tberton

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    1370

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by tberton

  1. Posted

    Just finished the podcast. You guys really hit the nail on the head about what I like about Tammany Hall, especially how every actions fits in cleanly and sensibly with the theme of the game.

     

    I'm a bit confused about Chris' talk about luck-driven vs. mechanics-driven games. Luck is a mechanic! The dice-rolling in Risk is a very clearly defined and consistently applied mechanic. I think that the better distinction is luck-based design vs. skill-based design, which most games have in different proportions and which Chris seems to prefer. Mechanics-driven games are more opposed to content-driven games (although maybe the better terms would be consistent vs. specific mechanics), which is a distinction that Chris has brought up in the past.

     

    As for the point-of-no-return, yeah, Tammany Hall does have one, but so do most skill-driven games. And while Tammany doesn't have an obvious catch-up mechanic, the way the Mayor and the city offices work (especially the Deputy Mayor) acts as a soft catch-up mechanic, which as you play more you'll realize is what the entire game revolves around.

     

    Also, I may be reading too much into this, but you guys seemed to think that Tammany Hall is a fictionalized setting. It's not and that's part of what makes the game's theme so great.

  2. Posted

    Hi guys, so glad you talked about Tammany Hall on the podcast. I love that game. Just wanted to correct some misconceptions about its release though.

     

    The first edition was the one at Essen 2007 that looked like garbage but that everybody really liked. The second edition came out in 2009 and looks much like the Kickstarter edition: same board art, same box art, etc. The Kickstarter edition added the fancy meeples, office cards, embroidered bag and cleaned up the art slightly. Also, the Kickstarter edition was made available at retail (although I believe it's now sold out), which actually caused some controversy since many retailers got the game before many Kickstarter backers.

     

    Anyway, it's a great game (that also has a great online implementation here). I'm excited to here your impressions.

  3. Posted

    I saw it in a bookstore today (in Toronto). I considered picking it up, but I've got too much else ahead of it on my reading list. I'll probably get it eventually though, since I loved The Sense of an Ending.

  5. Posted

    One Good Story, That One by Thomas King is an awesome collection of short stories focusing on Aboriginals, although in a Canadian context. There's a mix of mythology and more modern day stuff and it doesn't focus too much on a single group (although King is of Cherokee descent, so I think it's probably tinted that way). But in any case, it's just an awesome collection of stories.

  7. Posted

    Just started listening to this episode, but wanted to say a couple things about Neptune's Pride II since I'm in a game right now.

     

    Most of the changes they've made are cosmetic and UI based, just making it easier to communicate with people and stuff. Overall, the design looks a lot better, although I think it's a little too busy in places and I wish the zoom worked on a finer scale.

     

    The gameplay changes mostly relate to research. There are still only three main things to buy at each star (Economy, Industry, Science), but now instead of only having four things to research (Weapons, Speed, Scanning, Range in the original), there are seven: Scanning (lets you see the things that other stars have), Hyperspace (increases your jump range), Terraforming (increases stars' natural resources, making future upgrades cheaper), Weapons (makes you attack stronger), Banking (gets you more money), Manufacturing (gets you more ships) and General Research (every hour, randomly contributes some points to one research stream). There is no longer any way to research faster ships. Instead, you can build Warp Gate Accelerators at stars and when ships are jumping between them, they go 3 times as fast. The Warp Gates are also ludicrously expensive.

     

    They've also made all the formulas in the game far more explicit and straightforward, which is really nice. And they've included a Battle Calculator, which is invaluable.

     

    I'm not sure how I feel about the gameplay changes so far. It's nice to have different strategic avenues, but it feels like it might over-complicate the elegant simplicity of the original. The Warp Gates are an especially double-edged sword: they make certain stars far more valuable, but their expense means they won't get used a ton until the late game, which could slow down the game over all. I'll have to wait and see.

     

    It's interesting to hear you guys talk about the strategic uses of the formal alliance system, since I've yet to play a game with that feature activated. It sounds interesting, but I don't think I would really need it.

     

    Also, if you guys need another player for your game, I would be more than happy to jump in.

  9. Posted

    Whoooo! They read my question!

     

    Just as clarification, because I don't think I was clear about this in my email, I'm not dismissing the Oculus Rift out of hand. Like you guys said on the cast, there is every chance that people will do some incredible stuff with it. I look forward to finding out about it.

     

    I was really using it more as jumping off point for a topic that I've been thinking about a lot for the past few years, which is whether immersion should be so sought after in games. I know that the hand of the author is always present in any work, but there is so much talk in gaming marketing and discussion about how "real" something looks or acts, or how people "forget they're playing a game." Comments like those make it seem like there is a large contingent of designers and players who want to obscure the fact that no matter how real a game's world may look or behave, it is still a specific interpretation of reality and not reality itself.

     

    Basically, I think somebody "forgetting that they're playing a game/watching a movie/reading a book" should not be used as the highest praise we can give any such work. This did get discussed on the podcast, but I just wanted to emphasize that that was the point I was trying to make.

  15. Posted

    I was definitely not recommending Pandemic as a starter for a complete boardgame novice, but rather as one of a couple of fairly lightweight games that would probably be decent ways to ease into specifically cooperative boardgaming. I'm not really a fan of it -or- Forbidden Island because they're too simple for me personally, but I understand that not everyone's willing to just jump into the deep end like I prefer to do. I don't even know what I'd recommend as an introduction to hobbyist boardgaming. Games that are most suitable for that tend to be stuff that doesn't work for me.

     

    Incidentally, for people who like a meatier coop experience, besides Ghost Stories and Yggdrasil (both available on iOS, incidentally), I would also highly, highly recommend Sentinels of the Multiverse. It's a cooperative superhero card game, with 3-5 superheroes (each represented by their own unique deck of cards) facing off against a single powerful supervillain (w/ associated deck) in one of several different hazardous environments (also decks). The basic rules are very straightforward and easy to learn (I haven't even touched the rulebook since the second game except to check how difficult villains are considered to be), but the various decks are all unique and highly thematic, with a dizzying array of possible combinations and interactions. As of now there's a base set, three expansions, and a few addon decks that were stretch goals on Kickstarter projects for the expansions but can be purchased separately now, for a total of 18 heroes, 18 villains, and 10 environments. It's really quite brilliant.

     

    If we're talking awesome co-op games, the best one I've played (and admittedly I haven't played that many) is Hanabi. It's the only co-op game I know of that solves the alpha player problem without resorting to a traitor mechanic or real-time. Basically, it's an abstract card game whre you and your partners have to play the cards down on the table in a specfic order. However, you can't see what cards are in your hand - you only see what cards are in everybody else's hands. The whole game is about giving clues (following a very specific rubric) to your partners so that they know what cards they have and hoping to god that they understnad what you're trying to convey.

     

    It's easy to learn but balls hard to master. I only know of one team that's gotten a perfect score and I'm convinced they cheated. It's getting a North American release this year and I'm super pumped.

  19. Posted

    I like the FM synthesis, but I agree about the new instrumentation. It's funny, because I know there are plenty of people who don't like the switch. However, Rodi seemed to be complaining more about the compositions, not the actual sound quality.

  20. Posted

    I hear you, I really do. The fun and surprising stuff they do with FOE's, also in 3, is the best part of the game. I'm wondering how much the music does for this, because honestly, the music in 3 is SUPER bad. Really horrible, generic shit. Maybe if the music is really good, it becomes much less of a slog? It's entirely possible. I could just check out the demo of 4 to see. Who knows? I bear the game no grudges.

     

    This is my first post in the Idle Forums, so trust my oponion however much you want, but I am stunned at somebody thinking the music in EOIII is bad. The battle theme alone is probabky my favourite video game song ever.

     

    If you didn't like the music in 3, I can pretty certainly say you wouldn't like it in IV, since it's the same composer and the same vibe.

    IV has more gameplay variety than III and has a lot of usability tweaks, but if you didn't like the core gameplay of III, I doubt you'll find much difference. The fun of EO is a combination of exploring and mapping out the dungeon, feeling your party grow and experimenting with skills and party builds. If none of that appeals to you, then the eries just isn't for you.