Batman Kickstarter (w/discussion of FOMO sales method)

Shellhead wrote: I find the prospect of painting 200+ miniatures to be exhausting. I'm going to take a serious look at the Batman Miniatures game rules pdf. If the rules and character cards are all available for free, I can easily do a set of tokens in place of the minis. The only unusual challenge would be the 3D terrain. But again, it comes down to rules. If the Batman Miniatures game rules don't impress me, it won't be worth the effort or printer toner for me to get into it.

I don't see how that could possibly work, since Line of Sight doesn't really work with tokens.

Josh Look wrote: The villain point is probably valid. Why in the fuck is Riddler in this game? What could you possibly do with Riddler that would have any personality? It’s not impossible, the TMNT game *nailed* the personalities of its characters, but it also had more cards and oodles of text on the cards. Conan doesn’t have that, and adding it would likely result in it being unwieldy.

You will solve riddles by standing on a ? marker and rolling X number of successes.

DRIPPING WITH THEME

Josh Look wrote: The villain point is probably valid. Why in the fuck is Riddler in this game? What could you possibly do with Riddler that would have any personality? It’s not impossible, the TMNT game *nailed* the personalities of its characters, but it also had more cards and oodles of text on the cards. Conan doesn’t have that, and adding it would likely result in it being unwieldy.

That's probably the biggest question mark for me.

TMNT did it well.

Ghostbusters was mixed -- Sandman, Samhain, Taxi Drivers, were very good and quite interesting and different to play with. Some of the others are a bit generic.

hotseatgames wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I find the prospect of painting 200+ miniatures to be exhausting. I'm going to take a serious look at the Batman Miniatures game rules pdf. If the rules and character cards are all available for free, I can easily do a set of tokens in place of the minis. The only unusual challenge would be the 3D terrain. But again, it comes down to rules. If the Batman Miniatures game rules don't impress me, it won't be worth the effort or printer toner for me to get into it.

I don't see how that could possibly work, since Line of Sight doesn't really work with tokens.

Ah. Not a game that my friends will like then. Some of them can't even handle a 2D game where you use a tape measure to move.

Space Ghost wrote: Ghostbusters was mixed -- Sandman, Samhain, Taxi Drivers, were very good and quite interesting and different to play with. Some of the others are a bit generic.

The Ghostbusters themselves were pretty one note, with their whole play angle based around brief moments in the movie. Venkman got slimed so in this game he...likes being slimed? Ray helped him so, so there’s that. They hired Winston and immediately handed him a trap so he’s the trap guy. Spengler was pretty good, learning from his failures was a cool way to suggest he was experimenting.

drewcula wrote: No regrets! All FAT:ties are welcome to my DC crib to play Conan, Cthulhu, or Batman. If Michael shows up, I'll break out Cosmic Encounter.

Spartacus! I forgot Spartacus. I bet us FAT:ties would make one hell of Spartacus game.

And I'll have some Wiz-War too.

Batman. Spartacus. Wiz-War.

Shit. Maybe I should just make an official Washington DC Fortress Ameritrash weekend. Y'all can leave your family down at the mall for a few days, and we can roll dice and push plastic at my bar.

But there's already the perfect Batman game for me: Batman Arkham Asylum! I know it's a PC game, but my I immediately had two thoughts when seeing this KS:

First, is this going to be Arkham Asylum good? Don't think so. It's a big game with lots of locales, 4 map boards won't just cut it.

Second, you have heroes, villains, and thugs. Just how much of them will be on the board at one time? The best scenario should be at most 1 or 2 heroes/villains each side, and a group of thugs. Which smells like... a brawl game? What about Batman stealthily taking out enemies one by one? No?

Those things concern me the most.

And then, of course, there's the price.

One of board game's main attraction is its physical limitation. You have to do the most with them. But it seems these days they are off. You just bulk up, slap a price tag and be done with it.

My guess is they will throw in one or two more boards in stretch goals before it's done.

I'm curious about the Versus expansion. Controlling teams head to head sounds kind of cool, but since it's an expansion, it might not get the attention it deserves.

How will any of this content get the attention it deserves. It takes most games YEARS after release to curate this much material.

Michael Barnes wrote: How will any of this content get the attention it deserves. It takes most games YEARS after release to curate this much material.

The trend of 100% KS exclusive products is fragmenting an already niche community into smaller silos of fandom that cannot grow, spread, or deepen. They're like brightly exploding stars that are all rapidly imploding into black holes, and the hobby is going darker for it.

Who will care about these games in a couple of years outside of whatever diminishing enclave of owners manages to sustain interest & discussion in a fan forum somewhere? Will designers really get better in this echo chamber, or will publishers begin to drive the evolution of ideas that hit the market? Will designs continue to evolve and cross-pollinate? How is this possible when the dreck and the treasure all command the same attention, enthusiasm, and multi-million dollar funding?

It's impoverishing reviews, which become increasingly pointless and pre-invested as the people who already own the product don't need a review, yet games criticism still mostly lives in this sphere so its quality also takes a hit, at best negotiating an awkward line between preaching to a choir or critiquing something that has already been validated with 100% funding.

I really don't like where this is going in the long term.

Mr. White wrote:

drewcula wrote: Their next property interests me less (another Howard character), but I'll still give it a thorough once-over.

What character is this?
Link? (the url not nintendo character...)

Solomon Kane. Though that is Mythic and not Monolith since apparently there was a falling out between the two.

Jeez... That was well said. Thanks Frohike.

Meanwhile, people are making stuff like this:

www.multi-ball23.com/dungeon-degenerates/

So what do I know.

Frohike wrote: Meanwhile, people are making stuff like this:

www.multi-ball23.com/dungeon-degenerates/

So what do I know.

Exactly! I'm of two minds myself. Shit, Argent is a Kickstarter.

But it had a presence at retail.

Edit: at least long enough to garner enough buzz for a reprint KS.

Then again... maybe in this new world that's what the market is slowly becoming: all print runs essentially becoming P500's with a baseline price closer to $150.