Octopus Overlords

RMC wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 10:35 am I guess Kickstarter might even move back to being a more Boutique provider of certain types of games. IE- there will be a small percentage that will pay more for games with Mini's. <shrug>

But it will be interesting too see how the industry changes.

Did you play your damn copy of Dead Reckoning yet? I'm four games in (1 solo, 3 multiplayer) and still lovin' it.

Dead Reckoning is very good even if hepcat smashed in my face and stole my lunch money in it. I will have my revenge!!!

It really has surprised me. I was expecting a much lighter game. What I got was pretty much a full 4x game.

As we've been rewatching Buffy lately, I looked for some Buffy stuff to 3d print on Thingiverse, there wasn't much, but I did see some stuff for a Buffy game.

Buffy game? Whoa. Off to BGG...

I now have the Jasco Buffy game and the Friends and Frenemies expansion on the way!

Apparently it's a Buffy themed lite version of Arkham Horror!

I know that the Legendary line put out a Buffy game that was well received.

There's a Buffy set for Unmatched as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/315 ... ire-slayer

Arrived this week

AWS260 wrote:There's a Buffy set for Unmatched as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/315 ... ire-slayer

I don't really want to get into the deck builders... One of the reasons I got out of Magic, and basically only play sealed deck magic with an old friend from way back when.

Unmatched really isn’t a deck builder though. You get a set of cards for each character and that’s it for the card portion of it. They don’t sell packs of cards you can add to the game, just new expansions with different characters by theme. It’s a great system that’s a lot of fun. But it is a head to head game, so no coop.

hepcat wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:21 pm Unmatched really isn’t a deck builder though. You get a set of cards for each character and that’s it for the card portion of it. They don’t sell packs of cards you can add to the game, just new expansions with different characters by theme. It’s a great system that’s a lot of fun. But it is a head to head game, so no coop.

So is it kind of like Smash-up?

In a way, yeah. But it’s 1v1. It also uses a map board to maneuver around. The series premiered at gencon years ago and sold out before we even got into the vendor hall on the first day.

Hmm. OK. I do like the idea of a shorter Arkham Horror that I can also solo tho.

Now we know why the unofficial Gloomhaven app is going away - Lucky Duck is making an official one:

Lucky Duck is one of the best in the business, and we are confident that they are fully up to the task. We're still ironing out development timelines, but the plan is to first release a Frosthaven app that supports full in-combat character, summon, monster, ally, and objective tracking, initiative order tracking, as well as loot, monster abilities, and monster/ally attack modifier draws. Basically, our goal is to streamline the combat process as much as possible. After the Frosthaven app is released, they will then assist us with quickly delivering a counterpart Gloomhaven app as well, to bring everything under one roof.

If they make us pay for it (within reason), or they release it in such a way that you have to pay to continue past the first few scenarios of the campaign, I'm going to swear off any game made by Isaac in the future.

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 11:30 am If they make us pay for it (within reason), or they release it in such a way that you have to pay to continue past the first few scenarios of the campaign, I'm going to swear off any game made by Isaac in the future.

Didn't you have to pay for the unofficial app?

I didn't get that the unofficial app was killed by the official one so that Isaac could make a fortune off the app. The people who made the unofficial one didn't want to make it for free/had other projects to do.

I'd pay for it if it was good. If I got it for free as part of the Kickstarter and then retail folks had to pay a reasonable cost, I'd consider that a nice bonus for kickstarting.

I expect the Lucky Duck guys will do a good job to provide value. But I didn’t back Gloomhaven.

Malificent wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 12:36 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 11:30 am If they make us pay for it (within reason), or they release it in such a way that you have to pay to continue past the first few scenarios of the campaign, I'm going to swear off any game made by Isaac in the future.

Didn't you have to pay for the unofficial app?

No

My understanding is that there were two factors.

First, the creator of the free unofficial helper app didn't want to take on a second game. Maintaining the app was enough work. He didn't want to update the app to support Frosthaven as well as Gloomhaven. However, I think he would have been fine with continuing to maintain the Gloomhaven helper app.

Second, Isaac changed the agreement and told him that he'd now have to pay for the assets that he was using in the Gloomhaven app. As I read it, originally he was given permission to use the assets for free. Since he doesn't want to charge for his app, and doesn't want to pay for the assets, he's shutting down the app.

The sticking point is whether Isaac intentionally changed the agreement with the knowledge that he already had another company that was going to create a paid app. Essentially getting rid of the free competition for what will most definitely be a paid app.

I'm kind of with hepcat on this one. I'm not immediately labeling Isaac as a bad guy. I wasn't there for the agreement with the Gloomhaven Helper creator. On the surface it seems like an unfair thing to do. But presumably the new app will be maintained (not that the free one isn't, but we have encountered a few bugs here and there) and may offer new/better features. The big question is what they are going to charge for it.

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 1:59 pm

Malificent wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 12:36 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 11:30 am If they make us pay for it (within reason), or they release it in such a way that you have to pay to continue past the first few scenarios of the campaign, I'm going to swear off any game made by Isaac in the future.

Didn't you have to pay for the unofficial app?

No

I looked it up and they started charging for the app ($5) sometime in 2019. Maybe earlier.

Then you’re looking at the wrong one. The unofficial app that many of us used was free and web based. I haven’t used it in a while, so I’m not sure what state it’s in now. But it was definitely never something you even had the option to pay for the last time I checked.

Edit: this is what I’m taking about. And it appears it’s still alive and well.

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 8:42 pm Then you’re looking at the wrong one. The unofficial app that many of us used was free and web based. I haven’t used it in a while, so I’m not sure what state it’s in now. But it was definitely never something you even had the option to pay for the last time I checked.

Edit: this is what I’m taking about. And it appears it’s still alive and well.

All the fuss is around this one: http://en.esotericsoftware.com/gloomhav ... 20use%20it.

It is levels above the web based you linked to.

It’s an app, it’s unofficial and I didn’t have to pay for it. So my answer to your original question is still “no”.

P.S. the link you posted does actually say it’s free for android app users, but that it’s ad driven. So you could pay to remove the ads, but you didn’t have to to use it. You’d just have to put up with some pop ups or what not. And it appears it was completely free on PC…as both a desktop app and a web app.

Yeah, I was going to say "Hey Hep, if you got that for free then you had a special deal!" Or else the devs were targeting me specifically for payment. I held off for a long time because of that extra cost, but buckled when people made it abundantly clear how much better Jaws of the Lion was when using it.

That said, I have still never played my copy of Gloomhaven and only played one mission of G:JotL. Every time I think about getting it out, I grab something like Core Space or Shadows of Brimstone instead.

I can't imagine playing the entire GH campaign without the app. The shuffling time alone would have probably extended our campaign by weeks.
Free, paid, whatever. Just shut up and take my money, Isaac.

I saved copies of the GH Helper app for PC and APK for Android.

The new app for Gloomhaven doesn't even have a timeline yet since Lucky Duck is working on Frosthaven first. So this is just really lame the way they did it.

Went into my local game store last night, and they had 10 copies of Bardsung sitting at the front of the store that were marked “price lowered to sell”…for $200. Just for the base game, mind you, no xpacs or KS bonuses.

It’s a fun game and all, but good luck with that.

I just put up some of my rarest gaming items on eBay today.

I've had the full set of the DeAgostini Star Wars Battle Games game booklets, terrain, and minis in my collection for the past 18 years. Released in 2004 by, this was a subscription service in the UK where once a month they would send you a magazine sized scenario booklet, rules, a mini or two, and about 4-5 sheets of cardboard terrain and standees for the Star Wars Miniatures battles game. If you kept collecting them, you eventually got a full terrain piece to play SWMB on. For example, the first 3 issues completed a set of corridors for the Tantive IV.

The subscription service ended after 4 issues were published, so apparently the idea did not go over well. I have all 4 issues, as well as the minis that are stamped on the bottom "DeAgostini" (that's the only difference in the minis from the original WotC minis.)

The really amazing thing about these is there is almost no information about the sets. A few mentions on BGG, an article on Wookieepedia, and a couple of other mentions on other forums, but that's it. No current or past eBay listings for these (other than some guy that has the Princess Leia stamped figure up there for $75...and it's been there for at least a couple of years.) So I have no idea about the worth of these things, if someone wants them, hell, if someone is even looking for them. I'm hoping I get lucky though, and someone takes my bid.

I would have expected those would sell nicely at GenCon. Are they doing an auction this year?

Zarathud wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:45 pm I would have expected those would sell nicely at GenCon. Are they doing an auction this year?

Wouldn't do me any good since I can't make GenCon...

I'll see what happens on eBay. I'm also getting ready to put up my large Heroscape lot.

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is 20 bucks during Amazon Prime sale today and tomorrow.

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 7:59 am Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is 20 bucks during Amazon Prime sale today and tomorrow.

Couldn't find this, but Spirit Island is on sale for $53.

Looks like Gloomhaven JoL sold out since I posted that.

Pretty quickly too. I put it in my basket, went looking to see what else was there, and noticed it got yanked. I suspect the seller didn't have that many copies.

Petersen Games is in rough shape. TL;DR - they laid off everyone without the last name Petersen.

I guess this means I'm never getting Glorantha: The Gods War.

Doesn’t Petersen regularly run his operations into the ground, eventually hoping for a fan bailout?

Wow. I'd missed the original (with the hex sides), but this is pretty smart.

I've been dubious about board game tables, but this looks really good.

Shipping is murder though.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:06 pm Petersen Games is in rough shape. TL;DR - they laid off everyone without the last name Petersen.

I guess this means I'm never getting Glorantha: The Gods War.

Or me getting my Hyperspace pledge. That game has been constantly delayed for the most bizarre reasons (minor adjustments to models that I honestly couldn't even see).

I absolutely love my gaming table. If you can afford one, I highly recommend them.