Solomon Kane is a fanatic English Puritan, who feels invested with a divine mission in a dark and Gothic sixteenth century. Tormented and ambiguous, he travels the world to eliminate Evil when he meets him... And he meets him often! Evil can take the form of brigands and criminals as well as ghosts, vampires and other lovecraftian monsters. But where the protagonists of Lovecraft are victims, Solomon Kane arises as a judge and pitiless executioner. The game designer is Jake Thornton, a famous English author having signed games at Games Workshop and Mantic before joining Mythic Games.
The artist is Guillem H. Pongiluppi, an incredible artist who previously worked on Mythic Battles. To ensure fidelity and respect for Howard's vision, we got the licence through Cabinet Entertainment and hired a luxury consultant: Patrice Louinet, a world-renowned expert of this author. Solomon Kane is a cooperative and narrative game, for 2 to 4 players. It allows to relive the stories of Solomon Kane as described in the short novels. The only notable difference is that players will be able to influence the story. Each player embodies one of the four cardinal virtues (Courage, Temperance, Prudence and Justice), invisible forces capable of inspiring Solomon Kane in difficult times. If Solomon Kane succeeds the adventure, all the players have won. If he fails, the players lost and the Evil scored a victory.
The game will be launched this year on Kickstarter.
Come see our booth in Cannes, we have many surprises to unveil!
You will be able to follow the progress of the Solomon Kane project on this page and on various specialized sites!
To see the video of the first teaser in high resolution, visit our YouTube channel:
Man, this'll be a tough one to pass up...but I also think it's one of the riskier things they've tried to sell. I can see this not blowing up as big as some of their others.
Solomon Kane is not a hugely or widely known IP compared to the other stuff they've tackled. Will be very intrigued to see where this goes.
I am interested to see how the game actually plays. From the description provided it sounds like 2 - 4 players have an influence over a single character model with each player representing a virtual to influence Kane - Courage, Temperance, Prudence and Justice. Think that will be a hard sell for some gamers.
Surprised they are not including solo play as game is purely co-op and they made an effort to include at least some solo gameplay options within Joan of Arc.
I was wavering on Batman anyway (although the recent Year Zero model had peaked my interest again) and I think this may take it's place in my collection.
I love Soloman Kane, would love to back the kickstarter but I STILL haven't received by Mythic Battles Pantheon KS I paid for. neither Mythic and their shipping agent in the US respond to my emails.
Mythic Battles was a joint production of Mythic (design / rules) and Monolith (Production and shipping). Monolith recently took over full ownership of the game and Mythic are no longer involved at all in Mythic Battles.
Monolith are the ones who have always been in charge of production and shipping and as they are no longer involved in the game Mythic won’t be able to answer any shipping issues, only Monolith can.
Given that Soloman Kane is still in an early design stage I can’t see if hitting Kickstarter before late summer so hopefully you will have your Mythic Battle delivery issues resolved by then.
MattW wrote: I’m intrigued, but I don’t know the stories. What kind of things does he fight? Any big nasties?
The stories are worth reading. He fights ghosts and bandits and that kind of thing. The Solomon Kane stories have a very Warhammer Fantasy feel, as they inspired a lot of the flavor for the witch hunters in WHFB.
I am all over this, as I love Solomon Kane. Each player acting as as different virtue sounds really interesting, but also like it could get boring. It is certainly not a concept I've seen executed elsewhere, so I'm excited to see how it works out.
Gallahad wrote: Each player acting as as different virtue sounds really interesting, but also like it could get boring. It is certainly not a concept I've seen executed elsewhere, so I'm excited to see how it works out.
Go ask your Dad.
Original not-so-serious speculation was that this game might be like Herman's Head, but, from the look of the prototype, it looks like the kid's games, where the IP had only one main character, but each player played a different color -- the blue guy, the green guy, etc. The Six Million Dollar Man game (go ask your Dad) had four pawns, and you can see that they're all the main character, just different colors. He may need to ask *his* Dad who Uncle Wiggly was, but, again, in the UW game, each player played Uncle, but a difference color. SK looks like a modern version of this, where each color has unique abilities. In the Yogi Bear game (maybe uncle remembers), each player was Yogi Bear *and* Boo Boo -- the blue plastic pawn and blue wooden disk representing blue Yogi and Boo Boo, the red plastic pawn and red wooden disk representing red Yogi and Boo Boo...
Now I'm going to have to go try Uncle Wiggly out- I've got a copy in my game closet in my classroom that was "donated" to me (which is read as 'dumped unceremoniously onto my floor when a coworker retired along with a pile of other games and classroom supplies').
It'll at least give me an idea of what this could potentially play like.
"This is why you will play the divine entities this religious zealot believes in deeply. The four Cardinal Virtues: immortal, invisible forces with very different essences. Courage can aid Solomon Kane during his fighting and movement. Justice will help our hero during discussions. Temperance will help him discover and explore. Finally, Prudence will aid him in controlling the surrounding danger level. Each player personifies one of these four Virtues in order to help Solomon Kane on his quest to eradicate evil and darkness from the world. ... Every adventure is divided into ‘Chapters’, each of which has its own conditions for determining where the story will head to next. Based on how well you do in the Chapter, you can find the next Chapter begins easier or more difficult for you. Sometimes you may skip Chapters, or head down one path instead of another, depending on your actions in the Chapter. ... The game consists of both ‘Story’ Chapters and ‘Scene’ Chapters. The former are not played using the miniatures and the game board, but instead the story is read out, and each player has one turn to influence where the Chapter will go. In Scene Chapters, you will set up a modular board comprised of one or more tiles, placing them and the miniatures according the Chapter’s instructions. You will have a limited number of turns in which to complete as many of the Chapter’s conditions as possible. ...
We chose 35mm as the scale because it allows us to display a high level of detail, especially in miniatures which are digitally sculpted. ... The core box will offer many exceptional miniatures, but the centerpieces are the four Virtues. These stand 90mm tall. ...
The ‘Puritan Pledge’ will be the basic pledge. It will be cost $110 and come with a core box containing three Adventures consisting of 6 Acts overall, comprising around fifty Chapters! There is a lot of gameplay in the core box even before you look to play any of the Acts again. ...
We will offer an Early Bird during the first 24 hours of the campaign. This will be an exclusive single Act adventure, and every backer who takes the Puritan Pledge during the first 24 hours of the campaign will get it. This Adventure is an adaptation of the short story ‘The Right Hand of Doom’ by Robert E. Howard. It will use the core box miniatures plus an exclusive miniature of ‘the Hand’. This promotional add-on will have its own Chapter cards and Discovery cards, specific to this adventure. ... Take careful note of the launch time: Tuesday, June 12th at 8pm BST/3pm EDT. If you take a Puritan Pledge before Wednesday, June 13th 8pm BST/3pm EDT you will receive this Adventure for free, in addition to the core box and every unlocked stretch goal. "
I know that more will be added etc. but the initial offering looks pretty anemic. It doesn't seem to be funding as quickly as I expected, and the light value out of the gate may be to blame.
My guesses are...
* Solomon Kane isn't as popular an IP as some others we've seen (eg. Batman)
* We've had a fair number of miniature-based KS recently (including AD1666).
* 32 mm makes the miniatures incompatible with 28mm figures.
* Mythic Games hasn't delivered Joan of Arc, yet.
* While most backers are from the US and are on BGG, Mythic, not surprisingly, does more support in France and Tric Trac.
Preemptive Edit: Yes, that's why I mentioned the last two last.
I think they would have been better off including more in the box from the get go, and letting us skip over the initial "this was always going to be in the box" phase of stretch goals.
My issue is I don't know what else I'd use the minis for. With all these mini heavy boardgames I need another use to justify them as the base game rarely gets played. So that usually means with my group RPG stuff. I guess WFRPG if I ever do that system but I'm not sold on the uniqueness or volume delivered to justify the money.
Also, for those quoting 32mm, it's actually 35mm. So same as guild ball and WWX.
Monkeysloth wrote: My issue is I don't know what else I'd use the minis for. With all these mini heavy boardgames I need another use to justify them as the base game rarely gets played. So that usually means with my group RPG stuff. I guess WFRPG if I ever do that system but I'm not sold on the uniqueness or volume delivered to justify the money.
Also, for those quoting 32mm, it's actually 35mm. So same as guild ball and WWX.
Well, I think they are 35mm to the top of the head, which may be the 32mm to the eyes scale of other lines. At least that is my understanding.
So you can send Solomon Kane against some frogmen and nazis.
And Hellboy against witch hunters and villagers?
But yeah, It's not nice to change the scale so that these can't be used with other minis lines. Otherwise this would be a great source for medieval(ish) civilians for fantasy games?
Anyway, I love the 5 virtues models, so will be taking part in this KS. I'm even looking forward on playing the game!
So you can send Solomon Kane against some frogmen and nazis.
And Hellboy against witch hunters and villagers?
But yeah, It's not nice to change the scale so that these can't be used with other minis lines. Otherwise this would be a great source for medieval(ish) civilians for fantasy games?
Anyway, I love the 5 virtues models, so will be taking part in this KS. I'm even looking forward on playing the game!
I'm fairly certain that these are 35mm to the top of the head, whereas the Hellboy Nazis are 40mm to the top of the head. I'll ask in the comments just to be sure.
Edit: I asked and they confirmed that the average male is 35mm to the top of the head, substantially smaller than a Hellboy Nazi.
Thats a lot of gaming material and miniatures, for such a small game. It looks pretty bloated for me. Complicated mechanics and a pile of plastic usually speak against a quick round of playing. And in the time I set this up, I can also set up a real TT or a couple of rounds Halli Galli.
Papa-Schlumpf wrote: Thats a lot of gaming material and miniatures, for such a small game. It looks pretty bloated for me. Complicated mechanics and a pile of plastic usually speak against a quick round of playing. And in the time I set this up, I can also set up a real TT or a couple of rounds Halli Galli.
Each story arc uses only fraction of the models, maps and cards. So you don't have everything on the table in the same time. If you keep the minis and cards well organized, I don't see the setup taking a long time at all. The rules don't seem to be that much complicated either. All of the instructions (what you need to achieve in the particular game) seems to be on the cards (which you resolve one at time before moving to the next card depending the outcome of the last card).
The engine seems to be about efficient resource management and co-operation between the players.
Also, there is a save feature, so you don't have to finish the story arc in one sitting. If the save feature is anything like in 7th continent, the setup time to continue the game is miniscule.
Don't know what a real TT or Halli Galli is, so cannot compare the set up times for those.
If real TT means tabletop miniatures game, those games have pretty long set up times. You propably get lots of Halli Galli (whatever that is) in instead.
Papa-Schlumpf wrote: Thats a lot of gaming material and miniatures, for such a small game. It looks pretty bloated for me. Complicated mechanics and a pile of plastic usually speak against a quick round of playing. And in the time I set this up, I can also set up a real TT or a couple of rounds Halli Galli.
Each story arc uses only fraction of the models, maps and cards. So you don't have everything on the table in the same time. If you keep the minis and cards well organized, I don't see the setup taking a long time at all. The rules don't seem to be that much complicated either. All of the instructions (what you need to achieve in the particular game) seems to be on the cards (which you resolve one at time before moving to the next card depending the outcome of the last card). The engine seems to be about efficient resource management and co-operation between the players.
Also, there is a save feature, so you don't have to finish the story arc in one sitting. If the save feature is anything like in 7th continent, the setup time to continue the game is miniscule.
Don't know what a real TT or Halli Galli is, so cannot compare the set up times for those. If real TT means tabletop miniatures game, those games have pretty long set up times. You propably get lots of Halli Galli (whatever that is) in instead.
Halli Galli is a very fast-playing card game (and with a bell!). It has virtually no set-up time, so you can play lots of Halli Galli in the time it takes you to set up any larger game. It is popular in the Netherlands and Germany, but I have never seen it anywhere else so I am not surprised you haven't heard of it.
@Col Hammer: The preparations you describe to set it up sound like the same for setting up a 40k round. And you described the engine very good, but the overlaying game could achieve this with less material. Hence, there will always be a learning phase for new players, which could be not so fun. As for the plastic for me there is the question: is it worth the additional price and storage space? Or could cardboard or tokens have done the job?
This is Halli Galli, also called Tutti Frutti (I found a English version and thought that it is more international, but @Iron_Captain already cleared that)
Spoiler:
It has superior setup time, no rulebook is needed, is cheaper, additional players are added easy, fast rounds, travel friendly and the most important thing: it makes fun.
For me this game is the benchmark for other games. Of course tabletop is another niche that satisfies other demands, like strategic depth, balancing, lore,....
But also here it is so, that when the work for a game is much bigger than the fun, I´m out. And Kane looks like too much work for the payoff. Maybe I have to see more actual game footage, to change my mind.
Of interest to those who are interested in the psychology and economics of KS:
The campaign is currently losing backers:
I think Mythic wasted the initial momentum on painfully fake stretch goals, and are now stuck with a core game that is not competitive with retail games at a similar price point despite raising $600k+.
I got a little traction in the comments yesterday with my concerns, but who knows if Mythic is listening.
Indeed. Makes me wonder how much of Mythic Battles success was influenced by how Monolith wanted to run a campaign as Mythic really pulled a meh with this.
If they allowed for just add ons I'd consider Heart of Africa but I don't need or care for the core game.
Monkeysloth wrote: Indeed. Makes me wonder how much of Mythic Battles success was influenced by how Monolith wanted to run a campaign as Mythic really pulled a meh with this.
If they allowed for just add ons I'd consider Heart of Africa but I don't need or care for the core game.
I'm an enormous Kane fan, and even I am pretty "meh" about the current core box.
It just doesn't have enough content to justify the price+wait. I can get more miniatures plus reportedly fantastic gameplay out of Bloodrage for less than half the price...
You can usually get some really good deals via boardgame geek from people selling the base game and extras for the price of it new at amazon.
I think the issue at hand is all the components are a huge cost sink and lots of people, like me, look at these KS exclusive games as ways just to get cheap minis.
With Monolith and CMoN you get a board or two and a few cards but nothing you don't feel you wasted money on if you just bought for minis. With this game I feel like half the price is in the board game components I'll never use -- which is perfectly fine as it is a boardgame. But Mythic being Mythic wants to sell it on it's minis and there's just not enough there to justify it.
It's nice if you plan on playing the game, but i'm uncertain if it will be enough to really pull in the 'just the minis' crew as it's 'only' 7 more and the expansion is heavy on the gameplay components that they aren't interested in
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: It's a bit strange, I'm exactly the target audience for this as I'm a big Howard and Solomon Kane fan,
the game has a solo mode which I value as my chances to play with others is limited,
I like the look of the minis (especially the African expansion)
and I believe the game will deliver and deliver with good minis (for PVC which i'm happy enough with for this sort of project)
and I even find the gameplay looks interesting (it's certainly something different)
but I just can't get as excited as I feel I want to about the project
I feel exactly the same way. I've slowed my hobby purchases for a couple months now in anticipation of this campaign, but it doesn't quite have me fired up yet. I'm a big REH and Solomon fan, I can't quite figure out what isn't clicking. I like cooperative games and solo play... I think some of the miniature sculpts are a little bit subpar, while others look great... I don't think the value is quite there for the core box yet, but I think it will get there before end of the campaign now with the add-on...
I don't know! I do know that the Akaanas in the Africa expansion b are basically a dream come true for me, now if only we could get more sculpts...
Papa-Schlumpf wrote: @Gallahad: Imagine sleeving them all at once. Will it be 1k cards or more?
Also playing this in another language than your own, must be tiresome.
Ohhhh man...(shudder) that thought alone might be though to drive my fragile mind right over the brink and into the soft embrace of some nameless horror.
I just don't have time for games that you have to sink 45 mins into setup for.
I keep looking at those Black Riders and seeing Mounted Guild Guard for Malifaux.
I can glue a spare firearm on their saddle somewhere and they're perfect.
Might be that it's co-op and story driven. I'm not really picky about that kind of thing but some people really are. Also they keep changing rules based off of comments. Everytime they do a live video something about how the game is played is differnet so some people may be wary because of that.
My reason for not backing for just the game is if I'm going to play a long campaign based co-op game I'll just play KD:Monster.
Monkeysloth wrote: Might be that it's co-op and story driven. I'm not really picky about that kind of thing but some people really are. Also they keep changing rules based off of comments. Everytime they do a live video something about how the game is played is differnet so some people may be wary because of that.
My reason for not backing for just the game is if I'm going to play a long campaign based co-op game I'll just play KD:Monster.
They keep changing the rules based off of their playtesting, not because it was asked in the comments.
Write a ruleset > playtest > change a rule if playtesting points to unbalance (too easy, too hard, too clunky whatever).
Papa-Schlumpf wrote: @Gallahad: Imagine sleeving them all at once. Will it be 1k cards or more?
Also playing this in another language than your own, must be tiresome.
Ohhhh man...(shudder) that thought alone might be though to drive my fragile mind right over the brink and into the soft embrace of some nameless horror.
I just don't have time for games that you have to sink 45 mins into setup for.
Why do you need to sleeve them all at once? Just sleeve the cards of one adventure at time. You don't need every card at once.
Where you get the 45 minute set up time for the game session? Was it said somewhere?
To me this game looks like it will set up fast when you need only handful of miniatures and cards for each adventure. The rest will stay in box until you are ready to play a new adventure. Since each adventure takes 10 or 20 hours to play through, you won't need to change the card sets too often.
I watched a good 20 mins of the gameplay video. Ooof. This is not my kind of game. I have really limited gametime, and the majority of the action in this game comes from random card draws and player interaction. The game seems focused on the least interesting parts of the Solomon Kane stories (the walking, talking, etc.). I'm going to start advocating for some way to get just the miniatures from this campaign, I don't know if I can justify spending that much money on a game that just doesn't fit my current needs (fast and furious tactical action with minimal setup).
Each adventure is divided into number of acts. Each act focuses on different things.
For example last nights gameplay. One act where SK is trying to sneak past the cannibal scouts in the jungle. So no fighting in this act.
Second act is SK getting a breather. He is trying to calm down and rest while the darkness is concentrating on him.
The third act has SK on the run again as the cannibals have found him. As the whole tribe is chasing him, it would be a suicide for him to stand his ground and fight. So he is running for his life.
The gameplay example stopped here, but in the upcoming acts SK would have chance to fight opponents. He will have to face the monster birds after all. There would be acts where he will just talk to people too.
So each act has him do different things that take the story forward.
Each act also has different endings that affects the next acts. For example if he manages to sneak by the sentries unnoticed, the next acts start differently than if the sentries notice him and raise the alarm.
Looks like they're almost back up to the number of backers they had when I went to bed last night as this morning they had lost some.
They keep changing the rules based off of their playtesting, not because it was asked in the comments.
Which is fine. I wasn't clear originally. It wasn't because of comments changes were being made but that people were complaining about the constant rule changes in the comments. If you've got 3 videos showing how your game plays and all 3 have a different version of how specific game play works it's looks bad for your game.
Also it sounds like, from a Leo Live, that they need to bring in about double what they've currently raised for the game to make a profit for them. But at the same time Joan of Arc raised over 2 million in it's pledge manager so they can probably cover the difference without canceling if they wanted too.
It's nice if you plan on playing the game, but i'm uncertain if it will be enough to really pull in the 'just the minis' crew as it's 'only' 7 more and the expansion is heavy on the gameplay components that they aren't interested in
Not just only 7 figures, but the 4 riders seem to be the same sculpt x4.
Lots of people are asking for a solo mode without virtues and I think that's something that may be hurting this. The co-op where you all help one specific figure is very intresting concept but I think people that are normally attracted to a long campaign style game like this want their own characters with loot progression and this isnt' really the setting that lends itself to either of those
I wonder if the concept would work with a cheaper, more abstract game where you don't have wargaming sized figures that are expensive with expensive maps? Or at the very least only a figure for Soloman. Trying to go for a $100+ boardgame by targeting people who like minis seams like it was a bad idea for how this plays.
I think a $60 game with only one mini and a more reusable board system would probably be doing much better right now as there wouldn't be plastic crack front and center instead the narrative game play.
I think one thing that's hurting it is not having the rules more nailed down.
Potential backers are seeing what looks like a finished game in terms of sculpts, cards, art etc and wondering where the rules are
and saying they're coming is even more frustrating as it implies they're almost done which begs the question couldn't you have delayed until they were (well with advertsing, BoW appearances, conventions etc that may not have been feasible but that's not something that many hesitant backers will consider)
The game also doesn't seem to be picking up steam in the backer department. I think a lot of people are having the same realization as I am: this game is more like a scrolling shooter than a miniatures skirmish game. You don't have much freedom over where you go or what you do, the game is pretty guided by the narrative text, and your choices in any scenario are pretty constrained. Most of the "gameplay" in this game comes from the text on the cards, which is why they can't do the game in more than two languages, because they basically have to remake the whole game for every language.
Here are the suggestions I will post in the KS comments for how to get the backer number up:
I watched some of the gameplay video and realized that this game style is not for me. However, as a huge fan of Solomon Kane, I want this project to succeed. Despite adding more content to the core box, the game is not picking up traction with backers. I think many are having the same realization that I had after watching the gameplay videos. It is hard to justify the price for a game where most of the value is in the part that you aren't interested in (the massive amount of cards, narrative, story, etc.). Here are a few suggestions for how to help the game funding total:
1) Miniatures only add-ons. This way you can still keep people at the higher price point of a puritan pledge in order to have access to the add-ons, but "inspire" them to add-on miniatures for collecting, etc. For example, I would buy 2x-3x of the Heart of Africa expansion if it came in at a lower price point, and with only miniatures. Jake aka Quirkworthy keeps hinting that most of the cost of the components of the game comes from the cardboard elements, so you should be able to sell just the miniatures at a good premium. For example, at $35, I'd bet that 50% of your backers would pick one up. The advantage of this approach is it doesn't require any new molds to be made, etc.
2) Keep the miniatures only add-ons in big bundles, and keep some miniatures exclusive to core (like the Virtues). As a plastic addict, I am constantly suckered into buying miniatures I don't "need" if they come bundled in with miniatures that I must absolutely have. For example, the Akaanas from the africa expansion are a dream come true for me. I would buy 10 packs of them if they were sold separately. But as I stated above, I'd still buy 2x-3x minis only Heart of Africa expansions for the right price.
3)Alternate poses of existing sculpts. This isn't as economical of just making more of the miniatures already sculpted, but variety in miniatures is a big bonus, and while it would require a new mold to be made, it wouldn't require a whole new miniature to be sculpted, it would just require your digital sculptor to do some reposing.
Miniature only add-ons solves your problem of all the people who came here looking for a miniature skirmish game, they can get the miniatures, and then use them in any variety of stellar existing miniature skirmish games. Getting some money from this group of people is much better than none at all.
I agree with pretty much everything you said Gallahad. As it stands I will most likely drop my pledge, which is a shame as there are some really nice minis in it... but not enough to justify $110 on a game I will never play.
I asked in the Leo Live Thursday if there would be a possibility to buy more of the generic minis like the townsfolk and soldiers. Leo said absolutely no. So, your idea for mini packs doesn't seem likely. I would stick around if they did do a minis only pledge. But as it stands this doesn't seem to be aimed at miniature gamers despite being a game with miniatures.
Well it's starting to slide backwards money wise. It's held off doing so because a group of backers in the comments started pledging 300 which is a reported all in that would eventually be releveled but too many people have left.
There are now people in the comments stating the KS should be canceled and the game redesigned. Ouch. Pretty crazy to see something with around 6k backers being called a failure. Makes me think Monoliths plan of making the game and just having a KSer with all the goodies ready to ship to backers might be the future of these high cost to produce games.
Doing more poses will require not just altering a digital sculpt, but also doing a whole new mould for a whole new miniature. Expensive.
Doing a mould for one miniature and then printing duplicates of it is not expensive for doing several copies of the minature. Doing two moulds for two miniatures and then printing less amount of copies each will cost way more even if you end up with same number of minis as before.
The game already includes a lot of unique sculpts. I think most number of copies of a single sculpt is four. So there are not that many dublicates.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Quirkworthy said that the rulebook will be posted in wednesday.
Monkeysloth wrote: Well it's starting to slide backwards money wise. It's held off doing so because a group of backers in the comments started pledging 300 which is a reported all in that would eventually be releveled but too many people have left.
There are now people in the comments stating the KS should be canceled and the game redesigned. Ouch. Pretty crazy to see something with around 6k backers being called a failure. Makes me think Monoliths plan of making the game and just having a KSer with all the goodies ready to ship to backers might be the future of these high cost to produce games.
I'm not so sure, just imagine what would happen if they'd done so here (expecting a take of over $1.2M which I've seen bandied about as what they need to take a profit), a big loss, lots of unsold copies which they couldn't even dump into retail as they promised it was KS exclusive, and even if they did they'd get less than cost for them based on what distribution was prepared to pay for Conan.
That sort of gamble could sink a company. The CMON version is a lot less risky doing it with stuff that is going to go to retail any way so if the KS doesn't do as well as hoped you could sell your way out of it.. although whether distribution would be keen on a game that 'failed' to interest the gaming market on KS at normal 'list prices' i'm unconvinced (and since they switched kick-ass back to retail only maybe they found it wasn't as viable as they hoped)
As we said earlier, we need to do a better job of explaining the game. The rules are being worked on now, and will be available on Wednesday. In the meantime, here is the first in a series of updates about important key concepts and features of the game.
Before we delve into the details, we need to look at the core structure of the game. This is the essential framework into which everything else fits, and will help to make sense of all that follows. It may also help you to understand how much content there already is in the core box, even before you add the many stretch goals.
The Solomon Kane board game is a re-telling of the famous tales by Robert E Howard. They are stories of high adventure, swashbuckling derring-do, and villainous skullduggery. Our hero is an implacable foe of evil, and never hesitates to do the right thing, no matter the cost to his own safety.
The game reflects something of the structure of the books, and uses terms that mirror the way stories are told in print: Adventure, Act, and Chapter.
An Adventure is the name we use for a whole tale. Each Adventure recreates one of Howard’s novels or short stories, such as Red Shadows, Rattle of Bones, or Wings in the Night. As Howard’s original stories are of various lengths, so are our Adventures.
We break each Adventure down into one or more Acts. Each Act takes a long gaming session of several hours to complete. The exact time it takes varies with the number of players, their experience, and the choices they make. Alternatively, you can play an Act over several sessions, using the save system that comes with the core game to keep track, so you can pick up where you left off.
Each Act is divided into 10 Chapters, each with its own set of cards. However, each Chapter is not a single, fixed step in the tale. Instead, Chapters have variants (Chapter 3A, 3B, or 3C). A few rare Chapters have only one version, most come in 3 flavours, and a few have up to 5 or even 6 possibilities. When you play through an Act, you will only see one version of each Chapter at most, and depending on your choices and actions, you may not see any of some of them. This is because the tale Howard told is only one of the possible ways a story could be resolved, and here we offer you many more futures for you to guide Solomon Kane through. You may follow the path that was written, or you may carve Kane’s destiny anew.
Each Chapter is either a story or a scene.
A scene Chapter is like a scene in a movie. It is one of the important moments of the plot, where a key fight, conversation, search, flight, interrogation, pursuit, or anything else dramatic and important to the narrative takes place. These are the parts of the game that use the board and miniatures. In the background of the normal world of Solomon Kane and his adversaries lurk the immaterial forms of the Shadows and Virtues who fight their own battles for Kane’s soul. You might want to think of each scene Chapter as the equivalent of a scenario you’d see in a game like Stuffed Fables or Mice & Mystics, or (to a lesser degree) like Mythic Battles or Joan of Arc. This means that there are many dozens of “scenarios” in the core box.
A story Chapter is a short narrative link between scenes. These are not set up on the board. Instead, they give the players a moment to catch their collective breath and prepare for the next onslaught. It is usually a time for players to discuss their plans for the future, and what way they can best use this interlude to bolster themselves, and Solomon Kane, for his upcoming challenges.
An Act typically includes about 60-70% scene Chapters.
So, if you played a whole Act in your gaming session, you would usually play through 5-6 scenes, and interleave some story Chapters between them.
Replayability
A natural side effect of this number of alternative paths through a story is a large amount of replayability. Every time you play an Act, you will see less than 30% of the Chapter cards.
As you only see a minority of the Chapter cards each time, you are likely to miss whole threads of the plot. The next time you play may take you down a whole new path. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
In The Blue Flame of Vengeance, Solomon Kane has to decide whether or not to follow young Jack, and possibly help him if the dubious characters he is with start causing any trouble (which they may – who knows?). Normally, he would not hesitate to go to the assistance of an innocent in potential peril. However, there are also rumours that the vessel of the pirate captain Fishhawk has been seen just off the coast, and Kane has been trying to get his hands on the villain for years. Every time Kane has got close, the vile cutthroat has slipped through his fingers at the last moment. The trail seems fresh right now. If Kane waits then Fishhawk will surely be gone. Now is the moment to scour the coastline, and hunt through the grog houses and taverns. If he is truly here, that’s where he will be hiding. You must choose one of these paths, and you cannot do both. Whichever choice you make, the other plot will continue without you on its own path. The echoes of the actions you did not take will reappear later, with the outcome differing from the one you could have created. Like real life, you make choices, and have to deal with the consequences.
I’m trying to avoid too many spoilers, so lets be a bit more generic for a second example. Hero or not, there are several tales of Howard’s tales in which Solomon Kane is captured. In the game, this may or may not happen, because we have expanded on Howard’s work to include many “what if’s”. What if he saved the Traveller in the Skulls in the Stars, or failed to save Mary in Blue Flame? What if he didn’t get captured, or if he did at another point in the story?
Another good example of story divergence is with these episodes in captivity. Obviously you won’t see the Chapters about the escape from the cells if Kane doesn’t get captured in the first place. And sometimes your fellow prisoners can be important characters too, like the ancient priest in the Moon of Skulls. Not meeting him makes the story progress on quite a different line.
Perhaps it would also be helpful to compare the Solomon Kane game to a book or film. Most people are happy to re-read a favourite book many times, or watch the same film over and over. Books and films don’t change at all, and yet for almost everyone there is no problem with repeated reading or viewing. The fact that we know how they end doesn’t deter us. So why is it a problem here? Our Adventures have even more reason to return as they do change each time, they do have differing endings, and you are part of creating the story. A new one every time.
As always, if you are interested in any of our add-ons, simply click on the green “manage your pledge” button near the top of the page. Then increase your total by the amount of any add-ons you wish to include in your pledge. So, if you have a Puritan pledge ($110) and want to add the Heart of Africa ($55), you would increase your total to $165. If you decide to add Right Hand of Doom later ($10), simply click on the green “manage your pledge” button again, and add that amount to your total. You can change your pledge as many times as you want while the campaign is running.
Note that during the campaign there is no way for you to tell us what the money you pledge is actually for, so don’t worry about that now. Instead, after the Kickstarter is over we will send you a “pledge manager”. This allows you to tell us exactly how you want to allocate your pledge, which add-ons you would like, how many core boxes, and (most importantly) where we need to send it all!
I'll be curious to see if they decide to stay the course and just put out even more playthrough videos and resign themselves to a much lower total than they had hoped, or if they try to make some large adjustments to bring in more backers.
The last update further convinced me that the gameplay will hew too close to REH stories to make it interesting for me. If I want great Solomon Kane narrative, I can just read the books. It sounds like they basically turned every SK story into a giant "choose your own adventure" with randomness added in from card draws and dice rolls.
Gallahad wrote: I'll be curious to see if they decide to stay the course and just put out even more playthrough videos and resign themselves to a much lower total than they had hoped, or if they try to make some large adjustments to bring in more backers.
The last update further convinced me that the gameplay will hew too close to REH stories to make it interesting for me. If I want great Solomon Kane narrative, I can just read the books. It sounds like they basically turned every SK story into a giant "choose your own adventure" with randomness added in from card draws and dice rolls.
That was the premise of the SK gameplay from the start. The whole point was to turn the SK stories into a boardgame, not a miniature skirmish game.
I hope most of the "but I thought it was going to be a skirmish game" crowd has already left By now and we can start knockind down those stretch goals again.
Gallahad wrote: I'll be curious to see if they decide to stay the course and just put out even more playthrough videos and resign themselves to a much lower total than they had hoped, or if they try to make some large adjustments to bring in more backers.
The last update further convinced me that the gameplay will hew too close to REH stories to make it interesting for me. If I want great Solomon Kane narrative, I can just read the books. It sounds like they basically turned every SK story into a giant "choose your own adventure" with randomness added in from card draws and dice rolls.
That was the premise of the SK gameplay from the start. The whole point was to turn the SK stories into a boardgame, not a miniature skirmish game.
I hope most of the "but I thought it was going to be a skirmish game" crowd has already left By now and we can start knockind down those stretch goals again.
I don't think the "this is what it was supposed to be from the start" argument is very reasonable since we only really started getting a clear idea of the actual mechanics in the last couple of days. There is also a difference between a game about/featuring Solomon Kane and a game that just retells all of the Solomon Kane stories basically word for word.
I think that most backers didn't expect it to be a Skirmish game, but they did expect it to be fun, and they did expect it to be a game rather than a sort of narrative adventure with some game elements. I mean, while the design is certainly novel, they managed to make a game of REH stories look very boring. I certainly did expect a game centered around combat and action, and that certainly isn't this game. Instead of cutting to the action for the game scenarios, they aren't cutting anything so we are getting thrilling scenarios like "talk to these villagers" and "walk down 10 meters of path".
The minis are all right and the game itself looks all right. Long, but all right.
And that's the problem. It's all right.
It's not amazing and there's nothing about the models that is cool and unique that would make me want them.
It's starting to do a backward slide, and it's obviously because everything seems a bit schizophrenic. In that they're pushing the game play heavily, but can't really explain it fully. Yet they're showing all the minis with oohs and ahhs.
If you're selling me on the game play, the explanations seem obscure and the game itself looks pretty dull. To me it looks like and RPG with one character that we all share and the DM is the cards.
If you're selling me on the miniatures, there's nothing in the pledge that makes me jump and say Wow!
It falls flat in all areas and doesn't draw me in with the game play or the minis. That and it looks as though the entire thing needs a lot more development.
Why was a rulebook not ready for launch if it's the game that is more heavily weighed?
I tried to watch the Beasts of War Let's Play. Several times. Fortunately, I knew the short story it was based on and knew what was going to happen. Very dull, uninspiring game play. Doubly so for something based on 1930's Pulp action-horror swashbuckling from the Robert E. Howard (who also wrote Conan). This game pretty much invoked the exact opposite of what I would expect from a Solomon Kane game. It might have been an okay entry back in 2006, but doesn't hold a candle to more modern board games.
The dice phase seemed like FFG Elder Sign. The Moving Solomon Kane felt like that part in Legend of Zelda II in the over world where you tried to dodge monsters to avoid a random encounter. It also kinda seemed like it was trying to capture some Kingdom Death: monster in its narrative and single game board miniatures play, but I think that's just me.
It seems pretty clear the writer doesn't understand the appeal (and some of the pit falls) of co-op games as this one of the worst I have seen in quite sometime. It also appears there is little to no understanding of the source material and the game seems to clumsily ape.
The miniatures look nice enough. If I was planning to ever run a Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane tabletop game again, I definitely would look into getting them. But I would try and sell/give away the game. Which is pretty bad considering I like and play GW's Betrayal at Calth and normally give games a try.
I find it surprising that there is even going to be a solo mode.
Jake Thorton is one of the design leads, who was absolutely disinterested in doing any sort of solo rules when he was working on Dungeon Saga, a game that many were clamoring to have solo/ co-op rules from the very beginning.
Jake Thorton is one of the design leads, who was absolutely disinterested in doing any sort of solo rules when he was working on Dungeon Saga, a game that many were clamoring to have solo/ co-op rules from the very beginning.
Since this game is full co-op, adding solo mode should not be that hard.
In fact the game will contain: 2-4 player co-op, solo mode (play 1-4 virtues alone), solo mode (play 1 Super virtue Providence) and 1 VS 1-4 players (Darkness vs. Virtues mode)
Really seams like I'm beating a dead horse at this point but I'm fascinated by this project since I can't remember the last time one had such a consistent bleed of people but still had the total going up every day.
The continuous loss of backers shows that there's a good number of people that don't think there's much value in this KSer, either because of the gameplay or what's provided in the core pledge. Eventually something will give, amount of backers leaving will stop being more then new ones or the current backers won't have more money to give for the flashy add ons.
Monkeysloth wrote: Really seams like I'm beating a dead horse at this point but I'm fascinated by this project since I can't remember the last time one had such a consistent bleed of people but still had the total going up every day.
The continuous loss of backers shows that there's a good number of people that don't think there's much value in this KSer, either because of the gameplay or what's provided in the core pledge. Eventually something will give, amount of backers leaving will stop being more then new ones or the current backers won't have more money to give for the flashy add ons.
I'm fascinated for the same reasons!
I guess if they have 5-6 big $50 add-ons up their sleeves they will be fine since they can release one every couple of days to keep the funding climbing. It sure seems like they plan to just stay the course and keep bleeding backers. I guess from their standpoint fewer backers with a higher average pledge may make the logistics easier. I think they are down something like 250-300 backers net since the beginning of the campaign, but in another 2-3 days they will unlock the next stretch goal... For more cards!
The game system runs on those cards. So more cards SG makes sense if you actually plan to play the game.
(By "you" I mean anybody who is backing the game, not you personally)
Also, MG has lowered the SG gaps to 10K in response to the slowed pace of the KS. So 10K for more cards is not bad.
When we (and by "we" I mean the backers of the game and MG, not anybody here on Dakka) reach the Ogre SG, that Adventure has been done and ready.
The SGs are grouped together as whole adventure (the current adventure being L'Ogre) that runs over many SGs. That is why there are figure SGs, card SGs and map SGs intermixed. When the batch of SGs is done a whole new playable adventure is added to the core, not just some random figures or maps.
Next SG after L'Ogre might be the 1 VS many game mode (i.e. Darkness player who plays against the Virtue players). It has been hinted coming for some time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, according to Kicktraq the KS has lost 228 net backers (it has lost more, but incoming backers cover some of that loss).
The backers that had jumped out is about 4% of the backers. No big deal.
The 24 hour EB was kind of anomaly (more than 6000 backers jumping in) that netter far more backers in the first 24H than the previous games. Now that the backers have had the time to actually read the KS page, some of them are jumping off again for various reasons (they don't like the game type and thought this would be something else, they can't get to buy just the figures, there is no Spanish or German language packs and so on...)
Meanwhile, the second African add on (against the vampires) seems to have been very popular among the staying backers. The monday when the add on was released saw greatest number of backers leaving (net total -87) but that day still ended up on the positive money amount because of the add on.
In fact, despite the 4% backers jumping off, every day has stayed on the positive money amount coming in (some days not much, but still). Since the KS is now on the midway slump phase, I expect the money to trickle in at the standard low amount.
We will see only during the last 48 hours if the total will soar above 1 million or not (and if there will come a second wave of pledgers dropping from the game or is the exodus already over).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here is the second african add on. REH loved the snakes?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some social stretch goals were added. If they are passed, 4 art prints (A3 size) will be added to the core box:
Also, if all 4 art prints are added, a figure of Leo will be added to the core box also (as a town crier)
Monkeysloth wrote: Really seams like I'm beating a dead horse at this point but I'm fascinated by this project since I can't remember the last time one had such a consistent bleed of people but still had the total going up every day.
The continuous loss of backers shows that there's a good number of people that don't think there's much value in this KSer, either because of the gameplay or what's provided in the core pledge. Eventually something will give, amount of backers leaving will stop being more then new ones or the current backers won't have more money to give for the flashy add ons.
Interesting observation - and it looks as if that day is...today!
Yep. So far negative backers and funding, this was the day the rulebook was released so that's not good. I still be surprised if it doesn't break a million.
I'm hoping this will spur them to include some miniatures only add-ons so I can throw some more money at them. I think Jake (quirkworthy) said they might be able to do miniature only add-ons if they were whole trays worth, meaning the same packing tray as the regular add-ons.
Yesterday ended up +$1555 on the positive. So still each day has been a positive amount of dollars coming in. Maybe some of the leaving backers are $1 backers? I think the leaving backers are at most $110 each, but incoming backers might be adding an add on or two to their pledges?
Anyway, negative Backer numbers, but positive money numbers so far.
Rulebook is released, so people can stop asking for that...
The main issue I personally have with the game is the shown game play. I've watched the Beasts of War video and had to fight not to fall asleep. From the very first turn is seemed extremely boring:
- roll 3 dice
- match the symbols to your possible actions
- perform an action, reserve some dice or give the dice to some of the other players
Now, this is boring enough but as it seems many of the cards are very plain and basic actions like "move Solomon Kane 1 space" or "move one of the Trackers by one point up or down". So rolling 3 dice and matching symbols just to get Solomon moved by 1 space or move a damn tracker by 1 point is not what I personally would see as exciting game play. To make things even worse there are acts (hope I remembered the right term) where you don't even have a board and miniatures. Instead, players have to do the very exciting dice rolling (*cough*) to get some light tokens onto the some act card or move some trackers up or down. And even acts with miniatures on board could result in "move Solomon Kane from one side to the other" ...
The french guy (think his name is Benoit if I remember correctly) basically did nothing in his first turn except roll 3 dice and give some away / store some. And it seems the game is very prone to being dominated by an alpha player - as could be seen by Az basically telling all other guys what to do.
Good god, this is some of the most boring game play I've seen in a very long time. Sad thing is: the miniatures and artwork look very nice but with a lot of value being in the cards etc. I cannot back something were it seems already clear that I would never enjoy the game.
While I would probably be interested in a minis only offering I think it would be bad for the game overall
there are clearly still a significant number of backers who really don't seem to 'get' the game for whatever reason (based on the steady backer drop out), and I bet a significant number are those interested in the minis but not the game
offer a minis only level (pricing of which would be tricky as I bet the sunk cost for the minis is a lot more than for the rest of the game) would probably lead to a sudden major funding drop as people switch to the cheaper minis only level which would panic some of the remaining game backers leading to further drop outs
I think they either need to tough it out (it might work) or drop the whole campaign and come back later (with a minis only option preferably)
Grimzim wrote: The main issue I personally have with the game is the shown game play. I've watched the Beasts of War video and had to fight not to fall asleep. From the very first turn is seemed extremely boring:
- roll 3 dice
- match the symbols to your possible actions
- perform an action, reserve some dice or give the dice to some of the other players
Now, this is boring enough but as it seems many of the cards are very plain and basic actions like "move Solomon Kane 1 space" or "move one of the Trackers by one point up or down". So rolling 3 dice and matching symbols just to get Solomon moved by 1 space or move a damn tracker by 1 point is not what I personally would see as exciting game play. To make things even worse there are acts (hope I remembered the right term) where you don't even have a board and miniatures. Instead, players have to do the very exciting dice rolling (*cough*) to get some light tokens onto the some act card or move some trackers up or down. And even acts with miniatures on board could result in "move Solomon Kane from one side to the other" ...
The french guy (think his name is Benoit if I remember correctly) basically did nothing in his first turn except roll 3 dice and give some away / store some. And it seems the game is very prone to being dominated by an alpha player - as could be seen by Az basically telling all other guys what to do.
Good god, this is some of the most boring game play I've seen in a very long time. Sad thing is: the miniatures and artwork look very nice but with a lot of value being in the cards etc. I cannot back something were it seems already clear that I would never enjoy the game.
Like most games, the game is more exciting to play than to watch others playing it.
As for the tracker, it's game over if any of the tracks drop to zero or the danger track goes to eleven. The tracker is tracking Kanes health and mind through the whole adventure (from act to act), so it is a balancing act to keep the tracks "in the green". As some of the abilities have a cost of lowering one of the tracks (or rising the danger track), you have to constantly make desicion whether you can risk using the ability.
Virtues giving the dice to each other means that they have to co-operate to win.
There is also the pressure of the darkness cards running out, so there is a timer running in each act.
So, while an outsider watching the game might get bored, the players are feeling the timer/balancing act putting pressure on them and will be thinking all the time about their moves. When your brain is active you are rarely bored...
As for the alpha player syndrome, that is the fault of the play group to allow that behaviour.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: While I would probably be interested in a minis only offering I think it would be bad for the game overall
there are clearly still a significant number of backers who really don't seem to 'get' the game for whatever reason (based on the steady backer drop out), and I bet a significant number are those interested in the minis but not the game
offer a minis only level (pricing of which would be tricky as I bet the sunk cost for the minis is a lot more than for the rest of the game) would probably lead to a sudden major funding drop as people switch to the cheaper minis only level which would panic some of the remaining game backers leading to further drop outs
I think they either need to tough it out (it might work) or drop the whole campaign and come back later (with a minis only option preferably)
Maybe the minis only pledge level or add-on might be best to put in the PM then?
MG is doing the KS to fund a game, not a bunch of minis. It is not like GW where the rules are an afterthought to sell the minis.
Like most games, the game is more exciting to play than to watch others playing it.
As for the tracker, it's game over if any of the tracks drop to zero or the danger track goes to eleven. The tracker is tracking Kanes health and mind through the whole adventure (from act to act), so it is a balancing act to keep the tracks "in the green". As some of the abilities have a cost of lowering one of the tracks (or rising the danger track), you have to constantly make desicion whether you can risk using the ability.
Virtues giving the dice to each other means that they have to co-operate to win.
There is also the pressure of the darkness cards running out, so there is a timer running in each act.
So, while an outsider watching the game might get bored, the players are feeling the timer/balancing act putting pressure on them and will be thinking all the time about their moves. When your brain is active you are rarely bored...
As for the alpha player syndrome, that is the fault of the play group to allow that behaviour.
While I agree that playing a game is of course much more exciting than watching a game played I do not agree in this particular case: I've watched countless game play videos but personally did never feel so bored.
I also fully understand how the tracker works and that abilities may influence it but again, for me having some trackers to manipulate up or down does not make an exciting game.
The cooperation aspect of giving dice to other is very weak. It would be no issue if the game play options each players has would still be exciting but as said, I felt the actions are rather bland.
And finally the alpha player syndrome: I have to disagree again: while the players are responsible a game can enforce it or make it very hard for an alpha player to dominate. Almost all information in Solomon Kane is open information meaning that all players can see it. This strongly enforces the alpha player syndrome in my opinion.
All that said: It's my personal opinion of what I've seen on the game. Other may like the shown game play and that's fine with me and at the moment that are almost 6000 people who may still be fine with the shown game.
About the gameplay being boring or exciting, that is totally subjective, so I won't return to that topic anymore.
Some like it, some don't. Both are right in their point of view.
I still disagree that alpha players are games fault. Every co-operative game has danger of falling prey to an alpha player. How are the rules to combat against a "character defect" so to speak?
It is up to the game group to rein in the alpha player if it ruins the gaming experience. I don't see how games rules could stop the alpha player if the objective of the game is co-operation...?
I'm gonna play this game mostly solo and I'm not an alpha player type, so perhaps I won't ruin this game for me?
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: While I would probably be interested in a minis only offering I think it would be bad for the game overall
there are clearly still a significant number of backers who really don't seem to 'get' the game for whatever reason (based on the steady backer drop out), and I bet a significant number are those interested in the minis but not the game
offer a minis only level (pricing of which would be tricky as I bet the sunk cost for the minis is a lot more than for the rest of the game) would probably lead to a sudden major funding drop as people switch to the cheaper minis only level which would panic some of the remaining game backers leading to further drop outs
I think they either need to tough it out (it might work) or drop the whole campaign and come back later (with a minis only option preferably)
No, I'm not advocating for a minis only pledge, but only for minis only add-ons, precisely for the reasons you outlined. What if you could get the core game (cards and all), plus both big add-ons for $170? I think that set up would be appealing to many people not interested in the gameplay. You would get something like 100 KS exclusive (and generally very cool and unique) minis, including seven huge ones for $170. I'd go for that in a heart beat, and it would increase my pledge level. As is, the big add-ons, let alone the core box are really hard to justify because you are paying for 2000+ cards plus a ton of boards. Based on the numbers, they aren't getting very high uptake on their big addons. Miniature only add-ons can only help the total.
I think it's definitely best they stay the course at this point, they have a very realistic chance of being able to even things out here. Last night there was even a positive rush that ended up giving them a net positive on money for the day, and halved the number of backers they had lost before around dinner time here in EST lands. Unfortunately I don't know that it's possible to regain the momentum that a campaign starts with, so it's a real shame that they squandered it with complacent planning. I sort of feel like they expected to pick up where they left off with Joan of Arc: they have a game up, people throw money at them, and everybody is happy. They forgot a new campaign has to re-earn the backers' trust and enthusiasm.
frankelee wrote: I think it's definitely best they stay the course at this point, they have a very realistic chance of being able to even things out here. Last night there was even a positive rush that ended up giving them a net positive on money for the day, and halved the number of backers they had lost before around dinner time here in EST lands. Unfortunately I don't know that it's possible to regain the momentum that a campaign starts with, so it's a real shame that they squandered it with complacent planning. I sort of feel like they expected to pick up where they left off with Joan of Arc: they have a game up, people throw money at them, and everybody is happy. They forgot a new campaign has to re-earn the backers' trust and enthusiasm.
It is quite funny that things like "net positive on money" and " halving the number of lost backers for the day" are what we are talking about as the "good signs" for a campaign. I think that if their goal is to make money, they need to make some changes. I agree with you about squandered momentum.
It is quite funny that things like "net positive on money" and " halving the number of lost backers for the day" are what we are talking about as the "good signs" for a campaign. I think that if their goal is to make money, they need to make some changes. I agree with you about squandered momentum.
Well I've been through plenty of rough patches in life, so I know how to appreciate being a few less feet deep into the hole I'm in. I think they have made some important changes, I know some people think sweeping changes to how the game works or is sold is necessary, but I'm just not convinced that it's quite that bad. There's an audience of 10-15k backers who could get this game, they can still get those people. As long as the major things turning people off are changed by the last 48 hours in terms of gameplay looking fun and being explained clearly, and lack of value in the core pledge, it'll still be fine in all likelihood. Stumbles like they had to begin with rarely turn into total disasters with a little patchwork.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: While I would probably be interested in a minis only offering I think it would be bad for the game overall
there are clearly still a significant number of backers who really don't seem to 'get' the game for whatever reason (based on the steady backer drop out), and I bet a significant number are those interested in the minis but not the game
offer a minis only level (pricing of which would be tricky as I bet the sunk cost for the minis is a lot more than for the rest of the game) would probably lead to a sudden major funding drop as people switch to the cheaper minis only level which would panic some of the remaining game backers leading to further drop outs
I think they either need to tough it out (it might work) or drop the whole campaign and come back later (with a minis only option preferably)
No, I'm not advocating for a minis only pledge, but only for minis only add-ons, precisely for the reasons you outlined. What if you could get the core game (cards and all), plus both big add-ons for $170? I think that set up would be appealing to many people not interested in the gameplay. You would get something like 100 KS exclusive (and generally very cool and unique) minis, including seven huge ones for $170. I'd go for that in a heart beat, and it would increase my pledge level. As is, the big add-ons, let alone the core box are really hard to justify because you are paying for 2000+ cards plus a ton of boards. Based on the numbers, they aren't getting very high uptake on their big addons. Miniature only add-ons can only help the total.
Ya, that wouldn't interest me. I don't want to pledge $110 just to get add-ons. And Orlando is right there's probably a good percentage that want just the minis too so it could be pretty bad even though I'd like that option.
Now they could do a $110 mini pledge that's just 2x the core game minis and that might be a good enough deal for some but most of the figures here are better for RPGs instead of miniature games and I don't really know what the interest would be in such a large volume of generics towns folk that were all monopose.
I think the game is trying to satisfy too many people and has a bit of an identity crisis. It's heavily narrative driven but they've thrown in loads of mini's many of which when you watch some of the playthroughs spend more time off the board than on it.
This is a $60-80 dollar game and they want $110 + $30-40 shipping. An easy miss for me this one.
After all the months of build-up, excitement over a witch hunter minis game based on an iconic literary character from a company that has put out two of my favorite games, I'm really disappointed to realize that this game just isn't for me. The game play kills it (for me) and the minis value isn't there for me to just pledge for them.
I really like the company, the people and the games they've put out but this one just isn't a fit for me, unfortunately. If only a stretch goal would be for skirmish play rules ...
Myrthe wrote: After all the months of build-up, excitement over a witch hunter minis game based on an iconic literary character from a company that has put out two of my favorite games, I'm really disappointed to realize that this game just isn't for me. The game play kills it (for me) and the minis value isn't there for me to just pledge for them.
I really like the company, the people and the games they've put out but this one just isn't a fit for me, unfortunately. If only a stretch goal would be for skirmish play rules ...
I feel the same way you do. I was so excited for what I perceived as a coperative adventure game involving one of my favorite characters.
I feel like a lot of the choices that you make for Solomon during any given turn are really boring, and of limited interest since so much depends on the card draws.
I think this style of dice swapping followed by a card draw to see what happens in the story would be a much better fit for a political intrigue type game.
I'm trying really hard to justify the base game as SK minis plus some great SK art, but I'm really having trouble. It is a $80 dollar game.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Painfully expensive add-on with a stunning Devil miniature up:
I think the 2 african pledges are good deals if you want the minis. about $2 a mini with some large ones and you get game boards that could be reused for the right game.
the American one is very meh as it's got less minis for the buck which the some of them lazy stereotypes because Mythic couldn't be bothered to do a google search. Nor are their any "center piece minis"
To me the prices are fine as I include the gaming material to the stuff I'm getting (looking forward on playing the game actually), but if one is only counting the plastic, then it might be less exciting.
The Wendigos are big models, ogre sized.
The all in price will be announced in monday, so then we'll see if there is a discount for those who want everything (me).
Also, during the Leo live, Leo talked how they are contemplating if they will sell just the add ons to those who only want maybe one or two of the add ons (like they did in Joan of Arc).
Leo also showed the Solomon Kane figures next to some other figures like a space marine (new tall marine) and khorne blood reaver and rising sun figure.
The sizes looked great next to each other, so SK range will work alongside other ranges just fine IMO.
SK range contains lots of great non combatant figures that I havent seen many on other figure ranges, great for RPGs I guess.
Ya, the miniatures are great for RPGs and the boards are too -- especially if you use the 2d20 system (that conan is) since Mythic is still following the monolith Conan board game design for tiles which the 2d20 system also uses.
While I like to do custom stuff when I'm able for my RPG scenarios it's always nice to have a fallback that takes 0 effort.
As to the size of the minis, isn't the ogre just 50mm-ish? so 4 of that in the Americas probably only covers the snake or horror so that expansion looks even worse comparatively.
an all in level (+$200) has been announced showing what's still to unlock in outline if not detail
leading immediately to cries of $45 isn't much of a discount
(just under 20%, about standard for online retailers in todays maximum discount from so many manufacturers)
why is the art book there ($25), we need an all in without it for +$175 (as clearly the book is so good it's not discounted at all in the discounted bundle)
Wonder if today's the day they start adding rather than bleeding backers
Considering $45 is one of the expansions for free it's a good price. People just are greedy.
Ya, kind of dumb they put the art book in but they have to do probably at least 1k of those for any printer to take them this is a good way to ensure that. And the more they print the cheaper that becomes so the more money for Mythic.
They're still showing a heavy bleed of users but up 40k so pretty much par the corse for this game.
Like that all-in price. Mythic does a good job of trying to keep customers happy, especially after botching this campaign so much to begin with. $300 is at the bottom of what they said it would cost, you're basically getting the artbook and the mini-expansion for free, and the first two expansions had pretty good value to boot, which is rare for a KS campaign. Still not sure what they're going to do about the basic pledge people stuck with only $110 in hand, because the value there sucks for a Kickstarter, and it's hard to get people to forget it's a Kickstarter. "Well our game suffers from card bloat to the point where we spend half your money on them and therefore can't give you nearly as many miniatures as our competitors, NOW GIVE US A DAY'S WAGES!" is not exactly a sales pitch I'd want to have to deliver.
frankelee wrote: Like that all-in price. Mythic does a good job of trying to keep customers happy, especially after botching this campaign so much to begin with. $300 is at the bottom of what they said it would cost, you're basically getting the artbook and the mini-expansion for free, and the first two expansions had pretty good value to boot, which is rare for a KS campaign. Still not sure what they're going to do about the basic pledge people stuck with only $110 in hand, because the value there sucks for a Kickstarter, and it's hard to get people to forget it's a Kickstarter. "Well our game suffers from card bloat to the point where we spend half your money on them and therefore can't give you nearly as many miniatures as our competitors, NOW GIVE US A DAY'S WAGES!" is not exactly a sales pitch I'd want to have to deliver.
The artbook and the poor New World expansion moves the all in off the buy list for me. Even at $300 they still can't even crack the $2 a mini threshhold for PVC miniatures ( granted they have abs weapons and sculpted bases, so a little above one shot pvc, but still). $300 buys you 4 GW start collecting boxes shipped. Considering they are sending you a tiny forest worth of cardboard in every box, shipping has got to exceed $50 USD for this one, making the all in even less appealing.
The day started out negative, and based on today's numbers after the all in reveal, they got less than 4% of their backers to convert to an all in. But their share of all-in conversions will continue to rise as backers keep walking out!
@franklee, I loved your summary of their sales pitch! Like I kept trying to say in the comments, the number of cards required to play is not a feature, it is a bug.
One concerning thing about this project isn't just dropping backers, it's the low engagement by people who are there, which kind of surprises me. Joan of Arc was at around $200 per backer with ten days to go, the average on SK went up today but it's only $142. I know the comment section has a small group of "positive" backers who live there, but apparently there's a lot fewer of them than JoA. It's not just a matter of getting backers, the backers who are there are not that into it.
Again, I think Mythic are a quality group, but they just didn't get their ducks in a row for this one. Everything is at cross purposes. They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople. I understand that good feeling that the "pure" choice gives you, but they've taken the pure choice at every turn, without mediating things with reality. It's cool they're going outside the box, but make one decision to help you out commercially already.
frankelee wrote: One concerning thing about this project isn't just dropping backers, it's the low engagement by people who are there, which kind of surprises me. Joan of Arc was at around $200 per backer with ten days to go, the average on SK went up today but it's only $142. I know the comment section has a small group of "positive" backers who live there, but apparently there's a lot fewer of them than JoA. It's not just a matter of getting backers, the backers who are there are not that into it.
Again, I think Mythic are a quality group, but they just didn't get their ducks in a row for this one. Everything is at cross purposes. They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople. I understand that good feeling that the "pure" choice gives you, but they've taken the pure choice at every turn, without mediating things with reality. It's cool they're going outside the box, but make one decision to help you out commercially already.
Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.
Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.
Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.
Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.
That's an under-noted part of the problem, that I also was thinking about. Those Virtues just come across as playing pieces to me, the people are miniatures, the Virtues are like fancy chess pieces pulled out of a set. They were going for the same idea as Mythic Battles Pantheon, but those are at least Greek Gods as miniatures, the Virtues are just... big playing pieces.
I like the idea of them being cards over being a booklet, I like dealing with cards more than I like looking through a book, but at what cost? I think I'll have fun playing the game which is keeping me willing to buy, but I recognize I'm was way pre-sold coming into this as a big Mythic fan, and that's not most people. If IDW Games was making this, I probably would have bounced early on because the value is poor, and why give a company upfront payment a year early when they're not acting as if that was a big deal that demanded value in return?
Yeah, and while they are large, the virtues aren't really going to be useful in other games. They would actually be more useful to me if they were human sized. I still don't know why a booklet with numbered paragraphs couldn't replace ALL the discovery cards. You apparently don't need the random element of a card declined since you are told what card to get. I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats. I'm not sure yet if it is so much a board game as a narrative experience with the illusion of control.
Maybe I'll be able to sell all the cardboard to somebody.
That's an under-noted part of the problem, that I also was thinking about. Those Virtues just come across as playing pieces to me, the people are miniatures, the Virtues are like fancy chess pieces pulled out of a set. They were going for the same idea as Mythic Battles Pantheon, but those are at least Greek Gods as miniatures, the Virtues are just... big playing pieces.
I like the idea of them being cards over being a booklet, I like dealing with cards more than I like looking through a book, but at what cost? I think I'll have fun playing the game which is keeping me willing to buy, but I recognize I'm was way pre-sold coming into this as a big Mythic fan, and that's not most people. If IDW Games was making this, I probably would have bounced early on because the value is poor, and why give a company upfront payment a year early when they're not acting as if that was a big deal that demanded value in return?
Because of their size the virtues overshadow the titular man himself on the board! They are just too big. It might be different if the shadows were similarly these big menacing shapes/avatars instead of sheet ghosts doing the conga.
Re the cards, I get instantly bored just thinking about keeping 2000 cards organized not only by chapter but also by number.... Talk about a nightmare.
I absolutely love the SK stories, but I might very well end up being one of those EBs that leaves. The value just isn't there for me, and it is pretty clear that they are doubling down on the less backers for more money strategy ( to bad effect). There hasn't been a single "must have" expansion that got even a quarter of backers to pony up for it.
They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples
I would say they want to claim the miniatures are premium, but then there are a bunch of boring repeats
MG just cannot win here, can they?
Re the cards, I get instantly bored just thinking about keeping 2000 cards organized not only by chapter but also by number.... Talk about a nightmare.
That's no different than 7th continent. Just put the cards in numbered order once and you're good to go. Most of the cards won't be shuffled ever.
Those card decks that will be shuffled, can stay shuffled. No extra sorting out there either.
They posted a picture of SK figures alongside other figures. These are perfectly fine to use alongside other ranges.
Space Marine (Warhammer 40K), Warrior (Rising Sun), Vampire (Solomon Kane), Conan (Conan), Solomon Kane (Solomon Kane), Leonidas (Mythic Battles), Bandit (Solomon Kane), Khorne Warrior and Stormcast Eternals (Shadespire)
They want to do an adventure board game where the minis aren't the focus, but it's a minis game. They want to do way too many cards, but instead of counter-balancing that with choices to allow them to still include a lot of minis, they did larger, more detailed minis with hardly any multiples. They want to do larger more detailed minis with hardly any multiples, but they have to stay true to the original short stories so half the minis have to be just bland, regular townspeople.
If they had lots of multiples I think they'd get more intrest in the minis crowd. Today's announced SG was a single wolf....yea. Now that's fine for the game but it's not really going to get anyone new to pull out their wallet. If they had some SGs that just were "double the number of towns people" that eventually got you up to a lot more copies of the generics it would make a more enticing package at very little cost. Conan and Mythic Battles both did this and Conan, like this game, had no real use for the extra duplicates outside of increasting that total count on the KSer page.
Speaking of minis. The darkeness "virtue" they added for compeditive game play is pretty dang cool.
I was so excited a Solomon Kane game was coming out but I just can't get behind the game play.
At best, for me, I could see playing this as a solo game not to exclude other players with the dice-passing, turn-yielding yawn-fest it seems to be.
But, as developed, it just doesn't appeal to me and the costs are too great to buy in for the miniatures, alone. Considering that they are at a larger scale than most of my other miniatures and for an era I don't have any game in I'm out, sadly. I really wanted to like this.
By me, it's okay. Seems to suffer from the same problem the rest of this campaign has: there are 23 minis in the box, but only 7 of them are "individuals", with one character done twice, and then it's 8 more African warriors, 4 more African villagers, and 4 shopkeepers(?). I was for some reason imagining Le Loup's gang would be fleshed out, with like 4 or 5 cool henchmen, but they didn't. It's a little too little, with too much of the least important things. With an all-in I'll have all the minis I'll need for a D&D campaign about African tribesmen set in Africa.
With an all-in I'll have all the minis I'll need for a D&D campaign about African tribesmen set in Africa.
yep, I'd love that personally but not at $300. I'd consider just the $200 add on but I don't want the core pledge. $2ish a mini isn't a bad price compared to what's out there.
Myrthe wrote: I was so excited a Solomon Kane game was coming out but I just can't get behind the game play.
At best, for me, I could see playing this as a solo game not to exclude other players with the dice-passing, turn-yielding yawn-fest it seems to be.
But, as developed, it just doesn't appeal to me and the costs are too great to buy in for the miniatures, alone. Considering that they are at a larger scale than most of my other miniatures and for an era I don't have any game in I'm out, sadly. I really wanted to like this.
I'm in a similar boat. I love the IP, and saved up for a couple months for this KS, and I still waffle every day on whether I will get the core plus an expansion, or drop down to a dollar.
I'd buy just the miniatures for a modest discount in a heartbeat, but so far no luck convincing Mythic to offer the miniatures as add-ons.
Im even a big fan of all the samey African warriors!
The adventure "beasts of Bordeaux" has been fully added to the core box - six wolves, alpha wolf, herbalist and assortment of cards and maps of the forest.
Also, the last few days have been backer positive, more backers have arrived than left. So the disgrunted backers leaving has trickled to stop, for now. The last 48 hours will show the truth if there are more dropouts still lurking among the backers.
There always are backers that leave in the last 48 hours but with most campaigns you never notice due to how many people are also pledging at that time.
We're actually still losing a decently unhealthy number of EBs each day, but the momentum has shifted so we're gaining more new pledgers than losing old ones at least. Before this campaign started I wouldn't have ever guessed this would make less than Joan of Arc, but they just missed the mark. For a company that only makes games for Kickstarter, they really should spend some time learning how to best work with it. This campaign made some strange missteps.
It is very frustrating to me that the core box will feature mostly stories not written by Robert E. Howard. The core box should have included Red Shadows, and then they could have left all their "Original" content as pricey add-ons. I mean if you buy the core Solomon Kane box you only get two small Solomon Kane stories and a fragment. The bulk of the actual Solomon Kane content is not actually in the core box!
Gallahad wrote: It is very frustrating to me that the core box will feature mostly stories not written by Robert E. Howard. The core box should have included Red Shadows, and then they could have left all their "Original" content as pricey add-ons. I mean if you buy the core Solomon Kane box you only get two small Solomon Kane stories and a fragment. The bulk of the actual Solomon Kane content is not actually in the core box!
Do you really think that MG would at this point start moving the contents of the core box and the add on boxes around? Way too late for that.
Also, all of the core box stories are Howard stories. The originals are in the stretch goals and the New World add on.
The red shadows story is way too long to put in as SG. It is the longest adventure of all of them (5 acts). We wouldnt be getting any other SGs during the campaign to get it...
They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.
Do you really think that MG would at this point start moving the contents of the core box and the add on boxes around? Way too late for that.
Also, all of the core box stories are Howard stories. The originals are in the stretch goals and the New World add on.
The red shadows story is way too long to put in as SG. It is the longest adventure of all of them (5 acts). We wouldnt be getting any other SGs during the campaign to get it...
They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.
In a Kickstarter exclusive game, the core set and stretch goal additions to the core set is a distinction without any difference. Also, accomplishing things in life comes down to triangulating between feasibility, competence, and cleverness, so I don't know about any definite reason Red Shadows couldn't have gone in the core box, and certainly there's no difficulty with feasibility there. If one plays the what-if game while not assuming it would have broken them financially to put something closer to 90 minis in a $110 core box (which should the thing which sells people on the game so they then spend even more on low value expansions, see Joan of Arc), then it's really possible.
I personally think they committed the great Kickstarter sin of taking their core pledge for granted. Not out of any malice, just accidentally got complacent. As an outsider to Mythic who's right in their target demographic, I can easily see several things they could have done differently and made more profit, not just revenue, and could have kept the campaign from stalling out.
But I definitely agree at this point people on their KS page should be realistic about what is and isn't malleable. Complaining at them that it isn't the way you want, when it's not going to change, but complaining at them like they should change it, there's just no point.
The counter argument is it's a Kickstarter Exclusive and if they want the die hard fans to give them more money, as it's now or never, they have to break out the popular stories into paid add ons or there's no huge incentive for people to buy more then the base pledge.
Right or wrong I understand why they did this.
The last add on has be reviled and it's rather meh. Basically their version of Frankenstein but not actually calling it that for whatever reason. They're clearly setting the price based off of cards and tiles as this is $20 for half the carboard and only 3 minis (though one looks to be quite big). Also, oddly, this has dropped completly out of the kicktraq top 20.
Col Hammer wrote: They had to choose one continent (europe or africa) to put in the core box and they chose european stories.
Pretty sure I read someone on BGG take umbrage at Africans being the bad guys in a boardgame. So, off to the add-ons Africa and America went. Possibly.
Was interested to see if this would really take off in the last 48 the way Joan of Arc and some other games do. The answer would seem to be no. It just doesn't create that "MUST HAVE IT" feeling in people. And the huge amount of competition this year probably isn't helping either.
Weren't there something like 6000 early bird backers at one point? Now they are down to 3700.
I'm tempted to get the core plus all three Africa expansions, because I love Solomon Kane, and many of the miniatures look very nice. I'm also tempted to drop down to a dollar and see if another KS campaign (like Death May Die) better catches my fancy.
What do you think the chances are I could sell off everything but the minis to a purist gamer looking for a heavily curated narrative game? I'm guessing my chances are pretty low...
I really just want the minis.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The core pledge comes with 27 (likely 29 by the end of the campaign) board tiles. The tiles don't interlock nor are they intended to lay next to each other, each is just a one off standalone tile. That is a lot of carboard.
Gallahad wrote: Weren't there something like 6000 early bird backers at one point? Now they are down to 3700.
I'm tempted to get the core plus all three Africa expansions, because I love Solomon Kane, and many of the miniatures look very nice. I'm also tempted to drop down to a dollar and see if another KS campaign (like Death May Die) better catches my fancy.
What do you think the chances are I could sell off everything but the minis to a purist gamer looking for a heavily curated narrative game? I'm guessing my chances are pretty low...
I really just want the minis.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The core pledge comes with 27 (likely 29 by the end of the campaign) board tiles. The tiles don't interlock nor are they intended to lay next to each other, each is just a one off standalone tile. That is a lot of carboard.
I'm guessing there won't be much interest in the game itself (for the purpose of playing it) without the minis, at least not at a nice return. On the other hand, all the map tiles from the core and three expansions, that's a lot of maps. You'd think you could get at least $40 on eBay if properly presented and perhaps price-anchored to the ridiculously expensive Pathfinder map tiles that people buy.
The tiles are modular and are designed to interlock no matter which way you turn them. So if you have a game system that uses areas, I suppose you can use SK map tiles with it quite easily?
Col Hammer wrote: The tiles are modular and are designed to interlock no matter which way you turn them. So if you have a game system that uses areas, I suppose you can use SK map tiles with it quite easily?
Is that info from one of their live streams? I don't doubt you know better than me, just curious about how they choose to release information.
A $40 bump from reselling the tiles might be enough for me to grab the base plus three expansions...
But I decided to drop my pledge from EB+ expansion down to a dollar. I'll see if something changes by the time the pm closes.
Yes, I've been following the lives. They explained the maps in one of the Q&A live sessions.
The maps are modular and each act that has map, has it built from 1-4 (or more) map pieces. The map can be one long string, square, L-shaped or whatever shaped and the map pieces can link together on any side against any side.
The reason there is so many map pieces is because they are themed: some are forest maps or beach maps or tunnels or inside houses or jungles and so on and so forth... The maps are double sided. The areas in the maps are different shaped, unique shapes to each map piece.
I dropped my pledge to $1, not really excited by the gameplay much and already have a bunch of co op games in my collection and other co op stuff backed on KS that I think will see far more play than this. Might hop on the pledge manager later on down the road, mostly for some of the miniatures if I have any spare cash when that time comes.
One hour left to go. This one has followed a really interesting trajectory.
Hopefully I'll find a bunch of money laying around to pick up the expansions I want when the pm comes around. I think Mythic and others underestimate the number of people who back their projects for the miniatures, and view a good game as a bonus if it turns out fun. I would bet a big chunk of JOA backers are there to pick up a slew of nice 15mm historicals.
Hopefully I'll find a bunch of money laying around to pick up the expansions I want when the pm comes around. I think Mythic and others underestimate the number of people who back their projects for the miniatures, and view a good game as a bonus if it turns out fun. I would bet a big chunk of JOA backers are there to pick up a slew of nice 15mm historicals.
This is probably one reason that minis games excel on Kickstarter, you can always see the miniatures during the campaign. You can't truly judge a game without playing it, and playing once you understand the rules, not just a learning game. And frankly, miniature gamers aren't quite the nitpicking, know-it-alls that Eurogamers are, different personality distribution, so you can sell them a little easier on taking a chance. With Joan of Arc, I don't know if I'll care at all about the game itself, but I'm going to receive a complete set of Medieval minis that I can play army scale games with using all kinds of historical rule sets. Hopefully this will be a lesson to them, sell to minis gamers, and make sure you get one mini per dollar on that core pledge (at least at Warhammer scale). If this game had 40 more miniatures of pirates, guards, general personalities, etc. it would have sold a lot more on sheer value.
I´m glad that in the end this KS isn´t a complete miss and that MG got their playerbase.
@frankelee: You are right. For miniature games the actual game is mostly an afterthought, people want the plastic. Like for JoA you got a 15mm sandbox for your own ideas with the KS and maybe the game itself is a nice addition. (So far it looks fine to me.) So SK is kind of ambivalent. It has unique playstyle, could be pretty immersive and relies heavily on its many cards for the game mechanics. A lot of the value is in the actual game, but it is also labelled as an miniature game, where the biggest pile of plastic rules.
I hope MG got the right conclusions from this campaign and use them in the next.
I was debating going in for $1 but I only want some of the expansions. Maybe if, for some reason, this blows up in popularity after shipping ala Mythic Battles they'll do a reprint kser but I'm not holding my breath.
As for the next game, I have no interest in weird war 2 so its an easy pass.
Hopefully I'll find a bunch of money laying around to pick up the expansions I want when the pm comes around. I think Mythic and others underestimate the number of people who back their projects for the miniatures, and view a good game as a bonus if it turns out fun. I would bet a big chunk of JOA backers are there to pick up a slew of nice 15mm historicals.
This is probably one reason that minis games excel on Kickstarter, you can always see the miniatures during the campaign. You can't truly judge a game without playing it, and playing once you understand the rules, not just a learning game. And frankly, miniature gamers aren't quite the nitpicking, know-it-alls that Eurogamers are, different personality distribution, so you can sell them a little easier on taking a chance. With Joan of Arc, I don't know if I'll care at all about the game itself, but I'm going to receive a complete set of Medieval minis that I can play army scale games with using all kinds of historical rule sets. Hopefully this will be a lesson to them, sell to minis gamers, and make sure you get one mini per dollar on that core pledge (at least at Warhammer scale). If this game had 40 more miniatures of pirates, guards, general personalities, etc. it would have sold a lot more on sheer value.
Interestingly, when they first sent out the email for the final stretch goal (Solomon with N'Longa's staff) it listed $2million as the goal to unlock it, so I would say they came up about $850k short of expectations. Maybe it was just an innocent typo, but it seems unlikely they were gunning for $1.1 million with all the work the put into the campaign before hand.
I agree they would have raised a lot more money if the core was more competitive from a minis only standpoint. As you say Frank, the actual game experience is the hardest to judge without actually playing it. I also think they would have gotten more mileage with three individual sculpts per Mook (and cutting elsewhere). Only two sculpts per Mook isn't quite enough to make them visually appealing on the table in a group, but 3 somehow seems to be the magic number.
The $2M was and innocent typo because there was no way they would raise $800K in the last 45 minutes. I was watching the Live when it happened and they quickly corrected it. They intended to type $1.2M.
So, after all my indecision I decided to pledge for the core set. I figured with all the minis and stretch goals I could gamble $110 on the game play.
Myrthe wrote: The $2M was and innocent typo because there was no way they would raise $800K in the last 45 minutes. I was watching the Live when it happened and they quickly corrected it. They intended to type $1.2M.
So, after all my indecision I decided to pledge for the core set. I figured with all the minis and stretch goals I could gamble $110 on the game play.
I would bet they already had all the stretch goal graphics ready to go long before hand. I was only wondering if they had prepared it with the 2000k text.
Before the KS started, preparing the SG's for up to 2 million was realistic enough I suppose. But they were prepared to adjust the SG's as needed as well. They lowered back to 10K gaps when the pace stalled and stayed there for quite some time. I think the last SG as 2 million was propably right if the gaps were done like in a "normal" KS.
Leo said in the live that they released all of the SG's they had wanted to release even if the adjusting of the gaps was needed. I believe him as when you watch the SG's you can see where they did combine some SG's together where they would have been separate SG's if the funding had gone higher.
I'm happy at the end result. Unlike some (all?) of the Dakkaites here, I pledged for the game as well as the minis, so I think I got the moneys worth out of my pledge. With the caveat of that I will know surely only after I actually try the game, naturally. Worth the gamble to me anyway.
Wierd world war 2 is right up to my alley, so I will follow the Coconut Project with a keen interest. Leo said that Mythic games want to try different kind of things with each of their games, so the next one will be a fast paced co-op fighting game. The game will be offically introduced at Gen-Con, so then we will know a bit more (like what it will be really called).
I got the all-in because I too figured I would really enjoy the gameplay, and that it would make a fun, narrative, solo game. But if the setting didn't appeal to my Oldhammer loving sensibilities, and it wasn't Mythic, I probably would have passed, because of the value. I love Weird War 2 stuff as well (I own almost one of everything from Dust before Babylon came out), but after this game I'm not going to pre-sell myself on it with excitement. Gonna hold it at arm's length and not decide I have to have it until the end of the campaign when I can fully see what the deal is.
Myrthe wrote: The $2M was and innocent typo because there was no way they would raise $800K in the last 45 minutes. I was watching the Live when it happened and they quickly corrected it. They intended to type $1.2M.
So, after all my indecision I decided to pledge for the core set. I figured with all the minis and stretch goals I could gamble $110 on the game play.
I would bet they already had all the stretch goal graphics ready to go long before hand. I was only wondering if they had prepared it with the 2000k text.
It was just a typo. The SG template is prepared in advance but filled in when the update is being prepared.
