What Do I Mean Too Much Stuff in Crowdfunding?

Let’s look at an example. Kingdom Death Monster is a great example of this. Why, because they are still delivering the stretch goals. And they weren’t extremely fast on this timeline, if I remember correctly, but the project was expected to deliver in December of 2020. We’ve had a ton of time since then, why, because they are still designing and delivering stretch goals.

In particular, when I talk about this, I am talking about games that add in so much extra stuff that isn’t planned for in the campaign. The counter to this is CMON who with their Marvel United, they add in a lot of things, but all of them are planned, except maybe the last one or two.

But neither of these examples gets to the meat of the issue. What is it? You can’t play it all. I can’t play it all. Sometimes it is just too much stuff.

Too Much Stuff in Crowdfunding

But more stuff is better, isn’t it? If I get fifty different characters, three add on minis scenarios, miniatures of all the bad guys, that is good, isn’t it?

I do think the answer to this, is sometimes. But honestly, it is not good a lot of the time. Why, there are a couple of different reasons that I want to explore. I think some gamers will resonate more with one or another of them so it is worth calling out both reasons.

Guilt/Must Play It All

The two ideas overall, I think, can be tied to one another. But it’s worth splitting them out, because, they can present themselves in different ways. In this way, I liken it to getting something new or fun and then just looking at it. You get it, and until you use it, you feel bad for getting it.

And with more stretch goals and a bigger all in on the campaign, it is harder to use all of it. Let’s use Marvel United as an example. There are about 200 characters from the first two campaigns. So I own both all in. I play it a few times a year. But I don’t play all 200 characters, and I haven’t yet played all the 200 characters. So I feel bad and guilty for getting all of that even though I enjoy it.

The other reason is going to deal more with not playing it. But with the guilt aspect or the need to play it all, what can hurt is forcing yourself to do that. You feel guilt that you didn’t play with it all, so even though you just played a lot of that game and are done for now, you force yourself to play more. And now a game which is fun, if you play in little doses, becomes a big, heavy drain to play.

Ease To Table

To me, this is the one that I need to work on the most. This idea of get everything because it is awesome, but now I own everything and it makes getting the game to the table harder. And I am not referring to guilt about not playing it and making me apathetic to get it to the table.

This is just that sometimes too much stuff makes it harder to play. An example or two of the opposite of this are Dice Throne and Marvel United. They both go with the grab your characters and go theory. There is little extra set-up or changes to rules because you pick characters. You don’t need to know everything about the game to play with whomever you want.

On the flip side, something like Reichbusters which I might be selling soon and have replaced with a smaller game, is that I own a ton. So I got it all sorted into the boxes. But now to play it, I need own enough that I need to spend a lot of time sorting to get it to the table. It adds a barrier of entry to the game because of how much I own.

And that is where the crux of this issue lies. You want it, because it is awesome. But when you own it, it makes the game harder to get to the table.

The Solution?

To wrap up, I think there are solutions to this. And I’ll talk about a few of them that I like to use. Not all of them work all the time, but they can be good sometimes.

Game Play

First one is one that works well if you feel like there is too much stuff for the game. If you get a box of wooden tokens and metal coins and you need to pull them out to get the real experience of the game. Don’t get them next time.

Marvel United, for example, is a game you can get extra fancy things for. So I get cardboard locations and plastic tokens and a play mat. That isn’t that much, but it’s hard to store the characters already. So if I bought that it would add in even more work to get the game to the table. So just buy stuff for game play.

Retail

Maybe the game play is even too much. Hold off on it and wait until retail. I am not suggesting buying the retail level pledge where it is the base game that will come to stores. You likely can get it cheaper with sales and free shipping. But wait patiently, you can even pre-order it if need be.

Storage Solution

Finally, and this one costs you more money in the long run, get a storage solution. That can be an insert that costs $40-100 depending on the game that makes it easy to play. Or it can be a craft bin for cross stitch thread for $5. Whatever makes it easier to just pull out the game and play. Get something that assists with that, so that when you look at your gaming investment it doesn’t seem too daunting.

What do you find helps you get those monster Crowdfunding games to the table?

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How To Play City Chase

City Chase is a pretty simple game in what you do on your turn. Once the buildings are on the board and helicopters have been placed, the player who is the getaway driver places their car and the token, creating their starting location. And each of their following turns they’ll leave the token and move their car to an adjacent building, but not diagonally adjacent.

The other player(s) play as the police trying to track down the getaway driver and car. Each helicopter, there are three, can do one action. They can move or they can search. Helicopters move intersection to intersection along the road. And then they can search the building. There are three things you can find in the building, nothing, the getaway car, or a token from where the car has been.

If the getaway driver can avoid being found, or trapping themselves, they can’t cross a token, they win the game. If the police can find them under a building, the police player(s) win.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t have any major complaints with the game but two minor ones. In my game plays it’s much easier for the getaway driver to win. Which, I think is fine. But having a variant and a 4th helicopter for the police in there, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Especially since this is a light game. I could see an 8 year old playing it but they might prefer to have more of a chance to find the getaway driver, or their trail, early in the game and maybe push it too far in the helicopter advantage, but until they are ready for it to be harder.

And not really an issue of the game but something to know about City Chase and as the getaway driver. You can be heard moving stuff around. Probably not a major issue, but we found that chatting while the getaway driver placed covered up the noise plenty well. Is it something you can use for your advantage? Maybe.

What Works?

The hidden movement in this game is good. And it is good for all ages because it is simple. You need to remember where your vehicle is and that is it. And you barely even need to remember that, you can just look to find it again while the other player(s) have their eyes closed. The mechanic is simple of moving the vehicle and hiding it, but also a lot of fun doing that.

And I think that playing the police and figuring out where the criminal might be is fun as well. Which, for a game with two parts, or two distinct roles, is important that both are fun. Once you get that trail, I like the feeling of closing in and trying to find the two tokens, the starting token and round six token, to figure out where they are heading or might be heading.

The toy factor in this game is also amazing. I love the buildings and the helicopters for the game. I like, also, that they didn’t just make one type of building, but there are two different shapes with different heights. What does that add to the game, nothing but some fun difference on the board.

Who Is It For?

This game is one that would qualify as fun for adults, but it’s more for those buddying gamers in your life. Probably that 10-14 age range would be where it is best. But with that said, don’t sleep on it for adults. But more so, don’t sleep on it for adults as a kids game, mainly, that is fun for adults.

And I think so much with kids games that is important. You can even play with younger kids as well, I’d think. Especially if the kid and a parent team up against someone else. So if the kid and the parent or older person play as the police, they can work together in this game.

Final Thoughts on City Chase

This is an interesting game for me. I think that it’s likely going to stick in my collection, though probably not be on the main shelves. Mainly, my kid isn’t old enough to play it yet, but once he is, I can see this one being a fun one to play. Like I said in the who this is for, it is a kids game that adults will like. The game offers enough choices to make it fun.

And I really can’t talk about how much this works from both sides. That was my biggest fear going into the game that one side would be vastly superior to the other, in terms of the fun you are having. But both sides are a lot of fun. And both offer their own challenges. Only being able to move or search means the search is slow. You always want to do more. But with the getaway car, you will eventually reach the point where you need to go past a helicopter. And that is good tension as well.

Overall, a very fun game. Not one that I think is needed by everyone. But if you have a kid or play with kids, in that range, City Chase is a really fun time. And I don’t think between the toy factor and game play you’ll be disappointed in it.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B
Kids Grade: A

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The question is, what can make a game stand out, and how much does a game need to stand out?

Does Your Board Game Need to Stand Out?

The answer in my opinion is that it does. Though standing out can mean a number of different things. You need a game that immediately catches your eye with the box. This could be bright and flashy, or it could match the type of game that people expect for it. Euro games often don’t have the most striking boxes, but you know what is in them.

But generally, you want something that stands out on a shelf. If you can get someone to pick your game up off the shelf and look at the back, that is step one. And that might be enough to get a number of sales for the game.

The next part of this question is do you need to stand out with game play and components, and what does that even mean? The short answer, as we’ll dive into what it means coming up, is that maybe you need to stand out. Not all games need to stand out, but you need to match the standards expected. Beyond that, you can certainly help your game with both of those.

What Can Make Your Game Stand Out?

Theme

For me the first thing that I think of is theme. If your theme is different, not only will the box probably catch my eye, but also it’ll keep me around to see how that game works. But it isn’t just that, it is also for more standard themes. If you do a fantasy game, how do you not fall into the trope of fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric? Or if you are doing a space game, how is it not Star Wars?

Examples

First Rat

First Rat never would have caught my attention except for the theme. And even then, with the company the game is coming from, I have nothing really against them but their games don’t catch my attention, I wouldn’t have been that interested. But the theme of a rat building a rocket ship to go to the moon meant that I’d be willing to try it.

And I am glad that I did, but that’s not really the point. The point is that you took a game with basically some resource gathering and victory points and put a weird theme on it. And when I got into the mechanics, I realized that I really enjoyed the game. The theme definitely helps. If this were just pushing up a track to get resources to trade at a Medieval market, I would be less interested.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is an example of a theme that is pretty common. It is fantasy. But Isaac Childres built a world that is completely unique to Gloomhaven. The characters are all different and it feels like no fantasy that has been done before.

But it also doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be that. Let me give an example, theoretical, of how this works. It has characters who can heal, but they aren’t the cleric. It has better tanks, but they aren’t a barbarian for a fighter. Each of them does something that feels different than your classic D&D tropes. And it does that without making itself too confusing or convoluted. A lot of fantasy games go with grand fantasy names and a backstory that doesn’t matter that much.

ISS Vanguard

ISS Vanguard is a game that actually isn’t in my hands yet. It will be soon, but it isn’t yet. This does fall into that epic space game. But it isn’t so much the good versus evil that you end up with in Star Wars. It probably is closer to a Star Trek where there is more exploration.

But what feels different about this one is that exploration. You travel throughout this galaxy or area that you’ve decoded a signal to. The call is making you want to know more, but the directions are less clear. ISS Vanguard is all about exploring space and figuring out everything that is going on. Plus maintaining your ship, keeping crew happy, everything like that as well.

Etherfields

Etherfields is very much a world that is completely different than anything out there. A world where you dive into your dreams and nightmares and are exploring. This would again fall under fantasy, but in such a different way than your standard high fantasy settings or epic fantasy settings like Lord of the Rings.

Etherfields pivots a long ways away from the standard which I think is good. It is going to draw people in because it feels completely different. It doesn’t need to walk that line of fantasy that we know and the fantasy that it is. Being it’s own thing so completely means that it doesn’t need to build off of anything that we know.

Components

Components are another way that you can stand out. This could be a mountain of plastic minis, it could be amazing nature artwork, it could be a volcano. Whatever it is, when you flip over to the back of the box and see it, it catches your eyes. Some of these fall into the next category, the Gimmick, so I’ll talk about those then. But there are plenty of games that stand out because of the pieces that they have in the game.

Examples

Wingspan

Wingspan is an easy one to put on the list. Firstly, there is all of the amazing artwork. This is an example of a cover that immediately draws you in. But going along with that, it isn’t just on the cover. All the cards show off Beth Sobel’s artwork. And all of the birds are different, so there is a ton of artwork. Then you add in the eggs and the bird house dice tower. The game gives you great components.

Century: Golem Edition

Century: Golem Edition is another one that gives you amazing components. I wanted to come up with a game that has metal coins in the box, and Century does. And I could talk about the artwork here as well. But the artwork isn’t the other component that immediately draws you in. In Century Golem Edition you are collecting games. And the game pieces are vibrant and fun tactilely to play with. Collecting those and trading them around really makes the game stand out.

Marvel United

Finally, I mentioned minis, so if you want a game with a lot of minis, Marvel United is a way to go, especially if you backed the Kickstarter. Chibi minis might not be everyone’s style, but I enjoy them. And I think for a light, family weight, easily accessible board game, they work great. So if you get everything, you can play as whatever hero you want. And for a fan of the IP, that is easy for me to want them all.

Mechanics

Let’s not overlook mechanics. There are a number of games that come out with a mechanic that just feels different. Some of these again border on gimmick, but they are important to the game, and generally not the only game that uses them. But a slight twist on a mechanic can make a game stand out.

Examples

Cartographers

Cartographers does two things that I think make it unique for a roll and write game. The first is not totally unique to it. But the idea of how it scores. You score two things for spring, then one of those things and a new thing for summer. But when you get back to winter, you score one of your objectives from sprint again. So you kind of plan out your scoring a little bit as you go. And not everything scores every round. But also, you write on your opponents board as well as your own. When a monster comes out, you figure out the bad spot where to place it.

Gloom

Gloom is another example of two things, neither which is highly unique, but still are enjoyable. In Gloom you try for the fewest points possible. That is fairly unique. You want your family to die the worst deaths with the most negative points possible. Gloom also uses transparent cards. So you layer on these negative effects on your own or positive on your opponents. You still see your character through the cards, and the negatives that you’ve played before. Other games do this, but I enjoy it a lot in Gloom.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven makes the list in a couple of different categories. But for mechanics, it’s all about that card play that you do. You pick two cards to play. One you will use the top half, generally an attack. The other you will use the bottom half, generally movement. But you want to pick with flexibility. Because the situation at the start of a round, as monsters and other players go, might not be the same at the end of the round. Plus, it is just a dungeon crawl without chucking a handful of dice.

Gimmick

Another way is by a gimmick, and this is kind of the last one. Gimmicks in board games can be great, or they can hide the fact that there might not be much game there. So a gimmick can be a bit of a risk. There are three games I can think of passing on because I wasn’t sure about the gimmick in them. Two haven’t fulfilled yet from crowdfunding. The other one I backed the second time it was on there.

Examples

Canvas

Canvas uses that clear cards, something that I put in as a mechanic. But it is also a gimmick, one that is needed for some games. In Canvas, it is needed for the mechanics of the game as you try and layer symbols to complete pictures and score points. It also creates really wild pieces of artwork which counts for a lot as well. At least in terms of the fun of the game.

Potion Explosion

Position explosion on the other hand is really a toy piece in the game. A little chute that drops marbles down into a tray in different columns or paths. Then you pull out the marbles trying to get like colors to hit and collect those. And you put them on potions to make those positions. The whole thing of the game is there there is toy factor, but the game has a lot of fun game play as you combo potions you’ve made into being able to complete more potions.

Ice Cool

I probably could have put only dexterity based games on the list, but that isn’t fair. By their nature they tend to have more of a gimmick and more of that toy factor to them. Ice Cool, though, really stands out as having a gimmick to it because the boxes are the board. You take off the lid and there are more boxes inside. You put them together in such a way that you have a school. It is unique and fun.

Final Thoughts

Anything you can do to get a game noticed is probably not a bad thing. Though, some companies take it too far. It is important to put out a game first. But there are things that can be done, sometimes that are ignored, to make a game stand out more. And get more people to pick it up off a shelf to try and play it. That is really the most important first step is getting it in front of the people who will be interested.

What are some things that have made a game stand out to you? Any games that had the perfect packaging but then were a dud?

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Why Not Heavy Board Games

Let’s start out by looking at why I don’t generally buy heavier board games. And it comes down, mainly to one thing. They are harder to get to the table. Even the in the case of campaign games, that are heavier, which I do buy, they are harder to get to the table.

Generally there are a few more things, pieces, to the game. And so that is potentially going to make it harder to get to the table. But most of what makes it harder is that the games are more complex. That means that teaching the game is going to take longer with new players. And with the group I play with, often, it means I have a more limited target audience. Generally, for any gamer and game group, the more complex a game is the more you will limit who you can play with.

Side tangent, that isn’t a bad thing. If you really only love heavy games of whatever variety it is that you like, and you only want to play thoughts, cultivate a group to play with. Just know that the group is going to be smaller than if you play lighter games.

Why Lighter Games

So, I already answered this question, some. But lighter games get to the table easier. I can pull out these one off games to play without much effort and teach them really quickly. And generally they aren’t going to be as long, either. That means that you can get in a few games during a night.

I actually did something similar to the Brother’s Murph. I maybe didn’t get rid of light games, but I stopped buying a lot of them because I wanted to play heavier games. But I realized that those slightly heavier games, games that my wife might not be as interested in, things like that, just aren’t as useful to have in my collection.

The question for this is, is it better to have a lighter game that you like and play 10 times a year or a heavy game that you like and play 1 time a year?

And with that question, how well do you remember the rules? I shouldn’t say that heavier games only get played that little, but for a lot of people they do. See the side tangent up above. But often times the less often you play a game, the harder it is to remember how to play that game. That is another reason I like lighter games, even if I play it less often, the rules are simpler so I forget fewer of them.

Why Heavy Campaign Games

But then, on the flip side, I play and buy heavy, big, long, campaign games a lot. And I love my campaign games, but that flies in the face of why I buy lighter games, doesn’t it? And why I avoid heavier games with the longer rules teach and more set-up and pieces and side cases to keep track of. So a campaign game probably is not something I would buy.

But there is a difference for me with a campaign game versus a one off heavy game. The main one is that when I play a heavier campaign game, I play it a bunch. With my campaign game group, it’s every other week. For Malts and Meeples, it is weekly. So, it takes care of one of the issues, namely, heaving to relearn the rules.

Now, even with Tainted Grail, which we have played 30 or so different sessions of, we need to look stuff up every once in a while. But at this point it is rare that we do that, and the core game play, we don’t need to refresh anything on that. So that makes the whole process much faster to get through with the game. There is still a fair amount of set-up, but we don’t need a refresher.

That is very different than a game I play less recently. For example, I know and like games like Blood Rage and Lords of Hellas a ton. But because I play them less often, it is way more work to get them back to the table. And that is for me as the person who owns them. I could still, after not playing Gloomhaven for a while, sit down and teach Gloomhaven easily to people because I was steeped in it for so long.

Final Thoughts on Board Games

There isn’t a right way to buy games or to play games. I always go back to a quote from The RPG Academy. “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right”. Now there is more to that about breaking rules that makes more sense for RPG’s. But the concept is the same. If you and everyone at the table are having a good time, doesn’t matter if you play a heavy game, a light game, a trick taking game, a campaign game. The point is to have fun.

And really, the most important thing is to know your group. Would I love to play a few heavier games more often, most certainly. I’d love to get Atlantis Rising back to the table soon, but it’s a bit more of a teach. Or Blood Rage or Lords of Hellas, both would be a blast to play again, but also more work to play again. I tend to keep those heavier games off to the side. And I know with my monthly game group, I need to keep it lighter.

So know your game group, Cultivate it to what you want, and maybe keep some games that aren’t quite as heavy on your shelf, if you have a game night like I do.

How do you find yourself buying games? Has it shifted over time?

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The Game

This game has you racing to raise the temperature, oxygen levels, and flip over ocean tiles to score the most points. To do this you are playing down cards, in two different ways. The first is to select the action you are going to take. You can develop, construct, activate actions, produce income or draw cards. And they activate in that particular order. But only the ones which had cards played down activate. But on develop and construct, you are playing cards from your hand that do different things. Development cards will improve your production. The other cards can give you a one time benefit or help you build up an engine to get more cards, resources, or points.

As players you build out that engine to raise those two tracks and flip tiles. In the end, you want to play out the most points possible. But if you only focus on driving those three end game conditions, all which need to be completed, early in the game, you can end up without an engine built later. So it is a balancing act of getting points consistently versus a lot at the end.

What Doesn’t Work

Some of the pieces don’t work well in this game. Let’s run through all of them. The ocean tiles are dumb, it’s kind of a carry over from Terraforming Mars. Now, don’t get me wrong, the rewards on the tiles are nice, but the fact they are tiles is dumb. This is a card game, those tiles are just fiddly and annoying. To get to the middle ones you need to push the rest out of the way. Just give me a small deck of cards to put on the scoring board and let me flip one from the top each time to determine the rewards.

Then there are the cubes in this game. Cubes are used to track the oxygen, temperature, scores, production levels and supplies. This isn’t bad, but I have the Target version, so in the Kickstarter version on the player board for production and supplies they have a dual layer board. The Target version is flimsy cardboard. Now, that is me not spending on the Kickstarter, but I will need to upgrade my version later. And the score track and oxygen and temperature tracks, the cubes just don’t fit on them, and that I’d call bad design.

I also already want more cards in the game. I haven’t played it a ton of times, but we ran through all the cards in the first game and had to reshuffle. Now, not a major issue, but I wouldn’t mind a few more cards already. There are some cards dependent upon temperature or oxygen levels, so those aren’t played as often.

What Works

Engine Building

For me the engine building works really well. Being able to produce so much and really target different types of production to either play more cards, or make points somehow is a lot of fun. And it is a tactical engine building game. There is enough randomness in the cards that you get that you need to be able to pivot. Maybe you are getting a lot of planets to start but then draw cards that need heat, you’ll need to pivot. I like that style of engine building because I can’t go in with a single set strategy, like say Dominion.

Corporations

I also like the corporations. Any game where you start out different from everyone else, that’s fun. And I like the different types of corporations. I have played with one where I got a ton of credits but not that great a secondary power. I also have gone with one that gave me starting production in plants but way fewer credits and a solid power. So you can really decide between a wide variety of corporations when you start to tailor your game play.

Simultaneous Play

So, one thing I didn’t talk about was t hat each phase, the ones that are activated anyways, everyone does. So if I do development and you do research, we both get to do both of them. But when you play down a phase you get an extra benefit. So if I am the one who played down development, we can all play a development card, at the same time, but I get to play mine for three less cost wise. This simultaneous play really keeps the game moving. Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition isn’t the fastest game, but there is never downtime.

Is This Game Good?

I really like this game. I covered some issues but they are generally production issues. And the thing with cards, I don’t know all the cards, and I haven’t played all of them myself in my plays. I just can see myself picking a strategy and fishing for my favorite cards eventually. But the game itself is a ton of fun. I like engine building a lot, and this gives me that. I like games with little to no downtime, and I get that. And I like games that make me think about what my opponent is doing.

Going back to the picking of actions. I can decide to trigger another phase if I think you will trigger the one I want. If you need money and I need money, maybe I do research to get more cards because I’ll get money when you trigger production. So there isn’t player interaction of a negative variety, but if I’m smart I can leverage what you are doing or likely to do, to my advantage.

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: C

I think some gamers will want this game to be more like Terraforming Mars was. It’s not bad that it isn’t, but that’ll be the complaint. And for casual gamers, there is still a lot going on. It’s really fun though, and I’d recommend it for someone who is looking to take a step into some more complex games.

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Game Play

In Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade, you are rolling dice and filling in spots, hitting targets on a pinball table. You can nudge it to try and adjust where the ball is coming down, you fill in the bumpers so that you can unleash more points, as well as getting special bonuses for completing special challenges. You bounce around from place to place on the board, but you always end up going down, with the exception of the three bumpers in the middle where you can ping around inside of them, like you do in actual pinball. You have three balls in the game, so you score points over those three balls until you’ve lost the last one, and then that’s your end score. Each round the dice are rolled and everyone picks one of the two dice to use.

Game play for this makes a lot of sense. Of course your ball in a pinball game would drop further down. It makes sense that if you’re up in the three bumpers it can rattle around inside. All of it game play wise makes a ton of sense is really enjoyable. The scoring is also simple enough, when you hit things they show that you either get points or you get points if you fill in full sections, so that’s easy to track. The one thing that I did have trouble tracking was where my ball was on the table, now that was my own fault as they give you an awesome pinball to move around. I just did a bad job of keeping up with moving it around. That’s more on me than anything else.

The Components

This game has really nice components. I mentioned them above, but the pinballs that you love around to keep track of where your ball(s) are, that is amazing. It comes with four dry erase boards as well for each of the four pinball tables, as well as four dry erase scoring boards/bonus boards. Really nice components and very nice dry erase markers. The only knock that I have on the dry erase markers is that I want to be able to stick the cap to the back of the marker, and that really didn’t stick well.

Now, the rule books, the rule book is huge and is going to be a bit of effort to get through. This is because they have to explain how each of the tables works and what is unique about it. That is a lot to get through for what looks like it should be a fairly quick game to get to the table. However, they make it easier to get to the table by giving you a cheat sheet to get the simplest of the pinball machines up and going quickly. I like that more games are starting to have their tutorial or shortened rule book to get your going faster.

Roll and Write Comparison

This roll and write feels different than most other ones that I’ve played. Granted, I only played the first introductory machine out of the box thus far. But it feels like it does some fun things, and that it is one that people will find interesting as the table. The theme definitely works for the game. Most roll and write games are pretty themeless, even one of my favorites, Cartographers, that theme really isn’t that there that much.

It also does one thing that I expect in most roll and writes now, and that is limit the downtime. In Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade, downtime doesn’t exist. Well, it exists in one very specific spot. When the dice are rolled, everyone uses the dice. It isn’t one roll per person, it’s a roll for everyone and everyone picks one of the two dice. That means that no one is ever waiting during the bulk of the game. There is one time when you might be waiting. And that is at the end of the game. If you lose your ball before the other player(s) do, you might be sitting there waiting for them to finish so you can compared scores. This is a minimal issue to me because the game goes quite quickly, and it’s one that I have only played solo thus far, I can just see that downtime occurring to some extend every game.

Initial Thoughts

Not final thoughts because I need to play it more, but initial thoughts on the game. I like this roll and write. Now, I like most roll and write games so keep that in mind. But I think that I’ll like this one a lot. It has a good thinky element to it and some solid push your luck in terms of nudging the dice and trying not to get a tilt on the machine. It is also surprisingly thematic for a roll and write which gives it a whole lot more points in my book. I also was really impressed by the level of production in the game.

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Pros

• Established game company
• Cooperative play
• Theme
• Component Quality

Cons

• Price
• Game Play

The Page

Chip Theory Games are definitely a well established company at this point with hits like Too Many Bones and Cloudspire under their belt. Their offices are also within a 2 minute drive of where I work. That said, I think that the page is laid out fine, generally.

I think that the receipt/print out idea with everything you get is cute, but that came before anything game play related. The game play idea gives you an idea of how the game works, and I like that they explain everything while having videos scattered throughout it. In my opinion, you need the printed explanation.

The Game

This game has a lot going on in it. A lot of the Chip Theory Games do, Too Many Bones gives you a lot of interesting choices and little battles to face before you go and face off against the big bad. So many choices.

To me, this game looks a bit like the “everything and the kitchen sink” to get this game working. There are so many things on the board that you have to choose, how you modify your robot for that round, where you are in the burncycle, spending action points, moving around the main board, hacking the system, dealing with threat. This seems like a lot to keep track of. I don’t know that their other games have that much less to keep track of, though when I demoed Too Many Bones at GenCon last year, it did seem like less going on, or fewer things at least to be thinking about. It also seems like a lot with basically mechanics that are similar to roll and move.

Back or Brick

Now, first I will say I accidentally read the title as buncycle with how it is written/font used the first time. I was very interested in a game about rabbit robots fighting against evil corporations, that is not what this game is about. Had I read it right, would I be more interested, possibly? For me this is a brick right now. It’s one that I’d be interested in demoing and seeing how it plays, but there’s just so much stuff in the game and I know from Chip Theory Games the production will be amazing, but I’m trying to figure out how and when I’d play the game, and I just don’t quite see this as a game that’d hit my table all that often or be the easiest sell because of everything that is going on it.

How about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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Pros

• Fun Theme
• Fun Mechanic
• Great Look
• Known Company
• Price

Cons

• Limited Player Counter for Dex game

The Page

This is a well laid out Kickstarter page. What I really like about it is that it highlights the pieces and aesthetic, but also highlights the game and game play. Now, it doesn’t have minis so they don’t have to do all the glamour shots of the minis, but it does a good job of highlighting and getting right to the point of how the game works.

I also like when you can get previous games as well, that helps them keep this game affordable and not need an insanely high number of backers to reach the stretch goals. Add in that Itten isn’t highly distributed in the US that I’ve seen, it means that these games which I have mainly seen at cons are available to a US audience again.

The Game

The game itself seems like a lot of fun. I like dexterity and flicking games generally because they’re good for a light and fun time. And I feel like flicking with the flags and just how the game works, it seems like it is going to have some interesting and different feeling things to it.

I also like that it doesn’t seem too simple or too complicated. With a flicking or dexterity game, I want more going on than just playing Jenga, but I don’t want a lot of convoluted rules about where things can go, and how I have to do everything, because that’s no fun. This looks to hit that balance of a fun game you can play while drinking but also one that you need to think about a little bit.

Back or Brick

So is this game a back or a brick for me? For me this was an easy back. The price is great, I know the company and I know that they make amazing products, I have Tokyo Highway, that are almost art pieces, so I expect the same from this game. I also just love the goofiness of the theme. Plus, the price point and shipping are really good. Compared to a CMON Kickstarter or one with minis, the value is there and the game play looks to be there as well. Now, I like dexterity games a lot, so that colors it a bit for me as well, but a good selling point for me.

So how about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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There are some games out there that are high contact games. Everyone is using the same cards, pieces, pool of resources, and things are just getting touched quite often. A couple of examples of this would be 7 Wonders or Sushi Go Party! where you are passing hands of cards for a draft. Classic games like Monopoly or Clue where you are passing dice and money or cards around, or Scrabble where you are drawing tiles out of the same bag, all of these are going to have more cross contamination potential. Now, we don’t know the precise likelihood of transmitting this disease that way, you’re definitely at more risk just sitting around the table and being in proximity. But if you’ve taken precautions, people are wearing masks, these wouldn’t be your ideal game options.

Instead lets look at games that have limited amounts of contact or potentially no contact.

The first genre of game that makes a lot of sense is roll and write games. Now, not all roll and write games work in this situation. Yahtzee has communal dice that are shared. However, Yahtzee has standard six sided dice, so, if you’re like me, you have plenty of six sided dice lying around for dice for everyone. But more so the roll and write games that are using a communal pool for placing. So games like Welcome To…, Criss Cross, and Second Chance, one person is rolling the dice or flipping the cards that everyone is using for a given round of the game. All you’ll end up with as points of contact as the player sheets and possibly writing utensils. However, I’ve laminated mine, so it’d be easy to wipe those off and the dry erase markers as people are taking them. Even if you haven’t laminated them, a pencil and a piece of paper as single points of contact isn’t bad for a game.

I’d also say that some party games work. Now, some, Catch Phrase or the likes where you are passing something around in a circle won’t work well. But there are others that have a similar roll and write amount of contact. I think that there are ways you can make something like Wits & Wagers work, where instead of having everyone sort and people grabbing random dry erase boards back, you put your own guess in the right spot, numerically and then take it back at the end of the round. Scattergories is another one that would work as you are coming up with answers. If your game is set-up well with the sheets and category lists already in the folder, there would be limited to no contact if you let a single person roll.

Finally, there are some other games that just don’t have much interaction in the game. A few that pop into my head are games like Dice Throne where each character has it’s specific deck, specific cards, and specific player board. So there is no reason to touch the other person’s cards. Skulk Hollow actually has some of that with the two asymmetric sides. While they react and interact with each other, that is only as a game play mechanic, not something that is physically done. Even something like Photosynthesis, which has a shared board, but you only are ever dealing with your own trees on that board. If you have one person who moves the sun around, and you lay out the point chips so that only one person is touching them, it’d be quite easy to have little to no interaction.

Now, the simplest way would be to play the games digitally. As I said, the proximity to people is going to be the bigger thing than the interaction of the game components for your likelihood to catch a disease. Even when there isn’t something like Covid-19 going around, it’s very often that “con-crud” will happen as big gaming conventions where a group of people get sick from being there. And that’s not because of interactions with games or anything, it’s about being around the people. But, if you are concerned about the physical interaction with the components of the game, there are certainly options out there that you can try when playing.

I think the final and best piece of advice I can give for getting games back to your table and starting up gaming after illness is going around, whether it’s the seasonal flu or something like Covid-19, if you’re worried about exposure but you still want to game in person, limit the amount of people you see. Don’t go to the game night at the local FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store), or don’t have your normal fifteen people over, instead, invite a couple or a couple of people to game with and do that a few times with the same people, then you’ve limited your points of contact to the possible infection. That, more than finding those multiplayer low component interaction games is going to make a difference, but those low interaction games won’t hurt either. And then just clean surfaces once people have left, there’s not going to be any ways to completely eliminate risk, but you can be smart about limiting it.

What ideas do you have to starting up your board game night around when people have been sick? Are there any games that don’t require component interaction that you’d play?

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Spells have a lot of different components to them, and if it wasn’t hard enough to already have extra things to track, now you need to figure out which spells you want to take with you into combat.

With spells for most casters, you have a few different things to keep track of. The first is the number of spell slots that you have. If you are a Wizard, and this will be my standard example throughout the post, and you are at 3rd level, you will know 3 cantrips, and a number of spells in your spell book, generally to start that is going to be level plus intelligence modifier So let’s say your intelligence is 3 and your level is 3, you’d have at least 6 spells known. Then you have spells that you have prepared for the day. Again, intelligence plus your level, so you’d be able to prepare at least 6 spells for the day. Finally, you have your spell slots, that’s how many non-cantrip spells you can cast each day, which is 4 first level and 2 second level spells.

Now, as a Wizard, that doesn’t mean that you can cast each of the six spells you prepared once, and you need two second level spells ready to cast. You can cast the same spell all six times as long as it’s a first level spell. Spells can be cast at a higher level, so you can cast first level spells at second level, and you generally get some sort of bonus. So maybe you only use a few spells all the time, but you can prepare more so that you have the utility if you want.

Finally, cantrips are different. Those can be used as many times as you wanted throughout the day. But these spells tend to be weaker spells. It might do less damage or be an easier save, but more likely, if it has a save, it simply won’t do any damage if the person saves against it. These spells, though, sometimes do scale with level, because the spell slots, even at 20th level are still somewhat limited.

But that’s just about preparing your spells for the day for a Wizard. It’s similar for a lot of the other spell casting classes, with Warlock being the biggest exception, I’ll write about the Warlock specifically later. The other question with spells is what does the information mean on the spell itself?

Spells are going to have a handful of basic components. I’m going to be using the spell Thunderwave (found here on DnD Beyond). The first thing we see is the level. Thunderwave is a first level spell. That information isn’t extremely important, you’ll have that noted down on your spell list based off of where you put it. There are a few other things that can be useful, but not always. The school is useful if you are that type of Wizard because it makes it easier for you to learn. The same can sometimes be said for the damage type. Especially at low levels most monsters won’t resist much damage.

The next part is extremely important though, and that’s the casting time. For combat, casting time needs to be like Thunderwave and be an action. There are others that are bonus actions which can be used in combat, but you’re probably not going to be want to cast a spell that takes 1 minute to 1 hour to cast. You’ll be stabbed well before that. Then onto the duration of the spell. In the case of Thunderwave it’s instantaneous, so it’s a one off attack. There will be other spells that last a longer period of time. And the area of the spell, some of them will have a range to them, such as fireball does a sphere of damage at up to a distance away from you. Finally in the spell header information, we have the components for the spell. It might be an actual material or it might mean that you need to do a gesture and say something when you cast the spell. Most spells are going to have a verbal piece to them, but not all of them will.

Then we come to the main body of the spell. This tells you the affect of the spell and what sort of save people need to make against the spell. A lot of that information can be gotten from the header of the spell, but this makes it clearer and spells it out in order of how things will happen. It also tells you how much damage is being dealt and if it’s an attack spell, because not all spells get a save, some you need to make an attack roll for them. And beyond the damage, for a spell like Thunderwave, it tells you more flavor of what is happening, so it makes a loud noise that can be heard for a distance. Finally at the bottom, it tells you what it does if you cast it at a higher level. In the case of Thunderwave, for each higher level, you get an extra die eight of damage (1D8).

Now, this is a pretty dry read, I realize that. I’m really going through and breaking down a spell in detail. Most all spells are going to work like this and most casters are going to work like this. The Warlock is an exception, and some of the other classes, as compared to a Wizard, might not know more spells or have more that their disposal to pick from. I’ll actually give some advice for picking spells in a later article. Let me know what you think of spell casting, is it easy enough to understand, did I help make things clearer?

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