An interesting offer from Epic

Most of my PC games are on Steam. However, like many people, I also have an Epic account because they give you a free game every week (and often during these holidays). And after "purchasing" such a free game today, Epic gave me a $10 coupon for their current sale. You get a $10 coupon for every purchase, but surprisingly that includes a $0 purchase. This isn't the first time they've done this, the last time they've bought Assassin's Creed Valhalla for $25.

This time I picked one of the worst video games of all time: Cyberpunk 2077. Which, of course, has never been as enjoyable to play on PC as it is on PS4. Since its publication a year ago, it has been edited several times. The game is now half price on Steam and Epic, and with the addition of a $10 Epic coupon, you only paid $20 for the game. That's the level I thought I could risk. I don't plan to launch it now, but I doubt it will be much cheaper anytime soon.

Tobold's blog

Cleaning up my Steam Wishlist

I do not know how to handle it, but most of the time I use Steam wishlist and I have to bookmark the games I heard, but I do not want to buy it right away. When there is a sale, I look at what games are for sale and decide if I really want to buy one. I have to clean my wish list from time to time because games accumulate faster than I want to buy. I currently have over 50 games listed there, and I was able to eliminate a few.

At this point, I was thinking of comparing my Steam wishlist to my computer game pass. I have games like Astria Ascending and Warhammer 40K Battlesector on my wish list, but it turns out I have free access to these games through the computer game pass. Sometimes I play a game on a computer game and then think of it as "negligent - played on other platforms" on Steam, but it's better to evaluate it than to buy a game I can get for free.

I removed another game from the wish list because Progress Studio stopped production and a related message from the publisher appeared on Steam. But most of the time I remove software left over by reviewing user reviews, I remove it from the wish list if the game is at least "extremely positive", and abandoned games quickly get negative reviews.

Unfortunately, my wish list is still a bit long. However, 15 games in it will come "soon" which means that they have not been released to Early Access yet. The other 21 are pre-ordered and I will be a little more careful before I buy. With the exception of this year's Wartales, I bought it at Recommendation earlier this year and it turns out to be one of the best computer games I've played all year.

The saddest note on my steamy wish list is War Territories . A turn-by-turn six-story historical war game looks beautiful, but not genuine. Steam tells me I added it to my wish list in 2014 and I have not yet decided to buy it or remove it from the list. Well, maybe I should be ashamed to buy an unfinished game on Steam and add it to my large library.

Tobolld Blog

Game balance in Roll Player Adventures

My wife and I have been playing a few Roll Player Adventures since Christmas, and it's a great game. The game perfectly combines "role play" (which means making decisions that have consequences) with "role play" - dice and manipulation.

The narrative part of the game is very good. Your decisions և events give you keywords that can then և change what is happening elsewhere. Keywords are deleted at the end of the activity, but you can also get permanent nicknames, which means that if, for example, you have helped someone in one business, they may "remember" you in another business and help you. There are three opposing factions, so if you are playing for the second or third time, you can look for different goals. Keep in mind that even if you do, most of the adventures will remain the same, so you can let the game relax, 'forget things between campaigns'. In any case, the story is undoubtedly the most important point of this game, it brings you as close as possible to the experience of a table RPG, like the story.

The mechanical part of the game seems to have serious balancing problems. The main mechanism of the game is that you have a list of target colors և values ​​for each combat և skill test. For example, to kill a human enemy you need 2 blue, 3 red, and 5 can be green or black. So how do we get there? Your image has small white squares in all its statistics, each statistic corresponds to a color. At the beginning of the game, for example, your fighter may have 3 solid blocks և they are red. By spending as many blocks as there are players in the game, say 2 for a game with two players, you can get that color diesel. But it not only drains your strength, nuts also increase your stress, if fatigue equals or exceeds your health, you stay out. Each combat or skill test also has a dice limit, for example at the beginning of the game your dice limit is 3, so you can not "buy" more dice than that. If you buy less than 3 dice, a random hand will be drawn.

Now comes the second step - to play dice. You have a number of 7 cards for each character at the beginning of the game that can do things like change the color of the dice, change its value by 1 or up, or move it to the other side of the turn. It is easy to see that the more cards you have in your hand during the game, the greater the chance of getting the right card for any situation. However, he is also limited in the number of cards he can play in each combat round or skill test. The "game limit" is relatively balanced. no matter how many players you play, the amount at the beginning of the game (number of players x game limit for each player) plus bonus games (which can be played by anyone) is always 5, a game for two players At the beginning of the game each player can play two cards, և there is an additional game. The number of cards is absolutely unbalanced. In a single-digit game, you have only 7 cards to choose from, and in the case of 4 players, 28.

During the game, the difference between a real one-player "game" where one or more players play several characters becomes less clear. You get a lot more cards by buying them with gold, մեջ the amount of gold in the adventure is determined regardless of the number of characters. With both characters, at the end of Adventure 3 we had 12 cards each, so we usually went from 14 to 24. The solo character went from 7 to 17, as he probably won the same 10 cards. As we did, or almost. The group of 4 players increased from 28 to 38.

While they are not there yet, it is reported that players in the second half of the campaign tend to have so many cards that they can do almost anything. As the number of dice required for skill tests and battles increases, the game's bonus limit ական combat dice limit can also be increased by spending XP. The game gets a lot easier during the campaign, maybe very easy if you are a good player. Add to that the fact that there are absolutely no restrictions on the cards you can use. You can "carry" many different types of weapons at once, as many weapons as you want, you can throw your fighter և use your blessing giant. ax. At the end of the game you can have more than 30 cards; You have completely forgotten that these items should represent your weapon, armor, scrolls, skills and attributes. And you can change the color of any dice, change the colors of the dice, add new dice above the dice limit, thereby creating other beneficial effects.

I will play the campaign with my wife in the system as it is. If I needed to play Roll Player Adventures again, I would probably be able to find the rules of the house to get a better balance in the game, especially if I wanted to play with only one character. It seems that the main problem with balance is that there are too few cards at the beginning of the game and too many cards at the end. So I can offer the game to a dwarf banker named Givello, who gives my character 30 gold coins to buy more cards at the beginning of the game, but asks me to pay 5 gold coins at the end of each of the 12 missions. From 100 to a blanket. interest rate. It looks like Givelo. :)

Tobold's blog

The disadvantages of being a scientist

i am a scientist I have a PhD from university. Chemistry degree, i.e. Dr. I was able to enter the RER address. nat. On my business cards (but not mine). After 10 years of study, I spent 25 years in a research and development company. Professional education and experience tends to result in a person knowing more about the education and work major than a normal citizen, and this is also true for related disciplines. Outside of work, this doesn't play a major role for many: an auditor is well versed in accounting, but the topic is unlikely to be relevant at a family Christmas party.

From this point of view, the natural sciences are a bit different, because chemistry, physics and biology are completely part of everything in our lives. I've been doing research and development on the chemistry of climate change for five years, and this topic is definitely coming up in public discussions. I also understand enough biology to understand virology a little better, a subject that has been difficult to avoid for the past few years. But knowing more about something doesn't necessarily make life easier. Sometimes ignorance equals bliss, and you're sure you don't want to explain scientific facts to anyone who brings up the subject in conversation.

I just got a New Years wish in my mail from a friend who was hoping 2022 would be the year COVID went away. I can't help but tell him the truth: COVID is over when he hopes to return. COVID will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future, and it will simply change from pandemic to pandemic, meaning everywhere. The good news is that COVID is taking the course Darwinism predicted: Successful variants like Omicron are more contagious but less deadly. A virus that kills the host is an evolutionary failure, and when it comes to keeping the host alive, it falls short of the most successful alternative in terms of further evolution. If you want to understand this better, Plague Inc. recommends playing the game several times. As a result, your odds of not getting COVID over the next decade are about the same as your odds of not getting the flu over the next decade, which are very close to zero. However, your chances of surviving COVID infection increase every year, and rights that once said COVID is just flu are actually right, even if that claim was wrong in 2020/2021. .

فيما يتعلق بتغير المناخ ، فإن الهدف الرئيسي لاتفاق باريس هو هدف درجة الحرارة على المدى الطويل - لمواصلة الجهود من أجل "رفع متوسط ​​​​​​​​درجات الحرارة العالمية بشكل ملحوظ إلى ما دون مستويات ما قبل العصر الصناعي بمقدار درجتين مئويتين" والحد من درجات الحرارة فوق 1.5 °C. Pre-industrial level "Levels" . The bad news is that the scientist is unlikely to achieve this goal. In 2017, according to scientific calculations, the probability of reaching the 2°C target was around 5% ; The fact that the world hasn't done enough to reach its goal over the years means the likelihood is even lower today. It would almost be a bit redundant. That the 2°C target is completely arbitrary is not a bad thing. We are now “well below 2°C” and significant weather events are already taking place. Assume the probability of extreme weather events at 2.5°C, but the world was better at 1.9°C, then at 2.1°C it didn't become uninhabitable. The higher the temperature, the worse it is for humanity, so fighting climate change is really good. But the criteria for failure or success are more complex than the first criterion.

You know, science doesn't make my world any nicer. You always meet people who say nonsense because they don't have the scientific knowledge. However, like the Middle Ages, we live in a time when people believe that irrational beliefs are more important than scientific facts.

Block bold

Curse of Strahd - Session 13 (Finale)

In the previous session , our team of heroes crossed Ravenlaft Castle to reach the place where, according to the Tarot map, they would find Count Strada von Jarovich. Therefore, this session marks the end of an epic boss war campaign. The good news: thanks to a little planning and foresight in Strader's strategy, I was really able to make this fight an epic. It took 12 moves, which is unusually long to fight fifth edition.

Strada's last position in my company (as defined by the Tarot) was a locker. Great place to fight, because the main feature is the Daern Instant Fortress magic item. It is a turret, 6 mx 6 m foundation, 9 m high, made of adamantium. It has a front door and a hatch at the top that can only be opened by knowing the password or doing 100 damage. So, look for a great defensive position. I also added Rahdin, a servant of Strahed, to the battle.

Now in this campaign, players often use a polymorphic spell. Restricting spelling to "monsters" forces any spelling level 8+ user to choose to always be their ally or themselves in Rex Tyrannosaurus. Thus, in a sort of "DM campaign commentary", Strahade throws different shapes at the two rhinos and transforms them into Tyrannosaurus of Rex. And then he enters his magical castle and closes the door so that he is not hit by the attack and his concentration is disturbed. He also did things like opening the door, not writing the focus, and then closing the door.

The wizard of the band believed that with Don 's spell he had an absolute weapon against Strader. But when you create an area of ​​sunlight that causes glare damage that looks cold, the damage is only applied to the first application of the spell and then to the * end * of each animal's path. Each time Strad leaves the area or hides in a fortress where the mantra could not reach him. Stradder has legendary actions that allow him to move without accidentally attacking and a terrifying action that allows him to go through walls until the band can hold him back.

Another lair would be closed for Stradd and magically capture all the doors of Ravenloft's castle, Stradd used it perfectly to divide the group as there were three doors in the battle and one common door in a magical castle. The fight turned against him when the group destroyed the normal door and the evil hero of the group Gustav Von Jarovich guessed the password of the magic castle "Tatiana". No, I haven't set a password yet. But the idea of ​​a gamer using a loved one's name as a password stride sounded so good to me that I decided to use it immediately. Part of the beauty of tabletop RPGs, you may have unplanned interactions that change history.

While Strahead was on the verge of death, an idea occurred to me: I devised another method of concealment that would allow him to constantly attack Gustav with the advantage of trying to bite him. He told Gustav his last words and told him that if Gustav wanted to inherit Parovius from him, he would have to take his black gift as well. Despite Gustav's shield and spelling, Stradd managed to roll quite high, gritting his teeth on Gustav's neck. Then it's the other players' turn and they kill Strahid. As a result, most of the group were immediately expelled from Borovi's planes of existence and returned to where they were in the real world before moving to Borovi. Only Gustav remained, now a vampire and the new ruler of Paravia. I thought it was worth ending this campaign.

In short, great company. Good role-playing interactions with players who receive background elements provided by Lee, who connected to their corporate world, such as a priest born in Paladin or Parovia in the Strada dynasty. Like most companies, we reached a point towards the end where the game slowed down a bit. A good decision was to lose most of Ravenlaft Castle and quickly go to the final battle. Ravenloft Castle is a great place, but going from an open sandbox to a dungeon with more than 100 rooms at the end of the campaign doesn't work very well. But if you have a team that likes to climb the sandbox dungeons, you can play with tarot readings to hide all traces of the castle and avoid certain parts of Parvovia, such as East Hill, Birch and Amber Temple. . This will give you a completely different company.

Tabold's blog

Post Godwin

In 1968, William F., a conservative intellectual (still in vogue), appeared on American national television. Therewas a political dispute between Buckley Jr. and progressive intellectual Gore Vidal. The controversy nearly ends when Vidal calls Buckley a Nazi. Buckley, who served in the military, albeit only in the United States, is believed to have fought against the Nazis during World War II. Center-right politics were equivalent to fascism, and the Nazis seemed to him something new, and he deeply resented this. I think progressives see this as a win and that the use of hyperbole has become more common.

In 1990, during the early years of the Internet, Mike Godwin enacted Godwin's Law , which states that the longer an online discussion (regardless of topic or occasion), the closer the possibility of comparison with a Nazi or Adolf Hitler. Godwin's law is that when you compare Hitler, the thread breaks and whoever compares loses the ongoing debate.

Another 30 years is fast approaching and I feel like we've reached a point in the online discussion where the debate about who to compare, the Nazis or Adolf Hitler, is endless; This is the starting point. If a public figure says that he supports the equality of races suffering from color blindness, he is immediately called a racist. If he commented on sexy women, he would immediately become the equivalent of a rapist. The fact that men and women are different makes you sexist. The fact that there is a difference between a trans woman and a biological woman makes you a transphobe and you are even accused of promoting anti-trans violence. Today, even centre-left moderators are Nazis. At the other end of the political spectrum, the extreme right is no longer paying attention to the hype: whoever is from the left of the center, that street child dealer , is completely aloof.

The problem is that the results are still applicable and the hype is over. And the lack of political debate makes the alternative to political violence even more promising. Especially in the United States, where the last presidential election was marred by political violence, the likelihood of political violence in the next presidential election, whoever wins, is very high. Not only are Republicans preparing to accept the results with their big lies, Democrats are preparing to talk about the difference between a conspiracy, an Electoral College, and a popular vote. It's nearly impossible to elect a future president in the United States without a significant portion of the population believing that the election has been stolen.

Unlike the American Civil War of 1860, there was no clear geographical division between the two sides at the time. 34% of Californians voted for Trump, 46% of Texans voted for Biden. What you think about "blue state" and "red state" is wrong. Each state has red rural areas and blue urban areas. There are more red rural districts than blue urban districts, but the number of residents in metropolitan areas is much larger. But even at this level, there are Republicans in the big cities and Democrats in the countryside. Future political violence should be like Kenosha , not Gettysburg . As a result, political violence has no chance of success, as in the case of civil war. We all will only suffer. Unless we can talk to each other again somehow.

Tobold's blog

Scythe

My friends bought a Scythe board game for Christmas and we are planning to play it together. Scythe is highly rated on BoardGameGeek, but I've never played it and don't have a physical copy. However, I had Scythe: Digital Edition in my huge library of uneducated Steam games. I installed it and played a few games to understand the basic rules and strategies.

It turned out that Scythe is very different from what it seems at first glance. If you look at the artwork and the board, you might think this is a game where you build big megacities and conquer the hex based board in 4X. In fact, there are about 20 towers in the Scythe game and only 2 of them take part in a battle. You often use wicks to carry your staff, and only the first two combat victories count for victory points. If you fight more, you will lose the points you have earned and possibly the game. In battle, you lose the power and cards you need to fight, so each battle weakens you and becomes a potential target for others. Finally, you learn to avoid fighting when it is not necessary.

In and of itself, Scythe is a European-engineered game (expertly disguised as American-style gaming themed elements). Each turn, you must select one of the four columns on your individual board. Each column has up and down movement, but up movement is relatively inexpensive and down movement requires more resources. Basic strategy is to plan your actions so that you can do both, which is the most effective way to move forward. Each of the following moves gives you a star if done multiple times and ends a game when a player has 6 stars. You have enough chance for stars to win a game without 2 stars, you can get them by winning the battle. And you can win without having 6 stars at the beginning, you need more points at the end and you just need to complete the game for another player to get 6 stars.

The main game has 5 starting boards and 5 player boards for 25 possible combinations. The extension extends to 7 nations and 7 player boards for 49 combinations. This creates relatively high play value for the average player. Difficult players know the winning strategies of all these combinations, and at least the first moves occur without any contact with other players, and these popular openings are a safe bet. Although there are random elements in the game in addition to the cards you draw, there may be attacks after the game and therefore unexpected results. After all, player interaction is much less than you might think. This can be a positive or negative, depending on the style of board game you prefer. At least the game is fun, has a good table presence, and works well, sometimes even elegantly. If you don't just want to play complicated abstract euro games, but don't want to be completely American themed casual and themed games, this is a good bet.

Tobold's Block

Calling MMORPGs "metaverse" doesn't make them work any better

Once upon a time, at the end of the last millennium, I and many others had high hopes for the future of virtual worlds. They had unlimited potential, they are not just games, but real places where we can have a better and better virtual life. With great success like World of Warcraft, hope, excitement and attention have grown over the years. For me, the climax of it all was the day before Warhammer Online was launched. WAR not only taught us less success than what syringes offered, but it also taught us that many of the things we had hoped for were not really there. After that, the MMORPG sound was gradually reduced to a few "WoW clones". The number of players has dropped, interest has dropped and once I had to delete "MMORPG" from my blog title because no one cares anymore.

Let's go to 2022, and a lot of people are too young to remember 2008, or did not participate in the MMORPG at the time. And suddenly we realized that Mark Zuckerberg is changing his company name from Facebook to Meta and that investment funds are spending millions of dollars on virtual real estate. The integration of virtual worlds is a promising new earth with blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies, and social networks are full of virtual life in the meta world, with people believing we can live better.

You cheated on me one day in embarrassment. Cheat on me twice, shame on you. When the MMORPG bubble bursts and then bursts, the growing meta-space bubble is very popular with anyone, just like me. And the arguments used are the next big thing to convince people. The mistake is the same: it seems that people do not live in the virtual world, they visit from time to time. In the real world, real estate is worth it because people are forced to live somewhere and space is limited. In virtual worlds, space is unlimited and people do not need space constantly because they can only go beyond the world. Therefore, virtual worlds always seem inanimate, because the number of parallel users is certainly much lower than that of ordinary users. (Except for launch day, but the servers are not working yet.)

Virtual shopping malls are essentially smaller than real malls. You may be able to "try on" virtual clothes for your avatar, but just because your clothes look beautiful on your avatar does not mean you are looking for a real version of your home. Practical shopping, you can not jump into the dining room when you are hungry. It's hard to get friends there and talk to them when they may be in another meta world or when they may be out of session.

Like everything related to cryptocurrency, this is part of the "biggest fool" investment theory: it does not matter if the things you are investing are worth a real price or you can find a bigger fool to sell them. at a higher price for a dream. . It works quite well in a world of low inflation and excess money. However, there are strong indications that the period of low inflation is over. Inflation and higher interest rates are forcing people to reconsider where their true value is, which is bad for speculative fantasy investments. The meta-world created by Mark Zuckerberg will eventually pass from a better virtual world in which we all live to a more beautiful form of Facebook.

Tobold Block

Canon i-SENSYS LBP623Cdw Color Laser Printer

I do not like inkjet printers. It may have improved from last time, but at least last time I struggled a lot not to use the printer for a while because the paint has to dry in my mouth. Another problem is that the paint in the document was painted with a little moisture. It was enough to infect them. That's why I've been using laser printers for a long time. I bought the HP Color LaserJet CP1515n a few decades ago, my first color laser printer. She's been serving me for a long time, but recently she's shown her age. I think the problem is that the printer paper moves away from the various rubber rollers and over the years the rubber hardens and loses its grip.

When my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said I could use a new color laser printer. It did not work. We went to a big electronics store in the area, and they did not have a laser printer. Global disc shortages, transportation problems, have increased. Even on Amazon, more affordable models can not do that. Fortunately, the situation improved after Christmas and I just bought the i-SENSYS LBP623Cdw color laser printer from Amazon. It was a mistake because I did not check the MSRP and did not realize that the third-party seller in the Amazon Marketplace was paying me correctly. I can get cheap prints directly from Canon.

In addition to the publisher's surplus, I'm very happy. Not much faster than the old HP model. It also has automatic two-sided printing; On my previous printer, I first had to print a few pages, put the paper back in the tray without confusing, and I had to print equal pages to get two directions. On top of that, the Canon printer had WiFi and it was very easy to set up with the network. I installed the software on the CD, but I was able to connect to the printer without using any special software or driver on the laptop. Network printing is much easier for me now. Print quality is also very good, so I bought this special model: it first appeared in the German test Stiftung Warentest , the Federal Consumer Protection Agency performs consumer product comparison tests.

The thing I do not like about the new printer is that it only tells you the percentage of color patterns. As my HP printer, you do not have to guess how many pages are left. The toner cartridges that come with my printer are marked as "start" and I do not think they have much toner. So I ordered 4 high power color cartridges and this time I thought it was cheaper on Amazon than on the Canon website. And yes, the 4-color pattern MSRP is higher than your imported printer MSRP, which is why the new printer comes with a lower capacity pattern. But it is estimated that the maximum capacity of the cartridge will be 2,300 pages, which is enough for home use. And unlike paint, they do not dry out. So I bought the original Canon cartridge; You can get a "compatible" pattern for less money, but if you do it right and in case of a crisis, both you and the pattern provider will take no responsibility.

Tobold blog

Clank! Legacy - Acquisitions Incorporated - first thoughts

As I said, my wife and I invite my friends to the board game. The four of us were vaccinated 12 times and decided that the risk of sitting at the table was too high. There were so many inappropriate things to do with friends over the past two years, so Scythe & Pizza night was a lot of fun. And so, we come to the part where we talk about the middle ground.

At first I thought we could play the most popular Roll Player Adventures (RPA) in my family today. However, this plan has several drawbacks. But there is no way to have more than one campaign at a time. The RPA has game trays that allow you to store deck deck between game sessions, but if you want to play multiple campaigns, you need to write down all the cards you have, adjust them on the market, and then rebuild the deck. to play. Next session of this campaign. Also, the RPA reads a lot of English text, which is not appropriate when three of the four players speak French.

So I searched for other games and got a clink! Heritage-purchases included . The game was not only a French version, but the French version was the best option for me to get the game. According to the official website , the English version is "currently available only in the US." Imported versions are sold at exorbitant prices in Europe. I was thinking of buying only one from Amazon.com, but shipping and VAT will not be cheap. So when the US version MSRP was $ 110, paying 120 120 for the French version was still the cheapest option. So the problem of reading the text of the story aloud is solved until you can read it. The French style is amazing!

Clank now! Legacy will be my first full Legacy board game. They are board games that change over time. Cards can "break", which means you have to split them correctly. Self-adhesive stickers can be applied to whiteboards or cards and will never be removed. We had a few in Grim Harbor, but I was uncomfortable with the loss of expensive toys, so I bought portable stickers . And you can still play the first steps again in Grimhaven. There is no alternative to Clank! Inheritance. Over the course of 10+ sessions, it is a game that constantly requires you to add new rules, change the game map with stickers, and remove certain cards without using them. Or Not. After all, the game is, in theory, the last game to be played over and over again. But after that it was fun to write about the story and the game. He may be dropping the game right now. The last time I got rid of some board games I gave them to a local boarding club, but of course this is not the best option for an old game.

What makes my idea of ​​playing and discarding a board game even clearer is my understanding that board games are becoming increasingly difficult and difficult. The type of game I play usually comes in a relatively large box, where do you put it all? According to my Board GameGeek collection, I have 38 board games (including extras) and 11 additional pre-orders on various fundraising services. It is cheaper than Steam PC games, but Steam games do not take up much space. The fact is that many new and exciting games are being released and the price is increasing, but the fact is that you do not have to spend a lot of time playing expensive board games to earn less than $ 10 per session.

I think it would be strange to write a permanent marker on my board game, put permanent stickers on the card and notebook and remove the cards (damn, I leave that aside). ! Inheritance. It relates to the most lucrative and most demanding Acquisitions Incorporated.

Tobolld Blog

Activision Blizzard sold to Microsoft

If you've watched the incredible collapse of Activision Blizzard over the past few years, you're probably wondering, "Where is your end?" Now we know! Finally , Activision sold Blizzard to Microsoft for $68.7 billion . The whole deal is in cash , Microsoft only has that kind of money. My opinion on this: they pay big money. Everything Blizzard was doing during this time ended, and they paid a lot of money for a rather empty shell.

Tobold block

What future for Kickstarter board games?

Over the last decade, board games have been a relatively bright spot on Kickstater. It’s a little hard to understand because Kickstarter puts video games and board games in the same category of “games”. This category of "games" is slightly lower than the Kickstarter performance report , but video games on Kickstarter are more likely to fail than board games. Perhaps this is a "technological danger." You can still get your board game and it won’t be as much fun as you expected, but the project won’t be worth it.

Over the years, low inflation, stable inflation and improved supply chains have allowed even the world’s smallest gaming companies to make their games available in China at affordable prices. Because of Kovid’s attack, households have been forced to stay at home, and demand for board games has grown, and market size has surpassed the already strong growth rates of the past decade.

But now, two years after the outbreak, everything looks a little rosy. Supply chains are unstable, transport costs have risen sharply, inflation is rising. This is a particular problem for Kickstarter projects, as they just take 1-2 years, and if production and transportation costs are paid for, they are much higher than expected. At the very least, transportation costs are usually not included in the debt, so the customer bears the risk of inflation. But it always makes the customer a little happier. The current Marvel Zombies Kickstarter has published a very detailed estimate of shipping , and for example, if you live in Alaska, a shipping cost of $ 98-300 is likely to come as a nasty surprise.

The company that produces the game increases production costs. Aeon Trespass: Check out Odyssey ! In October 2019, Kickstarter sold you the original game for $ 129. But now you have to pay $ 249 if you want to “pay late”. The company seems to be losing ground compared to its original price. The release of the game is scheduled for April this year. But you don’t have to worry about funding another project.

Many companies that regularly sell board games on Kickstarter have problems with companies using this year’s Kickstarter fund for last year’s gaming product. The obvious end result is a combination of different influences: companies today are well aware of inflation and are already determining its prices; In addition, they slightly increase costs to make up for past miscalculations.

And then there is the main economy, which is less expensive. And people around the world who suffer from high inflation also have a lower interest rate, which reduces the need for expensive hobbies. I love board games and are very good at them. But I often see the latest board game for the price or the Kickstater project decided not to go out and buy. If I promise something these days, it’s usually the cheapest free loans, the masses and all the jazz.

The most controversial example today is Marvel Zombies , the zombie version of CMON. The cheapest bond costs $ 130, you already have $ 240 to expand, and if you want a 60cm tall image of a galaxy, you’ll get $ 410 (better yet $ 500 + envelope included). It sells like cake, and 6,000 of the 16,000 fans now choose the most expensive option. But do you find this consistent? How much does the average board game fan earn $ 500 a year?

Of course, the old question is, "Is it worth it?" It is almost impossible to answer. The old game CMON Cthulhu: Death May Die owed $ 250 with a giant statue of Cthulhu, and that figure alone is now $ 300-500 on eBay (though we don’t know if that’s the case). a lot). But it costs you $ 165, including the main game Marvel Zombies. And half of all the other zombie games on Amazon, at your local game store or at any online store. A particularly friendly local game store looks more and more competitive because you don’t have to pay there extra shipping costs.

Some companies outside of Kickstarter seem to be cutting costs more successfully. I liked their previous games (later Forgotten Water), so I pre-ordered popular stories with hat games. The game costs $ 79.95 online and is expected to be shipped in February (I for some reason don’t understand, it will be released in Australia on January 26th). I didn’t order then because they ship USPS to USPS Priority Mail for $ 65. But I could pre-order the game at a friendly local game store for ዩ70, and I had the option to pay ዩ 7 for local delivery or take it out of the store for free.

The general message here is to know what price to buy. Kickstarter projects are usually a year late. Now you pay $ 500 for an international loan, and two years later a huge box hits your door. Are you still happy with that? Or are you afraid of noise, fear of extinction, and then the great danger of disappointment? How much would you earn if you spent that $ 500 on a local gaming store? Not to mention other free options depending on your specific needs, such as for a single game or online board games or board games using eBay.

Tobold block

Legacy games

I broke up the cards by writing board games, board games, rules, and cards to stick on the board or with a permanent marker. Danger Inheritance was probably the first of these, and Epidemic Heritage Season 1 #2 was behind Glomhaven in the GameGeek Best Games tabletop games . So what is the point? Why are these games so popular, even though you're basically destroying expensive toys?

I think the answer is video games and board games versus role playing games. There is an RPG feature in many other games. Replay is based on solid game mechanics and is fun even after playing a lot. And the story is interesting, it has important decisions and involves some improvement or change in the body over and over again. Ideally there should be a merger, the merger is more interesting than the sum of the parts.

Now of course there are countless board games, not legacy games. I was talking about Roll Player Adventures, where we finished adventures 8 to 11. After Adventure 11, you can completely restart the game. But we can't do much until we forget most of the story or decide to play with another band. Roll Player Adventures is also one of the upcoming board games (the polluted grid will be different). Of the balance problems during the campaign.

By comparison, games like Threat often don't have a campaign or storyline, but they do have very solid gameplay. Some people gamble over and over again because the dice roll randomly and players make different decisions each time. The same can be said for a board game epidemic or the usual jingle! . But people always seem bored with the same board for these games: you can get hazard boards with different themes, from Star Wars to Game of Thrones; There are many types of epidemics, including the New World War II; And the sound! It has versions of sunken treasure, cursed curse or space adventure.

Disaster Heritage, Pest Heritage, or Tribal! Legacy has incorporated board games with powerful game mechanics and has added a campaign mode. He listens! Legacy has a history book, but Legacy Panic and Legacy Epidemic also have plot elements. In each case, they have taken advantage of it, despite the obstacles we can barely imagine." And there are some changes to the diagram, adding new sections to consider, new locations, new routes. It's not about destroying game materials, but about add something new to the original game. At the end of the campaign, you won't be able to play the campaign again; But below you have a kind of repetition. The cards you lose often tell you how to change the game and don't need anything else.

I do not detail here other traditional games . But there are some more examples based on existing base games and add campaign like above. And unlike Seafall, the game mechanics have many advantages. A well-tested base game seems like a good starting point for a legacy game.

Tobold's Blog

The King's Dilemma deconstructed

Still looking at the old board games, I came across King's Dilemma . One game I would be very interested in: it’s a solid narrative game that mostly deals with the consequences of your decisions. It's an old game with about 15 games, and it takes about 15 hours to complete. The game has a specific type of Game of Thrones, in which each player imagines a house in a low fantasy area, sitting on the board and solving various dilemmas that the king faces. As for the mechanics of the game, it’s pretty straightforward: If you know the Reigns video game, it’s basically a multiplayer version. Each dilemma is a vote for or against, each player votes and puts strength signals on his vote to influence the result, the more votes he wins, and the player who gives more power after the vote becomes the responsible leader. for the result. Each player hides and reveals their plans, and will not vote for the best for the kingdom, but the best for their home. Players are encouraged to discuss, negotiate, make purchases, play role-playing games, etc., so the game is generally very political. In a relatively low bet the houses cannot be removed, they lose their land or something like that, each vote goes down to a different victory point in each match.

As a game of political negotiation, the King’s dilemma is not possible on its own and it plays very badly with only two or three players. Basically, you need at least 4 players and the top 5. Since it’s only been a number of times in the last 12 months that I’ve had more than 4 players play a board game, I’ve finally bought Dilemma King . Your mileage may change; But best of all, you will need 4-5 players who are allowed to play at least 4 sessions of at least 4 hours before the end of the campaign. It's not easy.

To make matters worse, you don’t want these 4-5 strong players to worry too much about the mechanics of the game and win. King's Dilemma doesn't even tell you how to win the campaign until it's over. Since I hadn’t bought the game, but was still curious to know how it went, I ended up reading a very detailed review of The King Dilemma on the blog . Very devastating, and as the writer himself puts it: "Looking at the magnifying glass game, I destroyed some of the magic that was in this game. I also blew up a treasure trove of excitement trying to control the players."

While the exact deconstruction of the narrative game is interesting, it certainly destroys the game. There is no game on the map of the decision tree that survives. Apart from Real Life ((a game with a lot of different challenges), I don't know if the game is more of an illusion than the feeling of the consequences of your decisions. In the King Dilemma campaign, players will make about 100 yes / no decisions. This will result in over one million (1e30) different possible combinations. It simply cannot be applied to any game, print or digital. So there are 6 main stories in King's Dilemma , each with 2-3 possible outcomes. The decision tree of any computer game or board game always has several branches of the decision tree that come together; The interpretation of the narrative may be different, but after three decisions in the tree, your kingdom will be at war *, creating a new starting point for future branch decisions. Design an entire tree and you will be disappointed and frustrated. Ignorance is happiness.

For best results, I would say that you should play The King's Dilemma with an ordinary group of people: in some cases, strong personal feelings about certain issues that the game raises will be decided by their voice, such as slavery; Other times it’s not a solid moral choice and the player can vote according to who he thinks will get the most victory points, or he can try to play his home character who appears on his game screen. Low stakes make political negotiations more difficult, say, than the diplomatic game. And after the vote, reading about the unintended consequences will make everyone laugh or moan. You may not be happy with the overall score (plus the Game of Thrones atmosphere) at the end of the campaign, but you really enjoyed every step of the way. If you gather players for a full campaign, I envy you!

Tobold's blog

The difficulty of relaxing

It is said that people become more conservative with age. Surprisingly, the same is true for the coronavirus. In the past, the Corona epidemic has left right-wing parties on the right and many political parties on the right. But a virus is a mutation. advertising. The phrase “only the flu”, which was indeed a lie until 2020, is getting closer and closer to the truth in 2022, and by 2023 it will become an absolute truth. In Belgium, where I live, the number of arrests today is 40 times higher than in the first wave. Today, however, the death toll from Covid is ten times less.

Left-wing political parties in government, such as the US Democrats, are a problem. Republicans will say, "I told you so" if they agree that Covid is now a less deadly disease and that there may be other restrictions in everyday life. But, like us and our mortal relatives, they lost themselves in history and science and called for additional action against the slightest contradiction. Omicron substitutes are lethal and can be easily associated with masks and social isolation. The next difference may be smaller. Sometimes it is not necessary to take the necessary steps in 2020 and 2021. Everyone who carried the virus thought that protecting the herd in 2020 was a bad idea, but it is likely that this product will become a reality first. If the political parties are more sensitive to reality and say less than yesterday, then this year we will see social restrictions on the right to explosives.

Tobold block

Time value of money

One of the many consequences of the internet is the increase in retail investments, fueled by applications like Robinhood. The downside of retail investing is that most people have very little financial knowledge. Buying shares of Reddit-recommended memes is a gamble, not an investment. Without a working time machine or crystal ball, it is impossible to predict the expected profit from buying shares. The best strategy is to buy funds that are normally trading at low rates (ETFs) and benefit from the general upward movement in the stock market.

For now, however, it would be wise to choose ETFs in which to invest more conservatively. There is a difference between "growth margin" and "price margin". If you invested in equities after the 2008 financial crisis, you probably already made a lot of money. However, there are signs that value stocks may outperform next year. Why is this?

The main issue here is the time value of money. $ 100 today is worth more than the promised $ 100 next year. In times of very low inflation, which we maintain for many years, the difference is not so great. It was excellent for growth stocks, whose potential value lies mostly in the future. But now that inflation is rising, so are interest rates. This is in favor of bonds and stock prices above growth stocks because inflation should significantly discount potential future returns of growth stocks. Companies with small loan amounts are better able to handle higher interest rates than large loan companies.

Although I am currently investing heavily in buying a home, it is not an investment strategy. I'm going to buy the house I still want to live in for decades because I do not think it's worth it. Higher interest rates lead to higher mortgage rates, which could dampen demand for property for years to come. I would now advise to refrain from speculative investments in real estate.

While the dot-com collapse of 2000 and the financial crisis of 2008 have certainly taught us that rising stocks and homes can be risky investments, it's hard to predict how bad it will go. The truth is that 2022 will be a difficult year to invest. Therefore, I will be careful: investing conservatively in equities is probably currently a better option than growth stocks, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and equities. At the same time, it is not the best strategy to keep money under the mattress during inflation.

tobold's blog

Watching Kingdom Death: Monster

I see a lot of board game content on YouTube. Some of these people talk about board games, review, talk about the latest crowdfunding projects, and so on. Other channels offer turn-based board games, which are often much more useful than review. Watching a game gives you a much immediate idea of ​​whether or not you’ll enjoy this type of game, but board games are much harder to shoot than video games. I have some favorites like Rob's Gaming Table or BoardGamegic's Game Night. But if the game you want to try isn't covered by your favorite channels, check out other channels. And many of them have difficulty seeing the game clearly in front of the camera and explaining in detail what is going on.

Due to recent discussions in the board game community that I follow, I wanted to review Kingdom Death: Monster. It’s a bit of an elephant for serious table players. 2017 Kickstarter had a commitment of 500 2500 and now costs $ 420 to buy the original game from its website alone . Like I said, I'm not tempted, especially since the game has a lot of thumbnails and a high price tag, and those thumbnails aren't * assembled * yet. The Dice Tower Kingdom Death: He recently made a terrific video that includes a slide that says “6 Months Later” in the manual. Okay, the whole video was laughing at the game, but for me it’s not a thing to assemble and paint miniatures and it’s something I don’t like, so it’s not for me.

The question, however, was whether Kingdom Death: Monster was a really good party game. After some discussion with those who thought so, I was advised to watch the videos Beasts of War Kingdom Death: Monster on YouTube , and I did. This is a 3-player game from the original campaign, with a mix of those who know the game and those who are just starting out in the game, as well as experienced filmmakers and gamers. So it gives you a great idea of ​​the game if you are interested.

After learning a lot more about Kingdom Death: Monster's different game systems, I'm less interested in buying this game. What people love about KDM is that a lot of terrible things are happening. You usually roll the dice or draw cards, then roll a d10 to see if the result is good or bad. The higher the roller, the better the results. A 1 usually means very bad and a 10 means very good. The general theme of the game is blood and nudity (there are several expansions of Death Pinups). So the “great experience” you can get at KDM involves cutting off the genitals of giant monsters and using them as a resource for your establishment. English has this weird difference, that things labeled as “adults” and “adults” tend to be more childish and immature.

I still can't recommend the game to anyone who isn't interested in the topic. As you can see, cutting the white lion's "ding dong" and getting the lion's testicles is a completely random act, which can happen when a lion is attacked face to face. You draw the same location card that affects your position, regardless of your position. Some campaign games may have the ability to manipulate the range of strike positions, but this has nothing to do with the fighting position. Overall, fighting and the rest of the games feel very casual. There are a lot of dice rolls and card draws that are the result of unexpected and often scary things. Fate matters, while strategic choices are rare.

I think if you do everything and buy a $ 2,500 deposit with everything, you’re going to have a lot of monster fights. I couldn't find a bunch of videos showing this. In the basic game, you will fight the White Lion first and then the howling Antelope. And there will be * many * fighting for a lion or deer campaign. If the fight isn't against them, it's usually due to a specific chronological event that sends you against a 5-year-old enemy monster like The Butcher, but these are designed to crush you and you can lose a lot. character. All this fighting and barely surviving. Kingdom Death: You have to be a little masochistic to appreciate monsters.

KDM has some very nice game mechanics in the liquidation phase. The main game cycle is to find a monster, return with a bunch of random monster parts and turn those monster parts into weapons and armor to make your characters stronger for the next hunt. There is a chance that you will not lose your character as a result of constant random events. There are several official and unofficial KDM variants that make the game easier and perhaps more fun.

In the end, I don't think it's worth it. Unbalanced, random and repetitive original expensive game. So to make it a game of variety and better balance, you need an extension of added value and home rules. I would recommend a $ 50 option, Aftermath , if you are looking for a strategic war campaign game with a settlement episode.

Tobold's blog

Charterstone

I've been playing Charterstone for a few days. Digital edition on my iPad. This is the official digital adaptation of the Charterstone board game from Stonemaier Games. The digital version costs $ 10 on iOS և Android, $ 20 on Steam և $ 25 on Nintendo Switch. Yes, Al, sounds pretty gross to me, it seems BT isn't for me either. Since the game works flawlessly on a touchscreen tablet, I would recommend a cheaper mobile version.

Charterstone board games cost $ 70. Of all the legacy board games I know of, Charterstone is the most extreme, with the most stickers. The rulebook is like a sticky Panini album, which is mostly blank at the start of the game և filled with more rules throughout the campaign. If you want to play the campaign more than once, the board has two sides that start the same, so you can purchase a $ 25 refillable pack with all the stickers and play again. Or use Tom Vassell's tip և use the download package to create a matching game after the campaign. Because during a real campaign, it is very likely that some parts of the players (called "maps") are built with a perfect engine, and sometimes something will go wrong և different buildings will not work together. Especially when playing with less than 6 players, empty letters will be filled in randomly.

The digital version can be restored to its original state as often as you wish. And since the computer does all the openings of the boxes, puts the virtual stickers on the keyboard and the regulation, the digital version plays much faster. You can fight AI opponents alone in the afternoon. The board game plays at least 12 games per hour, and even if you play 2 or 3 of these games in a single session, it goes without saying that you will need multiple sessions to complete the campaign. Depending on how often you meet, it could take months to complete your campaign. Even more than in other great games, you can't change players, you have to play the whole campaign with the same team. Most decisions, especially those related to building, have a big impact on future games. At the end of the campaign, each player receives a total campaign score.

Even though the digital version is much faster and more convenient, I hope to be able to play board games with friends later this year. Although the digital version behaves the same way, it doesn't have any social interaction to play face-to-face with real people. And it's fun to physically attach tags. But for those unsure, I'd probably recommend playing the $ 10 mobile version a day before investing the first $ 70 in some physical board games.

Tobold's blog

Character creation and minmaxing

Of all the pledges I've made on Kickstarter, there's only one video game I endorse:Talk: Crown of the Magister . It did pretty well: it's a good game, and now it's worth $40 on Steam, I was only promised $18. I'm not saying you need to kickstart many video games, they have a much higher failure rate than board games; but in this case i'm happy. So last year I played the beta version of Solasta. And then I left it unplayed for about 10 months waiting for the full release and additional content. A wizard class has since been added, and I also bought a DLC that adds barbarian and druid classes. Besides the main campaign, I also noticed that additional adventures are available. It's time for a new bandwidth!

I remember now that on the previous round I was a little annoyed with some of the character creation opportunities where I had access to certain crafting skills. To avoid this, I looked at the Solasta character creation process to make sure I chose the right crafting options. While I couldn't find a good website that talks about character creation options, I did come across a website that categorizes the different character classes. The site rated "Barbarian" a "C." But of course I want to play barbarian, druid and wizard for my game because these classes are new to me!

Now the real Dungeons & Dragons doesn't matter if you don't have the most optimized class and build. A good DM always adapts to the composition of the challenging team. But in video games, tasks are predetermined, perhaps tailored to the chosen level of complexity. But if you don't take, for example, a thief or another character with the ability to pick locks and run into a closed coffin or a keyless door, you've decided. The game expects a certain combination of skills and abilities. You don't have to go with a classic group of warriors, spirituals, wizards, rogues, but you should choose something similar. Luckily, the barbarian fighter can replace the druid - the clergy and the sorcerer - the sorcerer, so I bring the thief to my 4th member, and you must be right. But I can't have the best advantage when a barbarian is only as good as a warrior or paladin. I think I have to live with that.

In other games I took the advice to create a character to have the best party. Pathfinder: In Kingmaker, I actually canceled my first campaign because I wasn't happy with the main character I created, so I started with the best ones. However, I realize that this optimization and minmaking has serious disadvantages: I reduce your skills. It's more fun to have more character classes, and disabling some of them because they're not optimal reduces that fun. On the other hand, if the game isn't very flexible in dealing with your problems, you can also lessen the fun of creating a character by making the wrong choices and not being able to do certain things now. This is a bit of a dilemma, especially if you're new to the game and don't know what's going to be okay.

Tobold's blog

The right to be only human

On a personal level, I'm not 100% sure how much I should limit my social interactions given the current COVID situation. On the one hand, the number of cases is very high due to the omicron variant.

On the other hand, the number of deaths from COVID is relatively low, especially considering the ratio of cases to deaths.

The situation is very complex. You really don't know how sick you will get if you have COVID, it varies a lot from person to person. Of course, people are still dying from COVID. The level of protection against X-fold vaccination is not fully known. On the other hand, most of us are tired of restrictions and want to return to a "normal" social life. There's an RPG club I'm a member of that I haven't been to in 2 years. I really enjoyed having a friend play a board game recently; but it is very difficult to judge the importance of "risk".

I suspect most people think so. Even with perfect information, you can't really tell how dangerous COVID is to you today. We don't have perfect information, and some people are completely misinformed. The less information you have, the more "confident" you will be of your point of view. Opinions vary widely about what is the best course of action. And many factors can influence this opinion. As you can imagine, someone who makes a living from hospitality or events will have very different views than someone caring for a sick elderly relative.

What we sometimes forget is that politicians are only human. I don't think any politician from any party in any country really knows the exact effects of the COVID rules. Even scientists cannot calculate precisely the economic damage caused by the restrictions with respect to the number of lives it will save. Even if you could count them, it would be an impossible decision: how many lives are worth 1% of GDP?

So it comes as no surprise to me that governments around the world vary widely in their responses. The UK government plans to lift all restrictions and implement a "living with COVID" plan. Meanwhile, the Austrian government was the first to introduce mandatory vaccination, according to which you can be fined if you are not vaccinated. People have strong opinions about these two extremes, but I can't really say which one is more right or wrong than the other. There will likely be an end point where nearly everyone will be protected in some way from the worst effects of COVID, either through vaccination or disease, and all social distancing restrictions will be lifted. But if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that no one really knows when we'll get there, neither scientists nor politicians.

blog tobold