Board Games - The expansion thread

[HokieStone]

The old thread only came up once in a while, but when I went to look for it, I found that it had been closed...so new thread time.

Tuesday night I had the chance to play the published version of "My Father's Work" from Renegade Games, by designer TC Petty III.  I had played this in a prototype form several years ago, so I was eager to play the final product.  As a disclaimer, I know TC personally, and this was certainly a monumental project for him to undertake - and Renegade certainly went over the top with production values.

The conceit of the game is that the players are the sons/daughters of a "mad scientist" in the 1800s, who were bequeathed an estate, and some knowledge of the "masterwork" he was working on.  The game goes three generations, so by the end, you will be portraying a great-grandchild of the original mad scientist.  Players are dealt randomly a "masterwork" at the start of the game - things like a time machine, the "monster" (i.e. Frankenstein's monster), etc.  You will want to try to complete that by the end of the game to gain the points associated with it - other things during the game will gain you points, but the masterwork is by far the highest value thing to complete.  During the game, you will complete other experiments of various difficulties, and there is sort of a tech tree of experiments you must complete - you have to complete 1 "A" level experiment to complete a "B" level experiment, 2 "Bs" to complete a "C", etc.  You do this by a fairly standard worker placement mechanism, in which you will collect things like chemicals, animals and bodies.  You also collect "knowledge" in different areas, which you can use for experiments, but also record in your journal (which gives you permanent knowledge in that area, and bonuses as you advance along knowledge tracks). 

Your workers consist of you (the scientist), your spouse, servants, and caretakers (think Igor).  There are worker placement spots both in town, and in your estate - and some workers can only go to certain locations (or risk penalties).  The miniatures a cleverly made, where you snap them into different shaped bases which determines who they are.  That gives players maximum flexibility on which miniature to use as themselves, as their spouse, etc.  During the course of the  game, your actions could drive up your insanity, as well as your "creepy" level, and also affect the anger level of the townsfolk, who may eventually decide to pick up their torches and pitchforks and come after you.  The game leans heavily into Victorian horror tropes...up to the point of being almost tongue-in-cheek about it.  Between each generation, players reset different tracks like insanity, and will start over with resources.

Now...the thing that really sets this game apart is that it is partially app-driven.  There are three scenarios in the game, each of which has their own little box with secret components that you don't open until the app tells you to.  The app also drives the story of the game, and each scenario has 8 different endings.  The board - or at least the portion displaying the town, is actually a binder full of maps, and as  you make decisions during the game, some buildings may come and go, and the app will tell you which page to turn to for the new map.  There are also times where players will read portions of the story to just themselves based on decisions they make, and that information may (or may not) help them in the future.  My understanding is that the different branching storylines can be wildly different even withing the same scenario.  We played a scenario about disease, where at the beginning of the game, the town is suffering a yellow fever epidemic.  Our choices caused the storyline to branch into the supernatural, but I think there are some versions of the story that will be more "realistic".  Note, this is not a "legacy" game, per se - nothing is permanently altered with the game pieces.

I enjoyed the game quite a bit, though I'm not without a few criticisms.  The actual gameplay is pretty straightforward, but games are a lengthy affair - on the order of 3 hours.  This is primarily due to all the story-telling.  The app reads the beginning of each generation to you, but after that there is a fair amount of reading the players must do.  A lot of it is public, so having someone who has a flair for the dramatic to read it out loud is helpful - it is certainly written with that Victorian era feel.  Again, I've only been through one branch of one scenario - and the story held together..."OK", I would say.  There certainly seemed a few times that it was just a little bit disjointed, but not enough to really affect the feel.  I ended up winning by a fair margin, and I think it was because I just picked a certain path based on some of my specific readings, and just leaned into our story a bit more, but it was surprising when I was awarded some significant bonus points that the other two players did not get.  Note, my friend who had brought the game had already played 4 or 5 times, and it had all been the same scenario - this did not seem to afford him any kind of advantage. 

I'm hoping to convince my son to play this weekend.  I may try one of the other scenarios.  They did have some delay in getting  the app out, and it doesn't seem to work on all devices yet.  Unfortunately it doesn't work on my iPad, so we had to play using a phone.  But, this is certainly a pretty unique game, and I look forward to digging into the storylines deeper.

 

[DaveSumm]

I think there was an AwSHUX preview of My Fathers Work a few years back and it looked intriguing … it sounds like the story is only snippets to move the gameplay along? I’m always wary of huge chunks of text, simply because I can’t recall a board game that’s ever had an engaging story. I’ve held off on Sleeping Gods for the same reason. I love Gloomhaven but it can’t be overstated how completely disinterested in the story I am. 

I received my first proper Kickstarter recently (i.e first one that was a complete shot in the dark and not based on something I’d already played); The Transcontinental. I really like it, it has some of the best player interaction I’ve seen in a euro in a while. Euros often struggle to find that sweet spot between ‘multiplayer solitaire’ and ‘just mean’, but here all the players load everything they own onto the same train. There’s a whole bunch of rules around how you load and where which you have to be careful of, and when you finally deliver the goods, you give all players with goods behind you the opportunity to do the same. So you have to always be mindful of accidentally doing an action that benefits them more than you, but it never feels like anyone’s been mean especially. 

Can’t remember if I mentioned in the last thread but my wife and I are heading to SHUX next month, very excited to finally play Blood On The Clocktower in person after watching a ton of No Rolls Barred play it. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by DaveSumm

[Werthead]

New Dune board game, which I think is the fourth or fifth to come along.

It looks solid and it's by the designers of War of the Ring and Star Wars: Rebellion which are both outrageously superb games. However, that causes an issue in that I'm not seeing an overwhelming argument for playing this game versus those ones (which already exist and are on my shelf), especially as they seem to have gone batshit insane with the miniatures (though that sandworm miniature you can actually have eating units is both magnificently awesome and completely unnecessary, to the point of lunacy).

Also, the cost of the game isn't bad but the shipping is now officially getting ridiculous.

[Corvinus85]

@Werthead I'm surprised you haven't made any mention of the upcoming Homeworld: Fleet Command board game.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

@Werthead I'm surprised you haven't made any mention of the upcoming Homeworld: Fleet Command board game.

Not much info on it at the moment, I was waiting for the Kickstarter to launch which isn't for another two months. Definitely interesting, though.

[HokieStone]

On 9/14/2022 at 6:42 PM, Werthead said:

...especially as they seem to have gone batshit insane with the miniatures (though that sandworm miniature you can actually have eating units is both magnificently awesome and completely unnecessary, to the point of lunacy).

Well, it's CMON...that's kind of what they do.  But yeah...it's absurd.  Still, they're over $800K - I guess they're debacle with the pricing of Marvel Zombicide didn't hurt them much.

[Werthead]

Finally got to play Tales from the Loop: The Board Game.

There's a lot to like, the component quality is beyond gorgeous, the board/map is excellent and the cards are really attractive. The "RPG as a board game using choose-your-own-adventure-style progression" mechanic has been tried before, usually badly (the Fallout board game), but here it works much better. Having mission tasks at locations and you being able to "scout" location stealthily before committing to a cause of action was also a great idea that really opened up different strategies. I also like the idea of Enigma points building up from not being able to complete the various JJ Abrams mystery box ideas around the island.

Several problems do emerge. The first is the idea you only get successes when rolling a 6 on a dice pool, but the dice pool rarely gets up to RPG levels, so you're normally only rolling 3-5 dice and the chances of failure are quite high. We failed many, many roles and failure states are quite punishing and it's often very difficult to make reasonable recoveries from fail states. We house-ruled that successes are 5s or 6s and that immediately improved things, and that seems a common dodge.

The game also has a fairly involved process for just moving around the island. It's nice you have different options (walking, getting the bus, hacking a robot and taking a joyride on it, calling your parents for a lift if your Favour is high enough) but it did feel like such a basic action should not quite have so many things tied to it. Hacking robots is also horribly over-complicated - like grappling in D&D 3rd Edition - to the point where you get really reluctant to do it, especially as the fail states from failing a single firewall check (you may need to make 3 checks in a row to hack a machine, which is absurd) can get overwhelming and leave you with nothing to do (the game feels strongly inspired by Arkham Horror's punishing 2nd Edition in that regard).

A lot of the problems are exacerbated by the bloody awful rule book, which fails to explain simple concepts (failing a rumour card results in the card being removed from play, not staying on the rumour track and getting moved off the board later on, causing more Enigma points to accrue; and it's far easier to get home at the end of the evening then it first appears). Several YouTube videos and online player aids explained things much more easily. It's also weird, given the cost of the game and the gorgeousness of the components, that it only comes with 2 player aids when you have up to 5 players.

It does come across as the unholy lovechild of Fallout and Arkham Horror 2E, but I did enjoy it more than those games (it's much smaller and faster-playing than the latter). It does feel like it needs a few house rules to make it a better game (simplifying hacking, changing successes to 5/6, maybe even removing the need to get home at the end of the evening and just automatically doing that). RPG/board game hybrids are still awkward things but this has a fairer shake at it than most, but doesn't fulfil its potential. You can use a lot of the components with the actual Tales from the Loop/Things from the Flood TTRPG though, which is pretty good.

[HokieStone]

Got an old favorite - The New Science - to the table this week.  It's theme is that you are all 17th Century scientists vying to discover - and publish - the latest scientific discoveries.  The main part of the board is sort of a flow chart that shows how you have to research and experiment on certain discoveries before you can start on more advanced topics.  The interesting mechanic is that if you're the person that published a discovery, you get points...but that opens that knowledge to everyone as far as pre-requisites for more advanced studies.

It's been years since I played, and there are some things that could probably use some tweaking in the game (and perhaps some improved art) - but I still quite enjoy it.

[DaveSumm]

Got back to the UK today after attending SHUX last weekend, and it was sooo much fun. It’s the only con I’ve ever been to so I can’t compare, but I kept hearing about how much emphasise there is on playing games at SHUX and I have to say, if other cons are mostly like the Expo area, I don’t really get the appeal. I wanna play games at a games con.

There was an enormous library of games, a huuuuuge amount of free play tables, and a really useful balloon system; blue balloon, you’re looking for more players. Orange balloon, looking for a teacher. And so many of the attendees are just wandering around waiting to join, so they really work. Not once did we not successfully fill up a table or get someone to teach (one was Spirit Island, 7 minutes after the con opened, with literally one guy even close enough to see the balloon … and sure enough, he taught, stuck around for a first round, came back an hour later to see how we were getting along). Such an incredible vibe there where everyone’s just so happy to help others.

I have to mention the best gaming experience I think I’ve ever had; we played a ton of Blood on the Clocktower. 3 games at a pre-event, then 1-2 a day at the con. I’d never been evil, then lost one of the pre games as evil so I was nervous I was just a bit shit at being evil. Friday night game, I was the demon. I was hungry, tired, jet-lagged, stressed, terrified I’d blow it for my team (this was a 16 player, so 3 minions). Every ‘night’ I’d close my eyes and my heart was hammering. But the game just went so beautifully; the type of demon I was poisoned a neighbour and the good team based a lot of info off of that, and my minions worked perfectly to reassure them. 

To reach game end and then have the good team unanimously vote for the one other guy it could’ve been is the jackpot, it’s as good as you can get and holy shit, all that stress just morphed into such joy. I was absolutely buzzing the whole rest of the night, grinning my stupid face off. 

Really recommend the No Rolls Barred videos if anyone’s curious, they’re easily the best production values of all the YouTube playthroughs.

How To Play

Live and Imp-person | NRB Plays Blood on the Clocktower

[Werthead]

I'm still a bit bemused why SHUX happens in Vancouver when the team are based in Brighton, and the UK easily has a huge enough board game scene to sustain a big convention. 

[DaveSumm]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm still a bit bemused why SHUX happens in Vancouver when the team are based in Brighton, and the UK easily has a huge enough board game scene to sustain a big convention. 

That came up at a Q&A funnily enough, basically everyone assumes because they’re British that most of their audience is, but it skews 70-80% North American. When they started SHUX, Paul Dean lived in Vancouver, even though he’s since left the team. Then there’s just how nice Vancouver is, and the convention centre itself has a huge canopy over half of it so you get naturally lit tables.

They mentioned how nice everyone was in Canada and whether that fed into the vibe of the convention, then asked if anyone had come from England - I expected a bunch of people to raise their hands and it was literally just me and my wife. 

I would love for there to be a UK SHUX though, we got kinda lucky that we still had a bunch of Expedia vouchers and airmiles that paid for most of it but yes, Vancouver is expensive. I imagine you’d struggle to do the trip for under £2K given flights and hotel prices that close to the con. They were quite cagey about whether there’d even be another SHUX at all, but then I guess we’re still in a pandemic so it’d be stupid to go around spreading optimism that there would be. I met some people who attended 2019 and then said it felt like about 80% of that attendance, but you’ve got Covid, the fact that they enforced masks and vax status, could all play a role. 

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

That came up at a Q&A funnily enough, basically everyone assumes because they’re British that most of their audience is, but it skews 70-80% North American. When they started SHUX, Paul Dean lived in Vancouver, even though he’s since left the team. Then there’s just how nice Vancouver is, and the convention centre itself has a huge canopy over half of it so you get naturally lit tables.

Given the size of the English-speaking audience and the population division between Americans and everyone else, I'm not too surprised by that.

[DaveSumm]

Yea it makes sense. To be honest, it wouldn’t even need to be SHUX specifically, just a con that had the same ethos of paying through higher ticket prices to allow more free play tables, as opposed to what most other cons seem to do which is publishers paying for space to demo their games.

I usually watch a few Essen Spiel blogs on YouTube and it’s kinda cool, but I just don’t see the appeal of bringing home a boot load of games I didn’t get a chance to play fully first. 

[Corvinus85]

One of my favorite strategy video games will become a board game. https://homm3boardgame.com/

[Poobah]

One of my favourite video games is about to become a board game and my wallet is crying, but I think I'll pull the trigger and back before the KS closes in a couple of days.

[.H.]

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

One of my favorite strategy video games will become a board game. https://homm3boardgame.com/

1.2 million on the first day.  I figured it would be popular, but that sure is something.

Not for me though, I did back Lords of Baseball and Unconscious Minds though.  And I have Ark Nova being delivered tomorrow, which I am keen to maybe try out this weekend.

Edited November 16, 2022 by .H.

[Werthead]

I went looking for HoMM3 and discovered a major war raging between those recommending the HD remaster on Steam (which lacks all the expansions and random map generator) and the OG complete edition on GoG, which has an apparently very good HD mod for all of the expansions and the RMG. I'll probably get the HD remaster simply because I remember enjoying the base game but bouncing off the expansions (and there were a staggering number of them).

The board game I am unlikely to back, despite looking good, as Homeworld: Fleet Command's KS is supposed to go live fairly imminently.

[Maithanet]

Last year the board game thread recommended I try out Jaws of the Lion rather than the full Gloomhaven, and that was an excellent recommendation!  It is a bit simpler, but way cheaper ($40 bucks instead of $130 for the full game), and it is still a whole bunch of content such that my friends are unlikely to finish it for years (we don't play that regularly).  So thank you @Werthead for the good recommendation. 

I will particularly compliment the Learn to Play setup of JOTL.  The first five missions are fairly easy, but they introduce the different elements of gameplay gradually so that it you can get started without feeling overwhelmed.  It was a well designed, and still fairly fun tutorial. 

The only real downside I'm finding for this game is that the game elements do not fit in the box, so it only half closes, and after playing through 6 scenarios, the box is already starting to show some wear.  Oh well!

[Corvinus85]

11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I went looking for HoMM3 and discovered a major war raging between those recommending the HD remaster on Steam (which lacks all the expansions and random map generator) and the OG complete edition on GoG, which has an apparently very good HD mod for all of the expansions and the RMG. I'll probably get the HD remaster simply because I remember enjoying the base game but bouncing off the expansions (and there were a staggering number of them).

The board game I am unlikely to back, despite looking good, as Homeworld: Fleet Command's KS is supposed to go live fairly imminently.

There were only two expansions for HOMM3, Armageddon's Blade and Shadow of Death. Both add more flavor to the core game, especially Shadow of Death. I recommend going for the GoG version with the mods. I had it years ago (maybe it's still somewhere on my hard drive) and it enjoyable. The map editor is another great feature where you have a lot of freedom to create your own maps.

[Werthead]

19 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

There were only two expansions for HOMM3, Armageddon's Blade and Shadow of Death. Both add more flavor to the core game, especially Shadow of Death. I recommend going for the GoG version with the mods. I had it years ago (maybe it's still somewhere on my hard drive) and it enjoyable. The map editor is another great feature where you have a lot of freedom to create your own maps.

There were an additional eight stand-alone expansions released under the Heroes Chronicles banner. This was an early example of the "episodic gaming" model, with each expansion having just one campaign and I don't think any new units or factions. I had a friend who was hardcore into collecting them. General consensus now seems to be that they were a bit of a waste of time.