill just go to the game shop and play there. Good advice

I think NPI are in general not too invested in exploration games. 7th continent which is the closest comparison didnt bode too well with them either.

Do you still feel the same? We were loving it then got to chapter 7 and as a group we had to have a chat about what house rules we'd bring in so that we keep playing because we were bored. He has given a fair review, the survival elements that make the game tense at the start become a slog. They don't provide challenge after so long just busy work and once youve seen all (most? - dunno if I've actually seen all) Of the main map the sense of discovery vanishes and the menhir mechanic just makes travel frustrating.

@@matthiassk my group got to Chapter 6 before the pandemic, then I moved away so I haven't had a chance to play more. I've heard that a lot of players have a hard time with Chapter 7.

@@jerimiahlee3451 yeah pandemic interrupted ours too and we were mid chapter 7 so took some cajoling to pick it back up.

I think Tom does really great work! I'm sorry that his video didn't gel with you but I'm very glad ours did.

@@NoPunIncluded I feel the whole DT swayed away from honest boardgame reviews to becoming more of a convention machine in the last years. But that's another story...

I mean, he sorta made that point in the video... but yeah I definitely agree

Fair point, but some reviewers are benefitting from AR promos, which may or may not introduce bias. I will keep saying this, but for almost any KS game, subtract 2 from the BGG rating for a more accurate one. TG is much more a 7/10 than 9. If you are into the theme, difficulty, or house rules, no doubt you will enjoy it.

This times a million. I've been so bummed about this - it checked all the boxes - Arthurian mythos, story based...except the gameplay killed any story since it became all about food and menhirs, no time to explore or help. It starts out super fun - until you hit those gnarly roadblocks.

@@kwisatzhaderach88 Well, it's too late now... I'll have to wait and see if they do a 2nd Kickstarter

It's ok. Not for some, especially with that price tag, unless you like spending money. ✨🌟💰🤩💰🌟✨ Still, I can see the appeal.

@@maddmugsy Oh, wait for them to start delivering expantions. Then the game will be out, and also many people will start selling it out.

@@maddmugsy i think they will reopen the pledge manager very soonish.

Sleeping Gods

Same for me, havent played this one yet but i loved 7th continent for its abundant creativity and exploration and this one seems to be even richer. if the menhir/food upkeep becomes too tedious id just switch to story mode. regarding the fights, i think thats the reason why most recommend 2 players; you probably dont need 4 players to brood over every battle but more than 1 is already more enjoyable.

You haven’t played Gloomhaven. Give it a try and you will understand the difference and the accolades

@@captainron7120 I have played it and I honestly don't get why it gets such high praise. Obviously if people enjoy it then fair play to them. Just not for me.

@@FullMetal625 oh it’s the card play, hand management that makes it a gem for me. Sorry it didn’t ring for you

@@captainron7120 oh no worries friend. I just prefer something like Decent where there are alternative scenarios. I found in Gloomhaven, and maybe I just had bad luck, that all the scenarios were just kill all the dudes which I found repetitive very quickly. Vs Decent or something along those lines where it can be kill all the dudes or escape the dungeon or hold off the enemies or chase a monster through a dungeon. To be fair the hand stuff in Gloomhaven is great but I feel like for me personally the story and scenarios let me down is all

@@FullMetal625 you arent alone. the story and scenario win conditions were shit and monotonous respectively. brought the whole game down.

Yeah it seems a tad too subjective and with the need to ridicule it more than necessary, even if of course criticism is warranted. With this approach I'd say that every game sucks and isn't worth it 😅

Yes, seemed aggressively negative. Having played many hours of this game, I couldn’t disagree more with his major criticisms. Good points were made, but the extent to which they bothered him seemed severe. To each their own, but don’t just take his word for it

Amazing game. Truly a work of art in every aspect.

My favorite game. But that being said, on it's own it's.. good, but not great. What makes it great is playing it right, and by that I mean owning and reading the lore books as you encounter new locations and enemies, soaking in so much lore that you feel a part of this world. This, and a good soundtrack (Mandy is my favorite) makes it my favorite experience that no other game can touch because no other game does this! (If I'm wrong, let me know, I want more like it) It's like reading a short novel and playing it at the same time.. I should also mention, this is a solo review, I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much with others. Oh, and I absolutely love the artwork. It's hanging in my walls when I'm not playing it.. Along with my favorite Mad magazine covers.. I think Sean is a genius and I hope he recovers well, I can't imagine how hard it must be for him to not be able to draw anymore.

@@MikeDV34 Why? I feel it's very streamlined. Pick a stance, move or rest, pull a danger card and either fight, explore an encounter, both or neither. Then repeat. Yes, there are a lot of enemy abilities that need referencing, and learning the various mechanics takes time (void gates, hand of doom etc.), but it's not sloppy, to me it seems pretty tight.

Well, there we have it. It's awful, it's amazing. Just like Tainted Grail.

@@munchinkin if you have a 7-year-old that can draw like that, let me know. I'd love to invest in their future.