Board Games - The expansion thread

[HokieStone]

A last minute change in plans, means I'll be heading to my first Gen Con next week.  Won't get there until late Thursday night, but Fri-Sun I'll be mostly demoing the new version of Santa's Workshop at the Elf Creek booth.  When I'm not there, I guess I'll be wandering around, absorbing my first Gen Con...

[hauberk]

16 hours ago, HokieStone said:

A last minute change in plans, means I'll be heading to my first Gen Con next week.  Won't get there until late Thursday night, but Fri-Sun I'll be mostly demoing the new version of Santa's Workshop at the Elf Creek booth.  When I'm not there, I guess I'll be wandering around, absorbing my first Gen Con...

I haven’t been since it was in Milwaukee. It’s a pretty remarkable experience. 

[HokieStone]

My post Gen Con report:

After avoiding it for all this time, Gen Con was finally the place that I caught COVID :(.  I guess being around 70000 most unmasked folks was asking too much.  However, that didn't hit me until after I was back.

Overall, it was an interesting experience.  It's definitely huge and overwhelming.  I spent a lot of my time running demos for my game, so I didn't sign up for any events.  Did get to spend some time wandering the convention hall, and on the last day I had an exhibitor badge, so I was inside when they opened up the doors and the stampede came in.  My random notes:

- The big buzz at the con was for "Lorcana" - a CCG using all the Disney IPs.  There were lines hours long for it.  I don't get it, myself - but I'm not a CCG guy.  

- It was crazy to walk into the Colt's stadium and see the field covered with tables for gaming.  It wasn't full...at least when I went in there, but it was still a sight.

- I was still discovering new areas of the con up until the last day.  They had a whole hallway filled with pinball machines, for example.  

- Other interesting "sights" were the giant balloon sculpture of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and "Cardhalla" - using old Magic cards to build giant card towers during the week...and then it all gets destroyed on Sunday

- I flew, so not a lot of room to bring home purchases.  The one "hot" game I did pick up was "Sky Team", a 2-player co-op where you play as the pilot and co-pilot trying to land a plane.  It's dice placement, and limited communication, you have to time everything right so you reach the airport just as you descend to 0 altitude, while being level, and having your landing gear down, and brakes deployed.  It's pretty fun.

- On a personal note, demos of my game went well, everyone that played seemed to like it.  I wish we'd had copies for sale, but hopefully it was building a little buzz for the release this Christmas.

[HokieStone]

So, if anyone is interested in the new edition of my game, Santa's Workshop, it is available for pre-order at Elf Creek Games website:

https://www.elfcreekgames.com/collections/santas-workshop

It is finishing up production this week, and Elf Creek is air-shipping it from China in order to send out to customers who pre-order, and to have it at the PAX Unplugged convention in Philadelphia the first weekend of December.  Unfortunately, it won't be in stores this year.  Pre-orders are available for US/Canada and the EU. 

This printing is a special "First Christmas Edition", which will be numbered editions and have foil printing, as well as come with the first promo pack, which includes some extra toy cards and alternate reindeer cards. 

Apologies if shilling my own game is not appropriate here...

[RedEyedGhost]

Your game led off this week's Dice Tower News, Keith!

[Poobah]

After a minor delay Slay The Spire has gone into production and I'm very much looking forward to it.

[HokieStone]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:18 PM, RedEyedGhost said:

Your game led off this week's Dice Tower News, Keith!

Cool!  Thanks for posting that, I hadn't seen it.

[Werthead]

On 11/21/2023 at 8:19 PM, HokieStone said:

Cool!  Thanks for posting that, I hadn't seen it.

Do you know if this will be available in the UK? The first edition is kind of available from older retailers and eBay, but no sign of the new one yet.

[HokieStone]

15 hours ago, Werthead said:

Do you know if this will be available in the UK? The first edition is kind of available from older retailers and eBay, but no sign of the new one yet.

So, this initial print run is not going to be available in retailers.  Right now, it's just available from Elf Creek's website, and at conventions.  Next year there will be a retail release. 

I know the UK is no longer in the EU, but here is Elf Creek's EU page for ordering:  https://europe.elfcreekgames.com/collections/santas-workshop

I'll see if I can get more details about UK availability...

[HokieStone]

3 hours ago, HokieStone said:

So, this initial print run is not going to be available in retailers.  Right now, it's just available from Elf Creek's website, and at conventions.  Next year there will be a retail release. 

I know the UK is no longer in the EU, but here is Elf Creek's EU page for ordering:  https://europe.elfcreekgames.com/collections/santas-workshop

I'll see if I can get more details about UK availability...

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

Do you know if this will be available in the UK? The first edition is kind of available from older retailers and eBay, but no sign of the new one yet.

 

They tell me that the Europe link will work for UK as well...

[mellyporter]

On 11/13/2023 at 1:16 AM, HokieStone said:

So, if anyone is interested in the new edition of my game, Santa's Workshop, it is available for pre-order at Elf Creek Games website:

https://www.elfcreekgames.com/collections/santas-workshop

It is finishing up production this week, and Elf Creek is air-shipping it from China in order to send out to customers who pre-order, and to have it at the PAX Unplugged convention in Philadelphia the first weekend of December.  Unfortunately, it won't be in stores this year.  Pre-orders are available for US/Canada and the EU. 

This printing is a special "First Christmas Edition", which will be numbered editions and have foil printing, as well as come with the first promo pack, which includes some extra toy cards and alternate reindeer cards. 
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Apologies if shilling my own game is not appropriate here...

I just came across this thread, and I can say that the games look interesting. I love board games and play them pretty often, and I was actually looking for something new. I saw the site, and End of the Trail looks pretty interesting. I think I'll get it because I like the theme.

Edited April 1 by mellyporter

[HokieStone]

Well, this seems relevant to folks in this thread, on this particular message board:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coe/tiny-epic-game-of-thrones

I haven't played many of the Tiny Epic games.  I think the original, Tiny Epic Galaxies is still generally considered the best.  I played the western one a time or two.  And maybe Kingdoms and Quest...but tbh, I don't remember much about them.  

This one looks very interesting to me,though...

 

 

[Poobah]

After some classic DPD stress with them causing me to waste a day waiting for a delivery only to be told I wasn't in when they called (this is what we call a lie) I finally got my hands on Slay The Spire: the Board Game by collecting it myself from them!

Early impressions:

Biggest/only major downside so far is that the initial set up was quite a lot of time/work: there approximately 430 cards which require sleeving with the provided sleeves, because the player cards are all double-sided to include the upgrade mechanic, so any card that's gonna end up in the players decks needs to have one of the same art-backed sleeves. I also got the "sleeves for everything else" addon so that was another approximately 350 cards to sleeve (monsters, events, bosses, potions, relics etc.) in normal transparent sleeves just to protect them. Add in a few kickstarter extras and I've spent a solid afternoon sleeving 800 cards before my first game.

The box seems very well designed, snugly accommodating and dividing all the sleeved cards into neat groupings, along with some nice dividers to further group them and make it easy to set up / grab the right set of cards when you need them, there's a nice little tray for sorting and storing the many tokens and lil plastic cubes, the various boards all slot neatly in to the upper layer, and overall everything feels securely packed. Compared to my Dominion box this feels much higher quality and like I could actually transport the game in its box, which I consider to be a very good thing.

Naturally I think the gameplay is going to be a lot more fun with multiple people, given that it supports co-op of up to 4 players but I'll have to wait a bit for mine and my boardgame enjoying friends various weekend schedules to clear to report on how that plays with the extra strategic/cooperative elements they've brought in. That said I have played through a single player run and had a good time with it. Game time was more-or-less in line with their estimated 60-90 minutes per act - maybe add in 10 minutes for initial set up. I was still learning and was more towards the 60 minute end, but I am a very experienced Spire player and didn't have any other players to coordinate / discuss strategy with - in a multiplayer game players all act simultaneously which means more players doesn't add too much more time but since it is cooperative it will certainly add a bit. I think they've done a very good job adapting the video game to a tabletop format, preserving the feel of each character and their cards while making some smart changes to accommodate it being a board game and adding a few of their own lil twists in keeping with that. Many things work a bit differently of course but everything is reminiscent of the video game originals and keeping in line with the original themes. The numbers are all scaled down to make for easier maths/tracking and the trackers provided on the player and monster boards with cubes aplenty to go with them all work well and brings some nice physicality to the experience. For a single player experience I will say that I'd probably just choose to play the video game most of the time since it's much faster/less work (I am intrigued to try solo-playing with multiple characters to see how that goes at least once) but I don't generally play board games solo anyway so I don't think that's much of a complaint at all really. Bottom line it feels like the Slay the Spire we all know and love, and I'm very much looking forward to playing with some friends!