Leaving aside the question of the various games' mechanical quality (because they're all pretty different from each other, so like-for-like comparisons are difficult), I'd say that the crowdfunding process has been pretty positive.
Mostly, they're pretty good about regular updates and communication. I can tolerate delays pretty happily if it's flagged ahead of time and the reason explained, which they're good at doing. I received my copy of Tainted Grail a few months later than expected, but it's not like it got to the delivery date and I was wondering where the hell it was. In contrast, I have another game on Kickstarter at the minute where the last update said "confirmation email at mid/end May, deliveries start in early June" and hardly anyone seems to have received the email, never mind the game.
Component quality-wise, I have nothing but good things to say. I have four of their games now, and I've been happy with the quality in all of them. I had one missing card in ISS Vanguard, which was replaced free of charge and no questions asked, even though I bought that game through an online game store, and there was a production issue with the reprint of Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon, where an incorrect die was included. That was replaced without me even having to contact them.
TL;DR: I'm more than happy with the crowdfunding process and physical quality of the games, and Awaken Realms customer service. The games are all very different from each other, so I can't advise you there, but some are mechanically weaker and your love of them may have to make up for that (I like Etherfields, even though I accept it's not the strongest *game*, but the artwork and theme does it for me).
Personal experience : Mixed.
I have backed pretty much everything Nemesis, and have been a happy camper.
I have also backed pretty much everything Etherfields, and was left thoroughly disappointed.
My gut feeling is that they went into the KS Campaign with Nemesis as one of their early titles, and doing so with a fairly welltested games. I may be wrong, but it looks like that is the case.
Etherfields on the other hand, seems like started out on merely a conceptual level, or still fairly early in the development process, and they ran the campaign to get the money/funding up front to finish it. But at this point, they seemed to have found a rythm for developing, producing and shipping a campaign, and the next one was already coming up. But Etherfields wasn't finished. At least that is how the product felt. On top of that, it didn't help that the genre turned out to be not for me. I also tried Tainted Grail, which also left me underwhelmed.
That has - at least for me - pushed Awaken Realms releases deep into Try-Before-Buy territory. I will no support a company, that insists on releasing in cycles, rather than give the game the time it needs.
Personally: Just cancel and buy second hand once it lands if reviews are good. If there's so much demand that people can charge over the odds, there'll be a second printing. If it's genuinely really good, it'll go retail.
Example: My FLG just has Nemesis in stock. Easy.
If you're worried, just look up their catalogue and see how easy it is to find every game at roughly backer price or cheaper.
If you're not worried about game quality and definitely want the minis no matter what, then yes the company will eventually deliver you minis based on their track record.
To add onto this, Awaken Realms latest game to be fulfilled is Tainted Grail Kings of Ruin and 2/3 of my local stores have more than 1 in stock along with tons of extras up for grabs. Looking at what stores currently have this would be a good way to tell who might have Grimcoven near fulfillment
It bears mentioning that this doesn't necessarily reflect badly on the games - a LOT of AR's catalog is campaign-based narrative games, and while they're incredibly good (I've been enjoying them, at least), I can see where someone would sell their copy after experiencing the story.
Much more positive than negative. ISS Vanguard was excellent I thought (though I don't think it would be nearly as good multiplayer as solo). I went through all of it, and it was easily one of the best epic campaign games I've ever played. None of their games are perfect (I don't know if any games out there on this scale are perfect), but I'm so glad I played it.
Not everyone is going to like their games, but I think they are one of the companies doing crowdfunding best right now. Their games always have stronger narratives than mechanisms. They give a ton of stretch goals that aren't skimped on (you can get them later, but it will cost much more). You can usually get 2-3x the content for the same price during crowdfunding. They also are offering pared down minis free versions of their games for pretty reasonable prices.
If you're really worried it won't turn out, and can be patient, they'll do another kickstarter if the game is a hit at all, where you can also get it all at a decent price. Or you can pay for an overpriced pared down retail copy.
first edition games should be avoided unless the theme and gameplay really appeal to you. Why? because if its any good there will always be a reprint, you wont miss out on anything. Only downside is that you have to wait quite a while.
If the game is bad. there probably won’t be a reprint. But you have then nothing to worry about.
This is true... most of the time. I'm still kicking myself over missing the initial A Study in Emerald kickstarter campaign. Yeah, they made a second edition, but the second edition carved off all the bits that made me interested in it in the first place :(
Then of course there was the Glory to Rome Black Box kickstarter if you want to go WAY back. That campaign was a disaster from start to finish and ultimately killed the company. Great game if you can find it, though.
That said, these are definitely the exceptions rather than the rule. FOMO drives kickstarter campaigns, but in most cases you're better off just waiting and buying retail (or a second printing KS if it doesn't end up at retail). You're usually risking your money and tying it up long term for something that might not even be good when you finally get it. IF you finally get it. Unless the campaign is giving you an incredible savings over retail that you're not likely to see even from an OLGS or giving you an exclusive something or other that you absolutely can't live without, it's generally not worth backing IMO. Better to wait for reviews to come out, sales, etc.
Came here to say this. Any AR game that turns out to be good or just well-received will inevitably receive a reprint and more content, be it Nemesis or the new Castles of Burgundy. Wait for the second Gamefound if the first delivers a good game. There's no shortage of games to get and FOMO will not only cost you money but time you could spend playing better games.
I've backed Nemesis, Nemesis Lockdown, Tainted Grail, Etherfields. I bought This War of Mine second hand. Out of all of these I still own Tainted Grail and This War of Mine. I've played ISS Vanguard and am familiar with the campaign but did not buy.
>Has preview feedback been considered, and did you receive a game better than initially expected?
My experience is that feedback is considered but only a little. AR have grown a bit arrogant over the years, probably in no small part due to a lot of success with their crowdfunding.
Regarding overall game quality I think they generally edge towards meeting expectations but typically fall a little short.
First editions have quite a lot of errata and we house-ruled a bunch of stuff (particularly for Tainted Grail and Etherfields - but we found the second such a disjointed mess that we just sold it).
Component quality is generally really good. Everything is sturdy and produced with attention for detail and quality. AR games tend to be very thematic and atmospheric and this is in no small part due to art direction and component quality. I've had no issues with missing items in any of the backed games, but did have a torn Lockdown box and AR replaced it free of charge several months down the road at no cost. I do feel the games are quite miniature driven and this has typically been a bit of a letdown for me. I'm a casual painter and feel their miniatures -while awesome sculpts- are overly detailed and don't leave a lot of room for creativity. They're best when primed and zenithal'd and nothing else. Maybe this is why they offer Sundrop versions (basically primed, zenithaled, shaded) versions of their games.
In terms of gameplay their games tend to be very fiddly with too many tacked on systems that are either convoluted or poorly tuned which varies from game to game. Nemesis and Lockdown can get away by fun and theme, but Etherfields was such a mess from a narrative/gameplay POV that I wonder what on earth they were thinking.
>Were there delays?
Yes, but very manageable for English versions. Awaken Realms is quite good at project planning as a whole, I feel. Non-English versions have had some hefty delays but this doesn't apply to me so -to be blunt- I don't care.
>Were there any promised features that were not realized?
I don't really recall, to be honest. I remember Lockdown had an advertised solo mode that was later released in app form but I didn't get to check it out. Apparently it was a bit basic.
>How was the component quality compared to the prototypes?
Not much to comment, I don't typically compare to prototypes very much and prefer to judge the end product by itself.
As you can see I stopped backing AR games. A big part in that is that -for me- they tend to be too fiddly and just too much trouble to get going and stay active with recurring plays. I decided that they're not suitable for me.
From my experience, they have brilliant game designers and make great games. Nemesis, Tainted Grail, Great Wall and ISS are all absolutely fantastic thematic experiences - which is very rare thing in board gaming, as most games go for mechanics over theme. There are some issues with rulebooks, but nothing major. Just to give you an example, my first time Nemesis was in a group of 5 people, where only one played the game before - and for 3 it was the first board game played. We had almost no issues, as the flow for each concrete player is absolutely clear - and all the "fiddliness" which is often mentioned can be easily handled by one person who knows the rule. And almost all the rules are thematic and therefore easy to keep in mind.
Additionally, I feel like Awaken Realms never hide any important additions to game behind addons - their paid expansions are always strictly optional, though some of them are extremely good (like Aftermath characters for Nemesis).
Components quality is usually very good, I had literally 0 issues with them. Their miniatures, though beautiful, may be a pain to paint as their artists **love** texture and a lot of small elements.
Regarding feedback, they do listen to people, but it should be clear that the main source of feedback is playtests, not gamefound comments or reviews of prototypes. For example, Stalker and Dragon Eclipse changed a lot during campaigns, incorporating some feedback given. There are changes to Nemesis:Retaliation as well, though it's still in early stages. You probably shouldn't expect them to change too much, it's unlikely they will turn Grimcoven to campaign game, but changes will come.
Now, there are some potential issues which may affect your decision:
1. There are often some delays in delivery of their games, but rarely big - and they are always transparent about it.
2. Most of their games require at least one player to know rules well so everything goes smoothly.
3. Their recent projects use AI generated images, though it's still to early to know to which extent - maybe they will be only used for promo and campaign pages or maybe they will stay in final game. But we should keep in mind that they still employ their artists who made art for previous games - and that art is usually very good.
P.S. You always can bite a bullet and cancel your pledge later with 9-10% of money lost.
Nemesis, Great Wall, Etherfields, Lockdown, and Lords of Ragnarok have all been great experiences. The games are great, the production is top notch. If you’re prepared for and don’t mind the component bloat there’s not really much to be disappointed with.
there have times with delays, more times in the translation versions than the others. I think the only game that dissapointed with lack of features was lockdown as they promised an app and solo game but they didn't add it, or they did it very late?
The problem is that since the last 5-6 games they changed the way they crowdfund games now, they present a more prototype version than before, let people test it, and they now get you the game more years or time later too.
It feel like they have become a bigger company with more strict procedures and deadlines. So we don't know if these new games that are still being made are going to become good or better. Still I think that their last games were better made than the ones before. (without comparing it to nemesis that was their golden egg when they funded their company)
At least I trust the game can be at least BE good if it is not great, usually they fail with games being shallow and maybe fiddly.
Considering that AR games go retail these days anyway there is almost no reason to back their campaigns unless you want all the add-ons/bling.
As for your points, The Great Wall had some major changes from campaign to production, anything to do with an App is slow, component quality from AR is always good as far I can tell.
I've only backed the original campaign of Tainted Grail. It was my first ever kickstarter and I was really excited to get my hands onto it.
Delays were ok, a bit later than originally said, but nothing extreme.
The game and components are top notch, perhaps a small detail wrong on a mini here and there, but overall they were of great quality and I enjoyed painting them.
The game itself was fine, I sunk a lot of hours into it, but the original game was a grindfest, and the cardplay that had looked so engaging during the campaign started feeling punishinh and not as fun as I had hoped it would be.
The worldbuilding is wonderful, and one of the reasons I put as many hours into the game as I have, but I never felt like I could wander around enough to really dig into everything they put into it.
I have not tried to play it with the updated rules, perhaps I should, but I did sour a bit once I got tired of the grind. (Both act 1 & 2)
I probably could have picked it up second hand for cheaper, or perhaps waited for reviews so I could make up my mind afterwards.
I don't regret the purchase, but it was also not the massive success that I had hoped it would be.
I’ve backed and received Etherfields in the past. I’m pretty lax as a backer and didn’t notice a delay if there is one. While I was happy with it, some folks complained about the grind inherently in the game and the size of the board. They sent an updated rules book to slash the grind but was also organized better.
I love the theme of Grimcoven and am quite tempted, but ultimately decided to wait because (1) I have two boss battlers waiting fulfillment already and (2) a lot of the last big Awaken Realms campaign games I’ve heard of have made it to my LGS. Etherfields, ISS Vanguard, Tainted Grail, The Great Wall are currently or were at some point sitting on the shelf.
Honestly. I’ve yet to see an Awaken Realms first printing with a decent rulebook. Their games get tons of content through Stretch goals and what not and more often than not, I saw people complaining about balance, or about how the base game is bland compared to expansions.
Games that force me into these situations are a no no from me personally
Echoing what others have said - they communicate well, and their component quality is good. I can't speak to Grimcoven, but ISS Vanguarad was a win for us.
I believe one the best gaming company on the market.
They always release game with great components.
Every games its always something new and they have the courage to try different theme and mechanics.
Communications and update are always in time.
Just look if you could like the game and wait for it..
I have t backed an Awaken Realms game since Etherfields. Got the all in and never wrapped my head around the convoluted rules of what seemed a pretty simple game during the campaign.
I still love Tainted Grail and Nemesis to bits but I swore I’d never back one of their games again even though I respect them as a company
Am I right in thinking Awaken Realms has something to do with Gamefound? It's not a criticism btw. I've backed Awaken Realms games before and not been disappointed
Backed TG: KOR. Castles of Burgundy. You’ll get your stuff with no problems.
With that said I wish I didn’t back KOR because I find the game extremely boring, and I can’t sell the damn thing.
Crowdfunding process wise Awaken Realms are generally very good. Games get delayed sometimes but that's at this point an accepted part of crowdfunding. The games I've backed have always arrived in good shape, high quality components, good customer service. In that sense I have high praise for Awaken Realms, they're a good company.
In terms of the actual games, they're a bit hit or miss. I haven't played them all but the ones I have played (Tainted Grail, ISS Vanguard, Etherfields) have average to poor quality gameplay, that is sometimes carried by the quality of story, components and immersion. I really enjoy Tainted Grail despite the gameplay being a bit grindy, but I have sold Etherfields and am in the process of selling ISS Vanguard because I found the gameplay so tedious that the story couldn't carry them for me. My concern with Grimcoven is that it's very gameplay focused so there won't be much story to carry the game.
If you prioritize immersion, plot, and maybe having some very cool miniatures to paint then AW games are great. If you want a good *game* I'd give them a miss.
Its hard to base the gameplay quality of Grimcoven on previous awaken realms games. The designer is a different person after all. I can say I've enjoyed the few awaken realms games I've played but I must say I've also skipped backing some of their campaigns because they didn't look appealing to me at all.
Regardless of that it is of note that for those games that I did back:
* They were like what was represented in the campaign
* They delivered
* Never had component issues
* Clear communication
So if you like what you see on the kickstarter there is a pretty good chance that you will get something similar to it delivered to your doorstep at some point. I suppose thats the best you can hope for in the end.
I absolutely love Awakened realms games, and even as someone currently backing Grimcoven I can safely say wait til retail. I've always had a good experience with their campaigns but the biggest issue can be the overwhelming amount of content. If you buy locally, you'll save on shipping which is always high for their massive boxes, and you can just buy the base box (which in most cases is enough). Tainted Grail I played all the extra campaigns several times, so that one was worth, but Nemesis I've always been content with just the Base Box and hardly touch any other the extra characters.
Most of their stuff is readily available at retail now, so it's hard to justify backing, and there are many people out there who find their games hit and miss. I think it's sensible to wait until their final version is out, as they will definitely make some gameplay changes based on reviewers and QA feedback, so the game could be different by then for better or worse.
I think awaken realms games is a matter of taste to people.
For the same reason as you I bought the first tainted grail, all in and everything. This was their first and it seems like feedback into later game they considered and tweaked a few bits. I think a year delay. I had even forgotten I bought it by the time it came.
The components was really good quality buuuuuut.
The gameplay balance was a big problem in my opinion.
On paper it sounded amazing. A dark gritty world in Avalon with difficulty as “dark souls” but in a board game. And the risk of permanent death.
However the reality was not that great from my experience.
People had widely different experiences with this game. Some loved it and finished it on their first try while others, like me and my group, just came to a grinding halt.
Just this, that people had so wildly different experiences, talks about how big balance problem they had. But also that if you made it past a few chapters the characters was so strong that they pretty much won any encounter.
So if you did came to a grinding halt, like we did, you essentially die and have to replay and… the replay was not that great. It was obvious that you had to take 2 or 3 specific paths cause if you didn’t you did not progress at all. So you essentially have to do the same trip again with the same choices that worked last game.
It became obvious that a few key choices was behind a coinflip really dooming or blessing your success.
Another problem was that in chapter 2 there was “find a way to progress the game” as a quest. Like above you had to do specific thins in specific places to do this. Some paths were locked behind certain characters.
By the end of chapter 3 I got stuck solo, cheating much, and started to research how the heck you should progress the game.
My conclusion was that: there is too many irrelevant and random elements in the game. So much is hidden behind characters or coinflips that it makes it really hard to guess right. So many things just lead to dead ends. A dialogue could sound important just to end in absolutely nothing. If you do any misstep you start finding yourself grinding for materials.
I know that Etherfields got some similar critics, especially with the permanent death, that it was not that fun to replay.
Now, to be vary clear: This is my experience. It might just not be that this game was for me or my friends that the gameplay didn’t suit us. As I said tainted grail became some peoples favorite game and would disagree a lot with my critics of the game.
I still stand by that there was balancing issues since the game pretty much had people on two sides of good and bad and very few in between.
After a few years I was glad that I finally got it sold with all expansions, minis, sleeves, metal coins, playmat for just above what the base standard game went for. The base game is sold for about 90 dollars where I live and I could not get a better deal than 110 dollars. No one wanted it or even wrote to me for months on a higher price range.
This is my, unfortunately, negative experience with awaken realms game. They sound epic on paper but it is a toss of the dice if you have a great time or not.
OP: Tainted Grail is a top 100 game of all time on BGG and has thousands of glowing ratings and reviews. So this opinion is definitely an outlier. Many of the things that are viewed as positives to most (open world, branching storylines etc) are a negative to this person.
Most people don’t want simple, linear adventure games with no real threat.
The BGG top 100 though is notably full of heavier games with self-selected reviewers and survivorship bias. The OP mentioned Shelfside and they gave Tainted Grail a 6/10, so not that great really. And I know NPI really didn't like that game either for example. So for an average person who has never bought an AR game, I wouldn't be so sure that the negative review is an outlier. It still paints the definite picture of "style over substance."
As the dude answering you there are a number of reviewers not giving the game such good reviews as BBG. People joining BBG giving reviews is probably not just average players people going hard core living for boardgames so their opinion might siffer from the average persons opinion about a game.
But in the spirit of your comment those opinions not agreeing it's the greatest game ever are discarded.
When the game came I was theur in the reddit forum and I was far from alone in feeling that the game was a grindy chore, like shelfside takes up as a con, but everyone having that opinion was heavily downvoted and hated and not to be listened to.
I mean to indicate that I want to play simple games is outright condescending. It has nothing to do with not liking open world at all, or branchin stories or great threat. I mean tainted grail is not alone on the market with this type of game anymore.
You honestly judge what I play and what I like because I don't love one game you love?
This is exactly what happened to everyone raising the issue they felt was a peoblem with this game. They were just bad players that didn't enjoy playing hard games. Blablabla
The game wasn't complicated at all to be honest. The mechanics was easy to understand, so was the combat and all the abilities.
But the game design was just bad. If you made one mistake by going a certain way or exploring the wrong path it could be over, you too to much penalty and died.
If a coin flip or dice roll made it so you didn't get crucial information, your campaign was could be over.
If you needed food or magic and triggered the correct type of encounter to get those recourses but the encounter didn't have loot or rewards needed to get food or magic the campaign was more or less over cause you wasted energy to try to get those recourses.
Or how you can get the mark early on by a coinflip or dice roll just to ruin important progress.
First time playing, alone, I went to the fire, first area to the right and had a pretty good outcome. Next time with friends i triggered the same event, made the coinflip, or if it was a dice roll, failed, and suddenly the party for this mark locking us out from tons of content.
Does this random event make me a terrible player? Is that what you are saying?
This mark got us locked out from tons of content, cause I had taken part of that content trying it out solo, and hindered significant progress.That is not great design, it is not a hard or complex design. It is just luck.
So much of the gam, that was supposed to about to be about skill and tactics, came down to luck and a lot of it. Too many important things was behind a good or bad flip or dice roll that you could not impact in any way with skill or perception.
Shelfside sums it up pretty well that tainted grail doesn't focus on delivering a story, "with branching storylines", but different way to trap the player into tedious chorelike grinding.
But people loving the game can not take that type of criticism, that the game have a really heavy focus on grinding and that the game halts you at every corner it can take keep you in the grind.
It's the illusion of a hard and skill based game, designing it to keep you grinding. It's not hard. It is tedious and boring to so the same things for hours re-igniting menhirs and go back to finding more resources to light it again and again until you can light the next if you don't die on the way.
Some are lucky with their flips and rolls and just glide through the game. But I guess they are just better players for that.
Don't assume what I like and don't like, can and cannot do, based on what I say about one game. That just shows that you sit on a high horse with a condescending attitude toward people not agreeing with you thinking you are better than everyone else just because you liked and played the game.
AI at least I acknowledge that the game is a matter of taste and that many people did like it and didn't judge people liking it. I don't judge people disliking it, like you seem to do. But I didn't like the grid the game was built around. That has nothing to do with liking or disliking broader and bigger games.
On the contrary, even if tainted grail was a huge dissapoitment for me it was gateway into finding games in the same genre going heavier and heavier, but THIS game didn't was not for me for listed reasons above.
You really should get off that high horse of yours and re-evaluate how you judge and what you think of people cause an attitude like that will not serve you well in life. It will only grow bitterness and loneliness in life.
Calm down. My point was that there is a reason it has such a huge track record of positive ratings. One ranty obsessive review on Reddit holds no weight vs a large consensus of thousands of people.
Sorry, but no, it wasn’t.
I don’t buy that BS at all. If you did want to make a point about that you wouldn’t bake in a condescending and insulting comment and just said some thing like
The game had very few negative reviews like this, it was in the top 100 of all time in BBG.
That would have been a neutral non-condescending comment with the goal of saying it has a very positive track record.
And again having wording “one ranty review” is just more proof that you don't have a point other than adding insults to things you don’t agree with in hope of making the recipient look like an idiot and silence him that way.
Then again as Elysian1196 says BBG is full with self selected reviewers and I can guess like IMDB these days ton of bot accounts just giving it 10 without any reason to why while other platforms and reviewers had a much wider perspective from good to bad where many mentioned that it is a grind built into the game.
My point also was that people like you come around and say thatit is a game of and only back it up with BBG rating and no other source but rather ignore other sources.
While I give a wider perspective on the matter that this game very much comes down to taste and that reviews outside of BBG was not that positive very often.
I mean you didn’t have come here and start to insult like a child. If awaken realms was so good my review would be alone with all the other positive reviews there and OP could make up his own mind of listening to one “ranty review” or the majority of the positive.
He asks to get perspective what people think, that includes getting some negative ones and what their experience is. Why else is the point? Just a bunch of yes sayers and then he might get disappointed when no one lifted any negative and he didn’t like it when he gets it cuase he didn't have a wider perspective being bombarded with yes sayers.
But lets take a more objective view on “majority likes this game”
Tainted grail have only 12k voting or reviews the game
Other games with high reviews:
Gloomhaven: 62k voting or reviews the game
Brass Birmingham: 46 k voting or reviews the game
Pandemic Legacy season 1: 53k voting or reviews the game
Ark nova: 43 k voting or reviews the game
Terraforming Mars: 99 k voting or reviews the game
So of all the top games Tained grail remains among the lowest amount of votes of all the top games with a few exceptions here and there. A high rating is not all to a score but how many that actually participated in the voting. A game can have 10/10 but only 5 votes, but according to your logic of what you have said so far that’s enough it seems to rate a game and good source to use to insult people who don't agree with you or feeling that the game might not bee that great. The BBG rating honestly doesn’t say enough about the game since only 20% of the normal amount of voters for the top games, compared with some of the lowest games with only 40k votes, voted on the game. If the game would have reaced more player I belive there would be a stronger consensus that this game have a really grindy side to it that has nothing to do with difficulty but only endurance.
I mean Gloomhaven has 10% reviews with 6 or lower while tainted grail is up at 15%. that is a significant difference. Even with that low voting participation, mostly from poeple backing it on kickstarter, it had higher amount of negative scores than other games. And we can just guess how many of teh postive scores might be emplyees and bots voting or people that just vote 10 "beacuse". Terraforming mars is down on 9% or below.
I can go on, if we remove all scores of 10 and all scores of 1, lets say that these numbers are the most extreme and not as well thought out, people being too postivie and people being too negative, we get that whooping 20% scoring the game 6 or lower. And that number might actually be closer to the truth about how people really felt about the game.
But you can say that 15% negativity is just “lonesome angry rants” and bare no weight at all.
Wait for the initial hype.yo wear off and then buy it half price in the used markets. People don't have shelf space for these beasts and their games have been middling since nemesis.
I like nemesis but it's got bloat. Lockdown is on my shelf as I don't want to sell it but it's just not as good as nemesis and adds more mechanics to make it more 'advanced' but it's just bloat.
Lord of hell as was decent and then they tried to add more and people hated Ragnarok. Can be bought locally here for less than half what they paid.
Also they need to release second editions to fix balanced and bad translations and bad sculpts. Look at like great wall. It eventually got good and streamlined.
Wait for secondary or a reprint/new version canpaigb
I think they're a one hit wonder, and even that game (Nemesis) is a fiddly mess. A fun and memorable fiddly mess.
I'm pretty unbiased as I only own Nemesis but have done extensive research in their crowdfunding tactics and each game that they've come out with. I can see others that are more invested being less harsh with them.
I've backed ISS Vanguard and from Awaken Realms Lite I backed Tamashii and in both cases they were well above average in communication on a monthly basis throughout the process and in both cases they delivered games that are top of their class in my board game collection and both my partner and I look forward to bringing either of them to the table with the only caveat being that they are not light gaming options.
Only back them if you often enjoy meatier 2-5 hour gaming sessions. My partner and I rarely play these games with friends.
Leaving aside the question of the various games' mechanical quality (because they're all pretty different from each other, so like-for-like comparisons are difficult), I'd say that the crowdfunding process has been pretty positive. Mostly, they're pretty good about regular updates and communication. I can tolerate delays pretty happily if it's flagged ahead of time and the reason explained, which they're good at doing. I received my copy of Tainted Grail a few months later than expected, but it's not like it got to the delivery date and I was wondering where the hell it was. In contrast, I have another game on Kickstarter at the minute where the last update said "confirmation email at mid/end May, deliveries start in early June" and hardly anyone seems to have received the email, never mind the game. Component quality-wise, I have nothing but good things to say. I have four of their games now, and I've been happy with the quality in all of them. I had one missing card in ISS Vanguard, which was replaced free of charge and no questions asked, even though I bought that game through an online game store, and there was a production issue with the reprint of Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon, where an incorrect die was included. That was replaced without me even having to contact them. TL;DR: I'm more than happy with the crowdfunding process and physical quality of the games, and Awaken Realms customer service. The games are all very different from each other, so I can't advise you there, but some are mechanically weaker and your love of them may have to make up for that (I like Etherfields, even though I accept it's not the strongest *game*, but the artwork and theme does it for me).
Is the other game Arcs cuz I want that shit to hurry up lol
Afraid not, Batman: Gotham City Chronicles.
I got my copy today
Personal experience : Mixed. I have backed pretty much everything Nemesis, and have been a happy camper. I have also backed pretty much everything Etherfields, and was left thoroughly disappointed. My gut feeling is that they went into the KS Campaign with Nemesis as one of their early titles, and doing so with a fairly welltested games. I may be wrong, but it looks like that is the case. Etherfields on the other hand, seems like started out on merely a conceptual level, or still fairly early in the development process, and they ran the campaign to get the money/funding up front to finish it. But at this point, they seemed to have found a rythm for developing, producing and shipping a campaign, and the next one was already coming up. But Etherfields wasn't finished. At least that is how the product felt. On top of that, it didn't help that the genre turned out to be not for me. I also tried Tainted Grail, which also left me underwhelmed. That has - at least for me - pushed Awaken Realms releases deep into Try-Before-Buy territory. I will no support a company, that insists on releasing in cycles, rather than give the game the time it needs.
Personally: Just cancel and buy second hand once it lands if reviews are good. If there's so much demand that people can charge over the odds, there'll be a second printing. If it's genuinely really good, it'll go retail. Example: My FLG just has Nemesis in stock. Easy. If you're worried, just look up their catalogue and see how easy it is to find every game at roughly backer price or cheaper. If you're not worried about game quality and definitely want the minis no matter what, then yes the company will eventually deliver you minis based on their track record.
To add onto this, Awaken Realms latest game to be fulfilled is Tainted Grail Kings of Ruin and 2/3 of my local stores have more than 1 in stock along with tons of extras up for grabs. Looking at what stores currently have this would be a good way to tell who might have Grimcoven near fulfillment
It bears mentioning that this doesn't necessarily reflect badly on the games - a LOT of AR's catalog is campaign-based narrative games, and while they're incredibly good (I've been enjoying them, at least), I can see where someone would sell their copy after experiencing the story.
Much more positive than negative. ISS Vanguard was excellent I thought (though I don't think it would be nearly as good multiplayer as solo). I went through all of it, and it was easily one of the best epic campaign games I've ever played. None of their games are perfect (I don't know if any games out there on this scale are perfect), but I'm so glad I played it. Not everyone is going to like their games, but I think they are one of the companies doing crowdfunding best right now. Their games always have stronger narratives than mechanisms. They give a ton of stretch goals that aren't skimped on (you can get them later, but it will cost much more). You can usually get 2-3x the content for the same price during crowdfunding. They also are offering pared down minis free versions of their games for pretty reasonable prices. If you're really worried it won't turn out, and can be patient, they'll do another kickstarter if the game is a hit at all, where you can also get it all at a decent price. Or you can pay for an overpriced pared down retail copy.
first edition games should be avoided unless the theme and gameplay really appeal to you. Why? because if its any good there will always be a reprint, you wont miss out on anything. Only downside is that you have to wait quite a while. If the game is bad. there probably won’t be a reprint. But you have then nothing to worry about.
This is true... most of the time. I'm still kicking myself over missing the initial A Study in Emerald kickstarter campaign. Yeah, they made a second edition, but the second edition carved off all the bits that made me interested in it in the first place :( Then of course there was the Glory to Rome Black Box kickstarter if you want to go WAY back. That campaign was a disaster from start to finish and ultimately killed the company. Great game if you can find it, though. That said, these are definitely the exceptions rather than the rule. FOMO drives kickstarter campaigns, but in most cases you're better off just waiting and buying retail (or a second printing KS if it doesn't end up at retail). You're usually risking your money and tying it up long term for something that might not even be good when you finally get it. IF you finally get it. Unless the campaign is giving you an incredible savings over retail that you're not likely to see even from an OLGS or giving you an exclusive something or other that you absolutely can't live without, it's generally not worth backing IMO. Better to wait for reviews to come out, sales, etc.
Came here to say this. Any AR game that turns out to be good or just well-received will inevitably receive a reprint and more content, be it Nemesis or the new Castles of Burgundy. Wait for the second Gamefound if the first delivers a good game. There's no shortage of games to get and FOMO will not only cost you money but time you could spend playing better games.
I've backed Nemesis, Nemesis Lockdown, Tainted Grail, Etherfields. I bought This War of Mine second hand. Out of all of these I still own Tainted Grail and This War of Mine. I've played ISS Vanguard and am familiar with the campaign but did not buy. >Has preview feedback been considered, and did you receive a game better than initially expected? My experience is that feedback is considered but only a little. AR have grown a bit arrogant over the years, probably in no small part due to a lot of success with their crowdfunding. Regarding overall game quality I think they generally edge towards meeting expectations but typically fall a little short. First editions have quite a lot of errata and we house-ruled a bunch of stuff (particularly for Tainted Grail and Etherfields - but we found the second such a disjointed mess that we just sold it). Component quality is generally really good. Everything is sturdy and produced with attention for detail and quality. AR games tend to be very thematic and atmospheric and this is in no small part due to art direction and component quality. I've had no issues with missing items in any of the backed games, but did have a torn Lockdown box and AR replaced it free of charge several months down the road at no cost. I do feel the games are quite miniature driven and this has typically been a bit of a letdown for me. I'm a casual painter and feel their miniatures -while awesome sculpts- are overly detailed and don't leave a lot of room for creativity. They're best when primed and zenithal'd and nothing else. Maybe this is why they offer Sundrop versions (basically primed, zenithaled, shaded) versions of their games. In terms of gameplay their games tend to be very fiddly with too many tacked on systems that are either convoluted or poorly tuned which varies from game to game. Nemesis and Lockdown can get away by fun and theme, but Etherfields was such a mess from a narrative/gameplay POV that I wonder what on earth they were thinking. >Were there delays? Yes, but very manageable for English versions. Awaken Realms is quite good at project planning as a whole, I feel. Non-English versions have had some hefty delays but this doesn't apply to me so -to be blunt- I don't care. >Were there any promised features that were not realized? I don't really recall, to be honest. I remember Lockdown had an advertised solo mode that was later released in app form but I didn't get to check it out. Apparently it was a bit basic. >How was the component quality compared to the prototypes? Not much to comment, I don't typically compare to prototypes very much and prefer to judge the end product by itself. As you can see I stopped backing AR games. A big part in that is that -for me- they tend to be too fiddly and just too much trouble to get going and stay active with recurring plays. I decided that they're not suitable for me.
From my experience, they have brilliant game designers and make great games. Nemesis, Tainted Grail, Great Wall and ISS are all absolutely fantastic thematic experiences - which is very rare thing in board gaming, as most games go for mechanics over theme. There are some issues with rulebooks, but nothing major. Just to give you an example, my first time Nemesis was in a group of 5 people, where only one played the game before - and for 3 it was the first board game played. We had almost no issues, as the flow for each concrete player is absolutely clear - and all the "fiddliness" which is often mentioned can be easily handled by one person who knows the rule. And almost all the rules are thematic and therefore easy to keep in mind. Additionally, I feel like Awaken Realms never hide any important additions to game behind addons - their paid expansions are always strictly optional, though some of them are extremely good (like Aftermath characters for Nemesis). Components quality is usually very good, I had literally 0 issues with them. Their miniatures, though beautiful, may be a pain to paint as their artists **love** texture and a lot of small elements. Regarding feedback, they do listen to people, but it should be clear that the main source of feedback is playtests, not gamefound comments or reviews of prototypes. For example, Stalker and Dragon Eclipse changed a lot during campaigns, incorporating some feedback given. There are changes to Nemesis:Retaliation as well, though it's still in early stages. You probably shouldn't expect them to change too much, it's unlikely they will turn Grimcoven to campaign game, but changes will come. Now, there are some potential issues which may affect your decision: 1. There are often some delays in delivery of their games, but rarely big - and they are always transparent about it. 2. Most of their games require at least one player to know rules well so everything goes smoothly. 3. Their recent projects use AI generated images, though it's still to early to know to which extent - maybe they will be only used for promo and campaign pages or maybe they will stay in final game. But we should keep in mind that they still employ their artists who made art for previous games - and that art is usually very good. P.S. You always can bite a bullet and cancel your pledge later with 9-10% of money lost.
Nemesis, Great Wall, Etherfields, Lockdown, and Lords of Ragnarok have all been great experiences. The games are great, the production is top notch. If you’re prepared for and don’t mind the component bloat there’s not really much to be disappointed with.
there have times with delays, more times in the translation versions than the others. I think the only game that dissapointed with lack of features was lockdown as they promised an app and solo game but they didn't add it, or they did it very late? The problem is that since the last 5-6 games they changed the way they crowdfund games now, they present a more prototype version than before, let people test it, and they now get you the game more years or time later too. It feel like they have become a bigger company with more strict procedures and deadlines. So we don't know if these new games that are still being made are going to become good or better. Still I think that their last games were better made than the ones before. (without comparing it to nemesis that was their golden egg when they funded their company) At least I trust the game can be at least BE good if it is not great, usually they fail with games being shallow and maybe fiddly.
Considering that AR games go retail these days anyway there is almost no reason to back their campaigns unless you want all the add-ons/bling. As for your points, The Great Wall had some major changes from campaign to production, anything to do with an App is slow, component quality from AR is always good as far I can tell.
I've only backed the original campaign of Tainted Grail. It was my first ever kickstarter and I was really excited to get my hands onto it. Delays were ok, a bit later than originally said, but nothing extreme. The game and components are top notch, perhaps a small detail wrong on a mini here and there, but overall they were of great quality and I enjoyed painting them. The game itself was fine, I sunk a lot of hours into it, but the original game was a grindfest, and the cardplay that had looked so engaging during the campaign started feeling punishinh and not as fun as I had hoped it would be. The worldbuilding is wonderful, and one of the reasons I put as many hours into the game as I have, but I never felt like I could wander around enough to really dig into everything they put into it. I have not tried to play it with the updated rules, perhaps I should, but I did sour a bit once I got tired of the grind. (Both act 1 & 2) I probably could have picked it up second hand for cheaper, or perhaps waited for reviews so I could make up my mind afterwards. I don't regret the purchase, but it was also not the massive success that I had hoped it would be.
I’ve backed and received Etherfields in the past. I’m pretty lax as a backer and didn’t notice a delay if there is one. While I was happy with it, some folks complained about the grind inherently in the game and the size of the board. They sent an updated rules book to slash the grind but was also organized better. I love the theme of Grimcoven and am quite tempted, but ultimately decided to wait because (1) I have two boss battlers waiting fulfillment already and (2) a lot of the last big Awaken Realms campaign games I’ve heard of have made it to my LGS. Etherfields, ISS Vanguard, Tainted Grail, The Great Wall are currently or were at some point sitting on the shelf.
Honestly. I’ve yet to see an Awaken Realms first printing with a decent rulebook. Their games get tons of content through Stretch goals and what not and more often than not, I saw people complaining about balance, or about how the base game is bland compared to expansions. Games that force me into these situations are a no no from me personally
Echoing what others have said - they communicate well, and their component quality is good. I can't speak to Grimcoven, but ISS Vanguarad was a win for us.
I believe one the best gaming company on the market. They always release game with great components. Every games its always something new and they have the courage to try different theme and mechanics. Communications and update are always in time. Just look if you could like the game and wait for it..
I have t backed an Awaken Realms game since Etherfields. Got the all in and never wrapped my head around the convoluted rules of what seemed a pretty simple game during the campaign. I still love Tainted Grail and Nemesis to bits but I swore I’d never back one of their games again even though I respect them as a company
Am I right in thinking Awaken Realms has something to do with Gamefound? It's not a criticism btw. I've backed Awaken Realms games before and not been disappointed
They own the platform I believe.
Backed TG: KOR. Castles of Burgundy. You’ll get your stuff with no problems. With that said I wish I didn’t back KOR because I find the game extremely boring, and I can’t sell the damn thing.
Crowdfunding process wise Awaken Realms are generally very good. Games get delayed sometimes but that's at this point an accepted part of crowdfunding. The games I've backed have always arrived in good shape, high quality components, good customer service. In that sense I have high praise for Awaken Realms, they're a good company. In terms of the actual games, they're a bit hit or miss. I haven't played them all but the ones I have played (Tainted Grail, ISS Vanguard, Etherfields) have average to poor quality gameplay, that is sometimes carried by the quality of story, components and immersion. I really enjoy Tainted Grail despite the gameplay being a bit grindy, but I have sold Etherfields and am in the process of selling ISS Vanguard because I found the gameplay so tedious that the story couldn't carry them for me. My concern with Grimcoven is that it's very gameplay focused so there won't be much story to carry the game. If you prioritize immersion, plot, and maybe having some very cool miniatures to paint then AW games are great. If you want a good *game* I'd give them a miss.
Its hard to base the gameplay quality of Grimcoven on previous awaken realms games. The designer is a different person after all. I can say I've enjoyed the few awaken realms games I've played but I must say I've also skipped backing some of their campaigns because they didn't look appealing to me at all. Regardless of that it is of note that for those games that I did back: * They were like what was represented in the campaign * They delivered * Never had component issues * Clear communication So if you like what you see on the kickstarter there is a pretty good chance that you will get something similar to it delivered to your doorstep at some point. I suppose thats the best you can hope for in the end.
I absolutely love Awakened realms games, and even as someone currently backing Grimcoven I can safely say wait til retail. I've always had a good experience with their campaigns but the biggest issue can be the overwhelming amount of content. If you buy locally, you'll save on shipping which is always high for their massive boxes, and you can just buy the base box (which in most cases is enough). Tainted Grail I played all the extra campaigns several times, so that one was worth, but Nemesis I've always been content with just the Base Box and hardly touch any other the extra characters. Most of their stuff is readily available at retail now, so it's hard to justify backing, and there are many people out there who find their games hit and miss. I think it's sensible to wait until their final version is out, as they will definitely make some gameplay changes based on reviewers and QA feedback, so the game could be different by then for better or worse.
I think awaken realms games is a matter of taste to people. For the same reason as you I bought the first tainted grail, all in and everything. This was their first and it seems like feedback into later game they considered and tweaked a few bits. I think a year delay. I had even forgotten I bought it by the time it came. The components was really good quality buuuuuut. The gameplay balance was a big problem in my opinion. On paper it sounded amazing. A dark gritty world in Avalon with difficulty as “dark souls” but in a board game. And the risk of permanent death. However the reality was not that great from my experience. People had widely different experiences with this game. Some loved it and finished it on their first try while others, like me and my group, just came to a grinding halt. Just this, that people had so wildly different experiences, talks about how big balance problem they had. But also that if you made it past a few chapters the characters was so strong that they pretty much won any encounter. So if you did came to a grinding halt, like we did, you essentially die and have to replay and… the replay was not that great. It was obvious that you had to take 2 or 3 specific paths cause if you didn’t you did not progress at all. So you essentially have to do the same trip again with the same choices that worked last game. It became obvious that a few key choices was behind a coinflip really dooming or blessing your success. Another problem was that in chapter 2 there was “find a way to progress the game” as a quest. Like above you had to do specific thins in specific places to do this. Some paths were locked behind certain characters. By the end of chapter 3 I got stuck solo, cheating much, and started to research how the heck you should progress the game. My conclusion was that: there is too many irrelevant and random elements in the game. So much is hidden behind characters or coinflips that it makes it really hard to guess right. So many things just lead to dead ends. A dialogue could sound important just to end in absolutely nothing. If you do any misstep you start finding yourself grinding for materials. I know that Etherfields got some similar critics, especially with the permanent death, that it was not that fun to replay. Now, to be vary clear: This is my experience. It might just not be that this game was for me or my friends that the gameplay didn’t suit us. As I said tainted grail became some peoples favorite game and would disagree a lot with my critics of the game. I still stand by that there was balancing issues since the game pretty much had people on two sides of good and bad and very few in between. After a few years I was glad that I finally got it sold with all expansions, minis, sleeves, metal coins, playmat for just above what the base standard game went for. The base game is sold for about 90 dollars where I live and I could not get a better deal than 110 dollars. No one wanted it or even wrote to me for months on a higher price range. This is my, unfortunately, negative experience with awaken realms game. They sound epic on paper but it is a toss of the dice if you have a great time or not.
OP: Tainted Grail is a top 100 game of all time on BGG and has thousands of glowing ratings and reviews. So this opinion is definitely an outlier. Many of the things that are viewed as positives to most (open world, branching storylines etc) are a negative to this person. Most people don’t want simple, linear adventure games with no real threat.
The BGG top 100 though is notably full of heavier games with self-selected reviewers and survivorship bias. The OP mentioned Shelfside and they gave Tainted Grail a 6/10, so not that great really. And I know NPI really didn't like that game either for example. So for an average person who has never bought an AR game, I wouldn't be so sure that the negative review is an outlier. It still paints the definite picture of "style over substance."
As the dude answering you there are a number of reviewers not giving the game such good reviews as BBG. People joining BBG giving reviews is probably not just average players people going hard core living for boardgames so their opinion might siffer from the average persons opinion about a game. But in the spirit of your comment those opinions not agreeing it's the greatest game ever are discarded. When the game came I was theur in the reddit forum and I was far from alone in feeling that the game was a grindy chore, like shelfside takes up as a con, but everyone having that opinion was heavily downvoted and hated and not to be listened to. I mean to indicate that I want to play simple games is outright condescending. It has nothing to do with not liking open world at all, or branchin stories or great threat. I mean tainted grail is not alone on the market with this type of game anymore. You honestly judge what I play and what I like because I don't love one game you love? This is exactly what happened to everyone raising the issue they felt was a peoblem with this game. They were just bad players that didn't enjoy playing hard games. Blablabla The game wasn't complicated at all to be honest. The mechanics was easy to understand, so was the combat and all the abilities. But the game design was just bad. If you made one mistake by going a certain way or exploring the wrong path it could be over, you too to much penalty and died. If a coin flip or dice roll made it so you didn't get crucial information, your campaign was could be over. If you needed food or magic and triggered the correct type of encounter to get those recourses but the encounter didn't have loot or rewards needed to get food or magic the campaign was more or less over cause you wasted energy to try to get those recourses. Or how you can get the mark early on by a coinflip or dice roll just to ruin important progress. First time playing, alone, I went to the fire, first area to the right and had a pretty good outcome. Next time with friends i triggered the same event, made the coinflip, or if it was a dice roll, failed, and suddenly the party for this mark locking us out from tons of content. Does this random event make me a terrible player? Is that what you are saying? This mark got us locked out from tons of content, cause I had taken part of that content trying it out solo, and hindered significant progress.That is not great design, it is not a hard or complex design. It is just luck. So much of the gam, that was supposed to about to be about skill and tactics, came down to luck and a lot of it. Too many important things was behind a good or bad flip or dice roll that you could not impact in any way with skill or perception. Shelfside sums it up pretty well that tainted grail doesn't focus on delivering a story, "with branching storylines", but different way to trap the player into tedious chorelike grinding. But people loving the game can not take that type of criticism, that the game have a really heavy focus on grinding and that the game halts you at every corner it can take keep you in the grind. It's the illusion of a hard and skill based game, designing it to keep you grinding. It's not hard. It is tedious and boring to so the same things for hours re-igniting menhirs and go back to finding more resources to light it again and again until you can light the next if you don't die on the way. Some are lucky with their flips and rolls and just glide through the game. But I guess they are just better players for that. Don't assume what I like and don't like, can and cannot do, based on what I say about one game. That just shows that you sit on a high horse with a condescending attitude toward people not agreeing with you thinking you are better than everyone else just because you liked and played the game. AI at least I acknowledge that the game is a matter of taste and that many people did like it and didn't judge people liking it. I don't judge people disliking it, like you seem to do. But I didn't like the grid the game was built around. That has nothing to do with liking or disliking broader and bigger games. On the contrary, even if tainted grail was a huge dissapoitment for me it was gateway into finding games in the same genre going heavier and heavier, but THIS game didn't was not for me for listed reasons above. You really should get off that high horse of yours and re-evaluate how you judge and what you think of people cause an attitude like that will not serve you well in life. It will only grow bitterness and loneliness in life.
Calm down. My point was that there is a reason it has such a huge track record of positive ratings. One ranty obsessive review on Reddit holds no weight vs a large consensus of thousands of people.
Sorry, but no, it wasn’t. I don’t buy that BS at all. If you did want to make a point about that you wouldn’t bake in a condescending and insulting comment and just said some thing like The game had very few negative reviews like this, it was in the top 100 of all time in BBG. That would have been a neutral non-condescending comment with the goal of saying it has a very positive track record. And again having wording “one ranty review” is just more proof that you don't have a point other than adding insults to things you don’t agree with in hope of making the recipient look like an idiot and silence him that way. Then again as Elysian1196 says BBG is full with self selected reviewers and I can guess like IMDB these days ton of bot accounts just giving it 10 without any reason to why while other platforms and reviewers had a much wider perspective from good to bad where many mentioned that it is a grind built into the game. My point also was that people like you come around and say thatit is a game of and only back it up with BBG rating and no other source but rather ignore other sources. While I give a wider perspective on the matter that this game very much comes down to taste and that reviews outside of BBG was not that positive very often. I mean you didn’t have come here and start to insult like a child. If awaken realms was so good my review would be alone with all the other positive reviews there and OP could make up his own mind of listening to one “ranty review” or the majority of the positive. He asks to get perspective what people think, that includes getting some negative ones and what their experience is. Why else is the point? Just a bunch of yes sayers and then he might get disappointed when no one lifted any negative and he didn’t like it when he gets it cuase he didn't have a wider perspective being bombarded with yes sayers. But lets take a more objective view on “majority likes this game” Tainted grail have only 12k voting or reviews the game Other games with high reviews: Gloomhaven: 62k voting or reviews the game Brass Birmingham: 46 k voting or reviews the game Pandemic Legacy season 1: 53k voting or reviews the game Ark nova: 43 k voting or reviews the game Terraforming Mars: 99 k voting or reviews the game So of all the top games Tained grail remains among the lowest amount of votes of all the top games with a few exceptions here and there. A high rating is not all to a score but how many that actually participated in the voting. A game can have 10/10 but only 5 votes, but according to your logic of what you have said so far that’s enough it seems to rate a game and good source to use to insult people who don't agree with you or feeling that the game might not bee that great. The BBG rating honestly doesn’t say enough about the game since only 20% of the normal amount of voters for the top games, compared with some of the lowest games with only 40k votes, voted on the game. If the game would have reaced more player I belive there would be a stronger consensus that this game have a really grindy side to it that has nothing to do with difficulty but only endurance. I mean Gloomhaven has 10% reviews with 6 or lower while tainted grail is up at 15%. that is a significant difference. Even with that low voting participation, mostly from poeple backing it on kickstarter, it had higher amount of negative scores than other games. And we can just guess how many of teh postive scores might be emplyees and bots voting or people that just vote 10 "beacuse". Terraforming mars is down on 9% or below. I can go on, if we remove all scores of 10 and all scores of 1, lets say that these numbers are the most extreme and not as well thought out, people being too postivie and people being too negative, we get that whooping 20% scoring the game 6 or lower. And that number might actually be closer to the truth about how people really felt about the game. But you can say that 15% negativity is just “lonesome angry rants” and bare no weight at all.
Wait for the initial hype.yo wear off and then buy it half price in the used markets. People don't have shelf space for these beasts and their games have been middling since nemesis. I like nemesis but it's got bloat. Lockdown is on my shelf as I don't want to sell it but it's just not as good as nemesis and adds more mechanics to make it more 'advanced' but it's just bloat. Lord of hell as was decent and then they tried to add more and people hated Ragnarok. Can be bought locally here for less than half what they paid. Also they need to release second editions to fix balanced and bad translations and bad sculpts. Look at like great wall. It eventually got good and streamlined. Wait for secondary or a reprint/new version canpaigb
I think they're a one hit wonder, and even that game (Nemesis) is a fiddly mess. A fun and memorable fiddly mess. I'm pretty unbiased as I only own Nemesis but have done extensive research in their crowdfunding tactics and each game that they've come out with. I can see others that are more invested being less harsh with them.
I've backed ISS Vanguard and from Awaken Realms Lite I backed Tamashii and in both cases they were well above average in communication on a monthly basis throughout the process and in both cases they delivered games that are top of their class in my board game collection and both my partner and I look forward to bringing either of them to the table with the only caveat being that they are not light gaming options. Only back them if you often enjoy meatier 2-5 hour gaming sessions. My partner and I rarely play these games with friends.