Kingdom Death. How to screw up, and be awesome

Sagrilarus wrote:

Space Ghost wrote: If it is still selling, then maybe the price is ok?

If it's still selling the price is OK. Why the price is where it is more or less unimportant. And if keeping the price sky-high makes the product harder to attain and therefore more desirable then good on the publisher, even more so as they're a small operation.

It was mostly a rhetorical question -- if he is able to sell it for 4 or 5 times the original cost, good for him. I see this as the same type of decision making as Cave Evil -- there was just no desire to make this mainstream (even if the reasoning was different in each case). I don't really have a problem with that.

That said, are you people crazy? Who'd pay that much for a game?

I have no idea. I got in on the kickstarter when the base set was $100. No way I would buy it now for $400 (or whatever it is running).

Sagrilarus wrote: That said, are you people crazy? Who'd pay that much for a game?

I spent a lot more than that on Heroscape over the years. Sure, eventually I got a lot of stuff "free" for participating in $5-10 dollar tournaments and paying for gas, or testing the D&D waves and getting a ton in the mail afterward. I probably still spent at least $500 out of pocket early on. (I still haven't bought it, but I want to).

Let's see...

3x Large figure expansion $60
Master sets.. ~120
Heroes from each of 10 waves- $100
2-4x of lots of commons...probably a good $500-800.

It was about the only game I purchased for four years, so it seems more reasonable, but it was still a lot of money. Still nowhere near Games Workshop prices for a similar amount of stuff.

You know, since I have all this 'scape stuff, maybe I can buy KD:M and offload the minis to recoup the costs. I just think the game and settlement management is pretty cool. It's also rare to have a pure coop with this much blood and interesting gameplay moments. There's something oddly charming about all of the "Roll a d10, and on a 1 you pretty much always die" tables.

If you think this is expensive, you should have seen the scrapped Kingdom Death: Monster: Legacy where you take a sledgehammer to your painted mini when it dies.

I can see $500 on a game if the game play is there. But everything I've read about this game seems like its more like a minis game w/rules, rather than a game w/minis, if you get my drift.

Pinups: These are mostly promo stuff. KD has long sold them because they sell well and his sculptors like making them. The main playing figures are half naked, but it feels right for this game. You start with a scrap of cloth and a rock.

Price and Kickstarter exclusives: I can't figure out why the Kickstarter prices were so cheap. I think he screwed up royally on pricing...everything. And then went off and went wild adding extra bits as he went along.

Commercialism: The game is dark, capricious, expensive, extremely long, and just weird. It has a combination of capricious and strategically very deep. We've only managed to kill 4 out of the 7 enemies, and I think we cheated on the King's Man so that number might be 3.

The closest games to this are possibly Pandemic Legacy, and DEFINITELY the upcoming Gloomhaven. But really, it is far more RPG.

Wow, Poots really did pull an Apple, didn't he? No news beyond "we're working on it," no news, no news, then: shipping! And gee whiz, seeing that picture of the expansions dwarfing the original (big) core game box makes me fear for my bank account.

While there is a part of me that envies the KS backers a bit for the amazing sub-wholesale prices they paid for this game, I really can't get worked up about it. Every single thing about this campaign positively screamed "failed Kickstarter campaign." An unknown, young designer who wais self publishing. Heavy on the miniatures. Multiple game modes that were to be stitched together somehow at a later date. MASSIVE scope creep. Sheesh, even in my early, naive days as a Kickstarter backer I would not have touched this project with a ten-foot pole. So I can't begrudge the awesomeness that is coming to the folks who did back it. They took a big risk, and this is one of those one-in-a-thousand KS campaigns that worked despite all the warning signs.

Well said, Feelitmon. So high risk that the payoff is deserved for those willing.

It looks like this may have sold out of its first print run. 10,000 copies were printed. That's pretty nuts.

That's great! Very happy for the designer.

He's not exactly "An unknown, young designer who wais self publishing". Prior to KD:M he already had very successful lines of boutique miniatures that sold out their pre-orders almost every time. While this is totally incomparable to KD:M success, he clearly knows his stuff. While I wasn't swayed by the game concept (still not) back then, I have no doubt that he'd at least deliver the physical stuff.

Sevej wrote: He's not exactly "An unknown, young designer who wais self publishing". Prior to KD:M he already had very successful lines of boutique miniatures that sold out their pre-orders almost every time. While this is totally incomparable to KD:M success, he clearly knows his stuff. While I wasn't swayed by the game concept (still not) back then, I have no doubt that he'd at least deliver the physical stuff.

That's interesting. I am not part of the boutique miniatures scene at all (well, I guess I sort of am now as a KD:M fan) so that wouldn't have swayed me to back such an ambitious board game. I'm sure you're right though about that factor giving plenty of people confidence to back the Kickstarter campaign. Now you have me wondering about the demographics of the KD:M player base: more board gamers or more miniatures gamers?

Oh, and eleven of the twelve expansions are available for order at their site this week, incidentally. Only $800 CHEAP, including shipping.

Somebody threw down $2,500 for this game and all the expansions .

That's only 60% markup from what they were sold for.

I don't care how awesome the game is. If I had that and could sell it for over $1k profit it would be up at the post office in a hot minute.

Wouldn't this whole game do better as an RPG? Particularly if it was put out by an OSR company like Lamentations of the Flame Princess?

The world building, survival element, monster design (especially), and goals all seem to point toward a great old-school hexcrawl with abbreviated settlement building. How is it really any different than that? Its more exciting than any setting WoTC is putting out.

So this game confuses me, I understand part of the game loop, I think. Characters go on quest (fight boss only, right?), town phase and recover, next quest basically right? Pure co-op?

Can you guys clear a couple things up for me? So there are so many individual miniatures that are modular for the characters with different armor, weapons, etc. I don't get it. So do you just construct a specific character model when you get that equipment? Presumably you get new equipment relatively frequently? I mean, all the modeling you do can't be undone, presumably? The models look good even unpainted from what I've seen.

Also, anyone still playing this consistently? I saw it in the boardgames played a bit, especially Charlest...?