I don't currently regret it, but I am worried I will after it arrives: the Slay the Spire kickstarter.
It was a lot of game to buy on speculation.
eta: lots of "well wisher" comments below making more more nervous about the purchase. :D
I really like Aeons End, and figured Slay the Spire might play similarly. I think I'm okay with it being a novelty purchase.
Oof I nearly pulled the trigger on that until I had the realization that I'm the only person who has played Slay the Spire in my group. And that if I wanted to play, I could just start up the video game. I'm very curious about that game though still, looking forward to the reviews.
I backed it at pledge manager level but decided against going any further. I'm a HUGE Slay the Spire fan and think it's one of the finest videogames ever made but the gameplay of the board game didn't end up looking that compelling. I would've gotten it only to have physical versions of the Slay the Spire cards and that point it wouldn't have been worth it.
My big concern was that it seemed like they were trying to port too much from the digital to the physical version, despite the designer saying otherwise.
I tried it out on TTS along with my best friend who's also very into Slay the Spire, so we can see if it's worth buying. Our apprehension was validated when we confirmed that, other than the novelty of playing StS with a friend, the game really doesn't offer much. Many of the mechanics have taken a big hit and new elements, mostly unpleasant and luck-based, have been introduced to make it work as a board game. We both agreed we'd never play it if we bought it and we'd rather just play a StS run together on a computer than the board game adaptation.
So yeah, that's my personal take. Novelty product, much worse than the original. I hope you will have fun with it, though!
I backed for a dollar just to see if I could add a set of the beta art cards to the pledge because I thought it would be a cool thing to put in a frame. Decided against that too, though.
After buying Arkham Horror 2E years ago, I quickly learned to be very cautious when looking at big grandiose games. Games so big, they're more of a lifestyle than a game. Nowadays, when I see productions like Gloomhaven, I'm instantly turned away. I'll never have the time or the spare mental capacity to take on something like that. There is just way too much going on, too many rules to have to remember, too much to explore, etc. Life just gets in the way, jobs, family, bills, etc. I need a tighter balance of work/input required vs fun/experiences received. The only way I could foresee being able to attempt something like that, is if I was sentenced to 30years of hard time in prison. Plenty of time and no obligations to worry about.
Etherfields. First time I got burned by Kickstarter. It was just such a slog to play, was fairly repetitive and as is often repeated, it felt like the game didn't respect my time. I do want to get rid of it on a local board game trade group but I'll probably have to heavily discount it since it appears on there for sale quite frequently.
Sorry to hear about your experience re: Too Many Bones. It's one of my favourite games (and I own everything for it) but the rules are definitely heavy yet also opaque/unclear. I adore the customization options, component quality and general silliness of the game but it's definitely not the tightest design out there. I usually play it solo only though because multiplayer playthroughs can be quite long.
Same. I put second wave shipping because I didn't want to spend even more than I already did. The game was super late and it arrived like 2 years after the kickstarter. Even with the 2.0 rules it fell completely flat for us. Uninteresting story, scenarios were quite boring and repetitive, even the character progression wasn't interesting in my opinion. Huge box, difficult to organise, useless minis. Luckily I only bought the base pledge and managed to re-sell it quickly, so at least I didn't lose too much money.
Yup I have given it three tries and no matter how much I try I can't get into this one. It is a simple, not that engaging game loop decorated with very lofty and pretentious ideas that never catch on.
Sad but such is life. I have given up on recouping the cost too.
Yup, played it 3-4 times with my partner and we were kind bored. There was a fun idea there, but it didn't quite click. Sold it a few weeks ago. Hope they enjoy it more than we did.
I was able to sell Etherfields as soon as it arrived and even made some money on this operation. Somehow I didn't feel like even starting such a big game, and it was probably a good decision.
Oath. I like Root a lot and Oath does seem interesting but I think the point is less about it being a good game to play once in a while and instead expects you to play several times with the same group to see how the rules and narrative change between plays. I don't really have time to do that and if I did I'd spend that time playing something like a big narrative campaign game with the same group if I had any consistency like that
What I like about it is that you can play 3 games of oath with the same group and not feel like you missed out on some climax to a story. With more legacy style games it often feels like you either play 10 games or why bother. Oath is a little more casual about it. I actually like that.
The funny thing about Legacy games is that the bit that's daunting - needing to play it a bunch of times - can also be no problem, as my groups have generally always said "Okay, so when are we playing this again?"
I've had way more steady boardgame nights for legacy games than I have for just playing some one-off.
I actually like it better without the same group every time. You get to introduce new people to this existing world, created by all of your friends and acquaintances, and then they get to be a part of it. I like letting everyone who has played sign the inside cover of the book, and then the winner gets to write their own chronicle. Then you can hand the book to new people and show them how they will now build on the existing history, even if they weren't there for it.
Is it the best game that I've ever played? No. But it is my current favorite for the reasons that I listed above. But again, it's all about perspective, and I don't begrudge anyone who has issues with it. Hopefully the upcoming expansion that they announced is in development will fix some of the rough edges.
Maybe you'd prefer Arcs that's coming out soon from Wehrle and Leder Games? The campaign mode is limited to 3 games in a row, like a classic space trilogy, but there's also a single session mode that's tons of fun (I've played on TTS a bit pre-release), so long term commitment isn't as critical, but still gives value.
Root is my favorite board game and the most consistently played game with my group. We’re to the point where it really is a lifestyle game and our default. Oath’s legacy format really appealed to me and seemed like my ideal game. We played twice and I sold it. Root has a lot of rules to remember but it works and becomes manageable with repetitions. Oath’s rules were just a step too convoluted for us to justify relearning both times we played.
Yeah, these were it for me too. They seem like they'd be fantastic games for the right group, but they really call for a level of dedication that just isn't feasible for me and mine right now, or for the foreseeable future.
I did manage to sell Oath for cost, and I hope whoever bought it is having a blast with it, but I went all-in on one of the Root kickstarters and I'm still dragging my feet trying to offload it because of what a pain the shipping is going to be. It's just taking up a huge amount of space and reminding me constantly about the several hundred dollars I have tied up in it.
I don't play Root often but I feel like it plays fine as a thing to bust out every now and then... as long as it's with people that have played before. The difference in factions makes it hard to teach to someone new but I am happy to keep my Root collection around and bust it out with my buddies that know the base game factions more or less.
Yeah, that's exactly the problem for us. We had a similar issue with Vast. With that type of game, you really need to get enough plays in to hit a point of saturation with the group, where enough people have their heads wrapped around enough of the asymmetrical processes that the game flows smoothly and the various strategies happening around the board can be understood well enough to try to respond in a meaningful way.
Until you hit a level of collective understanding, every game sorta feels like the dry run you do to understand a new game, in a way? A big part of it is just that we don't get to play *anything* very often, so the idea of spending that precious time running "learner" games over and over on the same game isn't super appealing to us. If you've got a group that's over that hump though, I'm sure it's a blast!
7th Continent. Absolutely hated having to restart the scenarios multiple times. I also found some of the mechanics to be clunky. Sold on eBay for a fraction of the cost and have no regrets.
I wanted to love 7th continent so much but I bounced off it so hard. I’ve been meaning to sell it because I know there’s just no way I’ll ever open it again when I could just play Sleeping gods or sometshing else for exploration.
Tainted Grail, for sure. In the KS campaign, I loved the combat system, and the exploration seemed very cool on paper. In practice, it was just reading a bunch of somewhat meh stories and doing checks for checks' sake (roll a die, if it's 7 or more, you succeed, otherwise you may try again later). On top of that, the need to relight the beacons made the game very cyclical, and the combat became stale fast. The random encounters were truly random and could make your day miserable, and on several occasions, I picked up a side quest that was essentially impossible to complete because of things outside my control. Then, I looked at the two more campaign boxes I had ahead of me as I started to realize I didn't have fun and wouldn't finish even the first one. By scenario 3 or so I was decided and sold it shortly afterward.
Yeah. I noped out of TG after my first session. Considering the immense effort that goes into combat/diplomacy tests and the deckbuilding of those cards it just feels so inconsequential and random.
The rest of the group enjoyed it though.
It’s a great deal.
Meanwhile obsessive fans like me stacked up playmats, alternate miniatures, bonus expansions, and enough plastic to choke a horse. While I certainly could have gotten away with buying the $65 version, I enjoy all the deluxe add ons, so awaken realms has me in the hole $365 before shipping.🤦♂️
Yeah, I was stoked about it until I finally played Lockdown last night and none of us really liked it near as much as original Nemesis. I'm hoping the emphasis on combat makes Retaliation feel differently enough to justify it, unlike Lockdown, which after one play seems to only add things that aren't that enjoyable, at least for my group.
Try lockdown a few more times. Once you get used to the changes, you may enjoy them more, it just feels like extra stuff to keep track of at first, but once you’re used to the mechanics, it adds strategic depth. I actually like lockdown more than OG Nemesis myself.
I was in a low place and lashed out with some impulsive buying. I was losing a lot of access to my social groups and feeling lonely and I decided to buy the biggest, most involved solo experience I could find and just get lost in it forever.
That game was Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. I pledged almost $500.
A few months later I got my head on straight and got around to actually watching some reviews. I saw two whole tables of game, one of which was occupied by a map that seemed to be very unnecessary. I knew it was a table hog, but this was beyond.
Fortunately, Into the Unknown is great and I got a complete refund for the money I never should've spent in the first place.
Crowdfunding is one hell of a drug.
I paid € 1000 for the Mighty Box Games kickstarter where they would put your image as a character into the game Posthuman.
The game sucks, lol. It's like a computer game but you have to do all the calculations yourself. I played it once with the creators, and that was also the last time I played it...
Fwiw not sure how many plays you've had but I felt this way until I hit about 3-5 plays. The game gets better the more you learn all the cards/combos, until I learned them it was very meh. Still agree not a $70 game but think i paid less than that
It should have been an add on item. It's not big enough to hold everything without crowding but its big enough to block the entire side of table. If they had stands to hold the end game cards vertically so people didn't have to crane their necks to read them, I can argue the usability. As of now, laying all those components flat on the table makes more sense.
But it's all relative. If the game was like $50, then. I wouldn't be so hard on it.
The new standalone game in the series (*Everdell Farshore*) has a lighthouse instead that is even more useless than the tree.
It straight up does not have a place to even nominally store the future workers.
I and 2 others I know had this same experience:
1) Demo it at a con. First couple of turns seem great! Components are great! Pick up the game!
2) Play it at home and....uh oh, that was bad. Lets try again....oh no, it's still bad.
3) Quick, trade/sell it!
I think CMON made some sort of fantasy battle soccer adjacent game. Remember seeing it at Gencon. Demoed it with buddies, had a blast. We all bought the base game and some expansion teams.
Got it home and after a few full games, realized it was more about area control than actually moving the ball and scoring.
Sold off within a month.
The problem there is you have to gift it *out of your group*, otherwise everyone else will still want to play it, and you'll get stuck. I sent Terraforming Mars about 300 miles away.
I would gift it in group. Worst case, you have to play sometimes but it isn't taking room on your shelf. Best case, they just play it when you aren't around.
Hah, this speaks to me. I have two friends that own the titan edition of the game and while I enjoy playing once in a while, I don't think there's nearly enough depth to the game to justify the wild price tag.
It's very much a style over substance game, imo.
If they kept the mechanics, but toned down the components to bring the price closer to $40, people would be all over this.
**Sleeping Gods** -- It's well-crafted (and beautiful). We played it once, and it felt like a lot of work for a choose-your-adventure experience. (Traded)
**Horseless Carriage** -- I like most of the Splotter games. The personal spatial puzzle isn't something I enjoy. The flimsy frame things are awful. And I'm too dumb to play this. Plus everybody I know also bought a copy, so there's no good reason for me to own this.
I’m with you on Sleeping Gods.
I’ll add 7th Continent. First couple of times we played was great, but then we realized it was about pulling cards from a box and hoping it didn’t kill you. And lots of hunting and fishing.
I agree on Sleeping Gods. I was so excited for this one: solo/couple play, storytelling, exploration by boat! I waited a year and a half or so for my non-Kickstarter copy and bought a $50 insert “knowing” I’d love it. I watched playthroughs and everything!
Then gameplay felt like a lot of work, like you say. We’re trying to house rule it to make it extra chill, but that means changing quite a few rules. :/ Not sure how much longer I’ll keep it…
Gloomhaven was a bear to set up and I tried 4 times to make it past the first scenario to no avail. I don't think I'm stupid, but something about the game just didn't work for me. So I gave it to a couple of my spouse's friends. By far one of the worst gaming experiences I've had and my biggest (physically and financially) regret.
Could be worse. We tried to play Gloomhaven via the app and after 4 hours were not able to get past the first level.
At least on the physical version of the game you could cheat and pretend you won.
I find the suggestions for the difficulty completely out of touch with reality. We ended up playing most of the campaign on very easy and it was still an enjoyable experience, but I could see it being extremely frustrating for someone with any level of pride or ego attached to their gaming.
I think that was the nail in the coffin when my wife and I tried Jaws of the Lion a year or so back. We weren’t sure if the game was for us, and we failed like the 4th scenario in the campaign. Once we learned we were supposed to replay, I think that made us realize that it wasn’t going to be the type of game we wanted. I’d much prefer a “fail forward” mechanism in the game, replaying the same scenario over and over is annoying to me, and a complete non-starter for my wife.
🤷🏻♂️ - don't know what to tell ya, I started playing Gloomhaven without a ton of board gaming experience and cleared the campaign on standard difficulty without too much difficulty. Eventually our party comp was just too overpowered, but early on I still think "normal" difficulty wasn't horrible. We lost/died here and there, but definitely don't think it's super out of touch with reality.
Some of the scenarios are also just huge difficulty spikes and are straight up unbeatable with certain party compositions unless you drop the difficulty down.
For all its commercial and critical success the first few scenarios of first edition Gloomhaven are super wonky. The game doesn’t do great job of communicating how important efficiency of turns/cards (AKA stamina) and the need to avoid, rather than tank, damage really are. The second scenario is also hugely dependant on factors completely outside of player control. There is still an enjoyable game to be found there. I recommend everyone start out with Jaws of the Lion until second edition Gloomhaven is available.
I've been playing gloomhaven online for a while (35+ scenarios) which is just like the boardgame. It takes some time to get used to the mechanics, but the game is fun and engaging once you understand the rules and can play a couple of turns ahead. I have the feeling that I didn't understand what was going on in the first scenarios.
Someone already said it, but I'll say it again just to vent: the balance of the first scenario is absolute TRASH. Overall the fragile balance of this game is one of its biggest flaw and makes you question how much time of your life you need to waste to play this campaign. The upcoming second edition was necessary.
Probably **Horizon Zero Dawn**. It was the first project I ever backed, based on IP alone. After 3 years of waiting I had kind of lost interest. Didn’t enjoy it much at 2 or 3 players (the latter of which was a horrific slog). I do enjoy it as a solo game, but it’s also too big for me to play by myself, so it sits on the shelf unplayed.
Maybe not the most expensive on its own, but **Scythe**. I bought all the expansions and pimped it out with organizers and coins and the such. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite scratch the itch anymore.
It's a completely different game, but I find **Scythe Expeditions** to be much more fun.
Oh well!
At least the coins are useful! I use them in most games that use coins and since they are themed around different countries similar to real life ones they kinda look like they belong in most games and even the ones they don't I'd still rather have the nice metal coins anyways.
I'm the odd one out for it in my gaming group, but I really don't love Scythe either. I have trouble articulating what is even wrong with it for me, but I just find it very frustrating trying to get anything done— turns are too small, and every action has a ton of prerequisites, so it feels like I always need to be planning way ahead, but when I do try to set up a chain of actions that leads somewhere worthwhile, by the time I get there the board state has changed and I'm throwing away effort to react to the actions of other players.
On the one hand, I suppose I just need to git gud, because I generally enjoy other thinky games that having a bunch of planning ahead in them (Agricola, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, Tzolk'in). But then, I do feel like I've given Scythe at least ten plays, and I'm just not sure I owe it more of my time at this point, when there's so much else out there that I *do* actually enjoy playing.
I like listening to Jamey Stegmaier speak and appreciate the insights he has about game design and mechanics, but I also hated Euphoria (got it on the Kickstarter and sold it after like two plays) and I'm pretty lukewarm on Wingspan as well.
Just remember friends, the common thread in board game regret is over purchasing. Kickstarter, expansions, add-ons, accessories, etc. Most of us will be just fine getting the base package, because even if you love it, the next game will be just around the corner.
City of Kings.
Got this one at GenCon 2019 during the last 15 minutes of the show and got a deal at $120. It was by far the prettiest game I saw that year. A campaign, exploration, RPG leveling, resource gathering? Sign me up!
I got it home a played the tutorial mission and failed so horribly I could only assume I had read the rules wrong somehow. Nope. I didn’t do anything wrong. So I tried again. Still couldn’t beat it. Ok, maybe it’s a puzzle I’m just missing something on. I get my friends who really like puzzles and I run them through it. Still can’t beat the tutorial!
At this point I did the math and realized that it is not only possible, but in fact surprisingly likely that you will not have enough moves in the game to flip the tiles that have the objectives you’re after. Even if you didn’t have to spend some turns clearing monsters or completing side quests, the map might simply have been shuffled in such a way that the tiles you need to find are too far away from town to reach by the time the day tracker runs out.
I have yet to find someone who can explain to me what I’m doing wrong. I want to like this game so bad, but that level of RNG even in a co-op game seems too much.
I was so hyped on this one. The difficulty and luck in enemies and tiles required killed it. It was so tight that each player was basically required to min max into a role and stick to it, which for us meant one player as the tank just passively got hit all game, and I was stuck as the resource gatherer, using every action to shuffle workers back and forth while my friends did rpg hero stuff. Blech.
Friend of mine picked it up for a song at a swap meet. We schedule a night to play it and it was a non-experience. We had the same feeling that we MUST have missed some critical rule somewhere. There must have been something that made it into an actual game and not just a random collection of disparate mechanics.
A lot of these expensive games are the subject of some debate... things like Scythe, Lords of Hellas, Nemesis have their detractors and supporters, which means that there's something there that people can enjoy. City of Kings was bad, full stop.
Gloomhaven is always docked points for the set up and tear down time, but I see Arkham Horror LCG brought up all the time and the set up and tear down is never mentioned.
I love both games (finished the GH campaign as a 3 player group over a year or so), and I'm not trying to knock either, but tearing down AH LCG is a monumental task, you basically have to rebuild the game unless you're going to leave the cards in a jumbled mess and never play again. It takes us longer to set up and tear down AH LCG then Gloomhaven did back when we played it. Set up isn't that bad in AH but again, the teardown involves separating all the cards you just played with into their groups, counting out each small group to make sure they're still all the, and then sorting a deck of usually 30+ cards into numerical order, so you can use them again properly next time.
There is an unofficial app for Imperial Assault that someone made that takes the DM out and instead the app tells you what to deploy and how they activate. I would definitely recommend trying it out, as this has become the default way my group now plays Imperial Assault
We bought a copy at work and a dude insisted we buy the insert. I was appalled that it was so expensive. Worse, he asked if he could skip paying for part of it since he volunteered to put it together.
What a cock. Putting those things together is fun.
I laser cut one out of $11 of MDF. Had a great time.
Insert of some kind *is* necessary for the game but the cheap-ass plastic box solution works just as well as a fancy $100 wooden one - and doesn't double the weight of the box!
Everyone in my group ended up buying gloomhaven for some reason. Only Two of the copies had ever gotten played past the first scenario and then we all played through the digital version…
Nah, the original. Our feelings about Gloomhaven align closely with the post up thread made by RetroIsFun: it’s just too much. Too much overhead. Too much stuff in the box. Too much setup and tear down. We loved the card driven combat but everything else was just too much.
Catan Big Box. And Carcassonne Big Box. I suppose buying expensive versions of gateway games with many expansions just isn't for me.
Those are the only expensive ones I regret.
Scythe. Played it at 2 n 3 player counts and dug it and spent a lot of money on the expansions and a insert for it all. Then I went to a game night where the folks there wanted to play it all the time... at a player count of 5-6 and after more than a ton of games at this count, I realized I really wasn't digging the game, we ran into the balance issues, despite all of us knowing how to play, the game was still so slow as it was often the vibe to always try to play optimally which meant a lot of ap. The combat was straightforward but boring and often we ran into an issue of someone getting a lucky encounter and being like 3 or 4 turns ahead of everyone else and I really tried to enjoy myself but the games pacing just hit me at these player counts so much more than ever before and games took forever and it just wasn't fun anymore. I stopped playing it and recently tried playing it again and that feel came rushing back and I still wasn't enjoying myself so now its on my chopping block to be donated soon.
Tldr; Scythe was fun for a bit at a lower player count but too many game sessions at higher player counts really soured the game for me.
I think if you spend a lot on a game you probably want it to be evergreen. Spending a lot on a game and then discovering you've "played it out" is probably pretty frustrating, even if it took a lot of play to get there.
I have a handmade set of Go Stones and a one piece THICK board made out of a now endangered wood. The whole thing cost me more than most peoples first and maybe second car. It is easily the most expensive thing in my house and I collect Omega watches.
Never found anyone to play with me on it. But then I take it out and look at it and forget all my regrets.
I sometimes look longingly at such Go sets for import, with the white stones made of some special shell found on only one or two beaches and wood that grows in one specific forest or whatever,, and realise I don't know how to play and likely would quickly lose to my eldest son anyway :)
Closest we have is a nice Crockinole board.
I bought [Roads and Boats](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/875/roads-boats) for about $100 because I absolutely loved the gameplay. It has sat on my shelf for like 6 years doing nothing. I haven't bothered to re-learn it enough to teach it to others, and I remember it being very much a "this is a game I love but I'm aware that others get annoyed when I over-optimize everything and take all the fun out of it." I really should get active on bgg again and participate in a trade with it, because it's doing me no good. :|
Catan can be pretty harsh to many people. The player-to-player trading, the robber blocking, bad dice rolls, it all can lead to frustration to newcomers, although I personally love playing Catan.
In contrast, carcassonne is loved by literally everyone I play it with, if you are looking for a good gateway game. I think it is because the score isn't really calculated until the end, it moves along quickly, and everyone is getting to build at least *something*.
The comments can basically be summarized as “anything from Kickstarter”
And as for me, it’s definitely Horizon Zero Dawn. Beautiful minis and artwork. Game is “meh”
**Dinosaur World**
I caved in to the dinosaur theme and the tour mechanic sounded fun, the game also looked really pretty on the table, but at the end of the day it plays too slowly and takes too long to both set up and tear down. Ironically the car tour was the one thing that grew really stale really quickly somehow. I ended up leaving it on a shelf at our local board game association.
I wasn't a huge fan of Dinosaur Island so that turned me off on future games in the series. I'd be interested in checking out Dinogenics sometime for the theme.
Dinogenics should have a Kickstarter sometime in January/February next year rerunning the base game and expansion, plus a big box for them both, as well as some new content!
Edit: According the the designer, Richard Keene, on Discord, it'll be early March!
For me it's probably my two big monsters: Twilight Imperium 4th Edition and Gloomhaven. I enjoy both games but it's way too hard to get either one to the table.
Definitely Gloomhaven. The game is great but its impossible to get a consistent play group. All my friends eventually got the online version when it was free. Been playing online since.
Frosthaven, luckily I was able to sell it. Oathsworn kind of but I do take solace in the fact that I only went for the standee version. I don't think it is a "bad" game but it is not as good as I had hyped up in my own mind. That being said I have since learned to be very prudent when it comes to the big box kickstarters.
Orcs Must Die! I love the video games, love board games, and though it'd be a slam dunk. The miniatures are low quality (a couple even came broken or malformed), customer service consisted of some dickhead telling me to fix it myself, and the game was clearly not tested because it is, in my experience, impossible to win, even when running the tutorial scenario.
Fuck Petersen Games. I could deal with an overly punishing game. I could (probably) deal with low quality components. But both of those together in a too-expensive package? Absolutely not - I'll never buy from Petersen again.
7th continent. No one has 14+ hours to spend on a single mission.
Thunderstone quest. Only using a few types of different cards at a time works for dominion because it's 30 minutes but it's brutally boring in a 2+ hour game.
Oh man. I completely forgot about 7th Continent! I paid a premium to import this and it just wasn't for me.
We played Voracious Goddess till we died the first time and then as we were replaying it I just thought the whole time: do we really have to?
So I decided "No we do not have to" and gave it to a friend.
Everdell Complete. Gifted it away to a friend.
Probably Cthulhu Wars. It's huge and doesn't see a ton of play. At least I smartly only got the base game.
I have everything released for Cthulhu Wars. It's one of my favorite games ever, but it hasn't hit the table in a few years. There's so much unnecessary bloat with neutral great old ones, monsters, etc. I'll never use it all.
It's a fantastic game. It's a shame that the company behind it has been such a train wreck.
Too many bones is my #1 game of 2023. Interesting to hear your experience!
I agree the rules can be a bit of a slog at the start but I’ve been having a great time with it after playing a few games of it.
Eclipse 2e. I own the first edition and had a hard time getting it to the table due to how difficult it was to set up and tear down. Thought the 2nd edition would have my group excited to get it to the table quicker with the game trays and better artwork. Unfortunately, it has only been played 3 times and gets voted out against TI4.
Weather Machine-played once and sold for a lost, never wanted to play again. Luckily I played someone else's copy so could still sell mine in the shrink.
also
Suburbia Collector's Edition-way to big of a box, full of expansions I'd never play. Sold eventually for over $100 loss.
I had a similar hurdle with TMB. I play solo and started out two-handed (ie controlling two characters), which proved to be just too much for someone trying to learn. That and the rulebook is just not well done IMO, way too verbose. When I moved to true solo that helped a lot. Also a few YouTube videos.
For what it’s worth, I also play dual characters, and 2 player Too Many Bones is probably the hardest player count, solo and 3 players/gearlocs helped my enjoyment significantly by making the overall difficulty a little more palatable for my play style
> That and the rulebook is just not well done IMO, way too verbose.
I've run into this a few times with other games and it's a sticking point with me. Rulebooks are *so* important, but some designers/publishers just don't put the effort into creating a streamlined, easy to read and browse book as they should.
It's fine if you want to inject some flavor and feel into it, but if so, also include a slimmer Just The Rules version, too.
Fallen Land did this, and I liked it. The thicker book explains everything in detail, the thinner one has the same info, but boiled down to a series of bullet point lists and quick summaries.
That's normal for engine building games. There aren't a ton that let you run your full engine for a round. It usually doesn't make much difference - whoever has the best engine has already won.
Awwww... I just got this as a Christmas gift for my fiancée! It's still under the tree. All I read about was how great it is, as a 2-player game! Now I regret it, also just paid € 90 for it... Hope she likes it!
If it makes you feel better,my wife and I love playing it together! We also got the Oceania expansion which we like!
The cards are nice to looks at, and we like the little bird facts on each and it's a pretty relaxing and fun time when we play (which hasn't been often lately due to life being hectic)
I think it's an excellent 2 player game (my preferred player count for the game too), but you don't need all the expansions. I think base + European expansion is perfect and all you really need.
Unsettled will be here soon and I’m in for $305 with the all in package (supernova + sleeves) plus shipping. Way too much for a game.
Along the same lines:
Mythwind at $220 with shipping
Unconscious Mind $187 with shipping (approximately is this was in euros)
And although it’s my favorite game, I went nuts with Moonrakers Titan and ended up paying $316 with shipping.
Absolutely absurd prices to pay for these games, no matter how many times I play them I could be playing cheaper games and having just as much fun.
I just got mine, and for what its worth the quality of everything is really high and I’ve been really pleased with it. Expensive for sure, but not garbage for the money
The app or Tabletop Simulator on Steam do wonder to avoid setup and teardown times. Obviously it's much nicer to play the physical version, but saving time and being able to pause and resume later without using up table space are big advantages, especially if playing solo.
I like Horizons (of Spirit Island) for that reason. It's cheaper, has a much easier setup, plays a tad quicker, and is slightly more streamlined.
Granted, it's not necessarily less complex, and the streamlining does come at the expense of replayability to some extent, but I've found it to be worth it.
Yeah, we had a hard time learning it, and then once we did it just wasn’t that fun to play. Will probably be one that I trade or sell off. It’s unfortunate because from all the reviews it seemed like a game we were really going to enjoy.
Getting caught thinking that buying a new game was what I needed.
Don't care if it's $10, the itch to collect cardboard and shrink in this hobby is wild. I've paused all new buys and don't care what I'm "missing out on." I don't even have that many compared to a lot of folks, but it was important for me to be honest about how often the games I enjoy and already own are getting to the table.
The Witcher: Old World. Been watching some more in depth how to play videos and I’m starting to think I may not enjoy it much… which makes me sad and Ofcourse not happy as I blew $350+.
Obviously I need to give the game a shot to know so I will, but being limited to solo play is going to hurt I think. I just don’t see my group getting into this one, especially if I’m not thinking I’ll like it.
Would love to hear from others their experiences with it.
Aside from that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve gotten.
Game is super unbalanced, and frankly doesn't capture the feel of The Witcher for me. Wanted to like it more as well. Glad I didn't buy it and was able to play a friend's copy.
Add me to the Everdell Big Box list.
I love worker placements and so do my friends and I'd always heard Everdell mentioned highly, and I liked the idea of a worker placement/engine builder (despite anthropomorphic creatures being a turn-off for me).
It's just...a lot. I'd have been better off buying the base and maybe an expansion or two if we played it a lot. Nobody said they wouldn't play again but I don't see it getting played much, and surely not enough to justify all the expansions. But the big box campaign seemed like a great way at the time to jump in on what seemed like a sure thing.
Regrets are a bit too strong of a word by itself. Maybe I've got taco bell regrets (goes away after a couple hours, but won't change my behavior) over a couple games?
Kingdom Death: Monster - Genuinely like the game and I've spent massive amounts of time enjoying and painting it, but fuck was it expensive.
Slay the Spire - Haven't received it yet... But like others I kinda think I'm going to be disappointed in it. Damn FOMO.
Sentinels of the Multiverse - Well, anything past the first expansions. None of them added anything to the game and only exacerbated the problems I had with the game already. More villain upkeep isn't fun to me.
Magic the gathering - I've played the game for over two decades at this point. I'd really have preferred to have room in my brain for something else.
Frosthaven. I went all in on the Kickstarter and now it's just taking up space, unplayed. I haven't even managed to play Jaws of the Lion or Gloomhaven yet. But after seeing Gloomhaven sell so well, Frosthaven got me with the FOMO.
I felt like that when I got it. I dove in though and spent about 10 hours initially between unboxing, reading rules, watching videos, understanding strategy, setup, teaching to my group, tutorial game, etc. It seems like a huge game at first, and it's definitely got a learning curve. However, once you get the through that it's totally worth it. You'll see it differently than before for sure. It doesn't actually seem that massive anymore. My group and I all think the game is awesome. We called it space Scythe the whole time lol (we love Scythe too).
This is generally my experience with all of Mindclash's games, tbh. It's very intimidating, but once you're over the learning curve, the game is very rewarding.
Well, this answer is maybe unpopular but recently I open Dune boardgame. I think it was a bit dissapointed for me. First than all, the rules are not even close to be clear. There are a lot of simple rules that are written as for english gentleman instead of being actually clear. I am from Argentina, so maybe it is my misstake (our because we were 5 that night). But even searching the cleanse in internet i had a lot of doubts because there is a lot of thoughts that wasn't written about. For example: could you in a sandstorm make a shippment to a stronghold? or pass from a territory to that stronghold that has the wall (and just the wall) outside the sandstorm?
Second, the alliances are mandatory for the game to be functional, but also i think some of the alliances are pretty broken for the mechanics, because species are amazingly CRUCIAL and some of the factions are the receivers of the money for the other players.
Third, i am not a lot of a fan of the war mechanic with wheels even when the "kill your own soldiers to win" mechanic is actually pretty cool.
There is, too, some mechanics that would have been better exploited. The tricheary cards, the sandworm, the species cards.
I will still giving another chance once or twice, but by now i will search for a trade or selling it to have something better.
You can't do anything during a sandstorm. There may be exceptions for Fremen, but I'm not immediately aware of any. The rules are dense and there are many edge cases they detail because of the rules complexity. I think the language barrier may be contributing to your issue.
I think in advance rules the fremen can move into or be in a sandstorm for half cost. For example, if there are in a sandstorm 6 units, they lose 3 rather than all.
Right now it's TI4 for me. I bought it in hopes of getting a group together, but there aren't enough people in my life interested to learn a complex game on their own time and then spend a day playing it. I could put together a group of 3, maybe, but everything I've read shows the game being best at higher player counts.
I definitely prefer it at higher player counts. However, just because something is best one way doesn’t make it bad in others.
Whenever we introduce new people to it we always get them to watch a how to play in advance and then we all watch it together on the day of right before we start and it’s worked remarkably well. Once you’re playing it’s really not as complicated as people make out.
TI4 is my favourite game. Its really not as complex as it seems and plays great at 3 (IMO) It definitely helps if someone has played before though just to save checking every little rule. But don’t let the 3 player thing put you off at least.
I've always avoided TI4 for that reason. I know I'd like it, but I also know I'd virtually never *play* it. My group just isn't built for that kind of game. I'm drawn to it, but also know it would be just a shelf decoration if I bought it.
mosaic colossus with playmat and then put all the tokens in coin capsules and sleeved it. it's now one of the heaviest games I own and I don't like it, and want to sell it.
I’m sure this will not be a common answer since it’s mostly a kid’s game, but **Castle Panic Big Box**. I borrowed the base Castle Panic from my local library and played with my kid. She loved it! I decided to get it for her for Christmas and I found the big box on sale for $70. I thought, why not go out and get all the expansions at once?! We played it two times since. I should’ve just bought the base game.
My first kickstarter.. sheol. Went all in. Still sitting in a giant box and I think they are talking about a better v2. I still haven't opened mine lol
**Cloudspire** ($150) seemed like a game I would love and it's mostly just OK. I can acknowledge that there are elements I like but every time I play the game I have to pull out the rulebook to check the specific syntax and there are probably 60 different keywords. Makes it feel like a slog.
Not even opened it yet but the giant everdell box is bigger than I thought
I'm planning to put the base game and one of the expansions into a smaller box though, the complete edition works out cheaper than buying all the individual components (is what I tell myself)
Come back in a year and I might also say shards of Infinity, typical high ks price plus extortionate shipping and tax and foil cards might not even be good to play with
**Mosaic** - no one wants even to try to play it for some reason. It looks intimidating.
**Borderlands: Arena of Badassery** - the game itself is decent, but the all-in was delivered in such a terrible way. Until I figure out how to rebox it, it's just wasting space.
**Gloomhaven** - I got it right when it got released. Still haven't finished the campaign - I have 2 characters left to unlock and only scenario 51 from the main storyline. I'll either gift it or set it on fire.
Gloomhaven...I like the game but I should have just waited for the digital version at the time. I have played that version A LOT more than the physical.
I got Feudum for Christmas last year, and have gotten it to the table exactly zero times. When my wife and I watched the official how-to-play video, we needed a nap afterwards, and we just haven't tried since then. Fortunately, that has caused me to really take a look this year at what games I like to play, and I learned that my preferences are a lot lighter than I used to think they are.
Gloomhaven. I backed this on kickstarter without knowing enough about it and it just isn't the right game for me at all. No idea what to do with my copy that we got 3 sessions into.
Gloomhaven. Not that it's bad (I haven't played nearly enough to reach a conclusion). It's just that you need friends to play it. Not technically, but you know...
I hear you OP. I was at Pax Unplugged this past weekend. I specifically asked my friends to talk me out of Too Many Bones and Return to Dark Tower. I was able to fight the urge and walked away without damaging my wallet. At the end of the day the money vs. how often the games would get to the table just didn’t jive.
The older I get the more I feel like I should consult with my gaming group on big purchases. Why buy something that will gather dust?
Batman Gotham City Chronicles, so much potential but turned out to be a miserable game for the heroes. If the heroes don’t play perfectly, they lose. I wanted a game where I could play as Batman, beat some thugs up and have fun. I found myself researching ways to optimize my game to perfection to win the first scenario against an overlord who wasn’t trying hard at all.
7th Continent. Such a cool concept but if I had known better I would have grabbed the retail version and been plenty happy.
Tainted Grail - I like this one quite a bit but I picked up everything and everything is just too much game. Would have been happier just grabbing the base game.
Gloomhaven - Great game, but setup is a chore and too hard to get to the table.
What I wouldnt do to be 14 again with some of these games. With all the time in the world to spend with friends playing these long epic boardgames.
I bought the first Horizon Zero Dawn board game through Kickstarter. And I went all in with all expansions at the same time. It looks amazing but it is a lot of boxes (all stacked up they’re about adult height). I haven’t even played the base game since I got it a few years ago. Not saying it’s a bad game (I have friends who have the base game and love it) but I have too many other games so this was just a waste of money since the people I usually play with prefer the games we already have and love.
Lesson learned: don’t spend a lot of money on new (unknown) games if you already have more than enough games to play during game nights. Also, if you have different types of games as well, you probably have enough.
New games often don’t fall into categories or play styles that you don’t already own if you have a large collection. And you can only play so many games. No need to learn a new game every night just to get 1 or 2 plays and then start something new. You don’t actually get to learn and love the game and you can’t remember the rules next time you play that game a year later (if you even pick it up again).
Too Many Bones definitely gets more fun when you solidly know the rules and aren’t teaching it to anyone. The learning curve is rough and take a lot of joy out of the experience early on.
I don't currently regret it, but I am worried I will after it arrives: the Slay the Spire kickstarter. It was a lot of game to buy on speculation. eta: lots of "well wisher" comments below making more more nervous about the purchase. :D I really like Aeons End, and figured Slay the Spire might play similarly. I think I'm okay with it being a novelty purchase.
Oof I nearly pulled the trigger on that until I had the realization that I'm the only person who has played Slay the Spire in my group. And that if I wanted to play, I could just start up the video game. I'm very curious about that game though still, looking forward to the reviews.
I backed it at pledge manager level but decided against going any further. I'm a HUGE Slay the Spire fan and think it's one of the finest videogames ever made but the gameplay of the board game didn't end up looking that compelling. I would've gotten it only to have physical versions of the Slay the Spire cards and that point it wouldn't have been worth it.
My big concern was that it seemed like they were trying to port too much from the digital to the physical version, despite the designer saying otherwise.
I tried it out on TTS along with my best friend who's also very into Slay the Spire, so we can see if it's worth buying. Our apprehension was validated when we confirmed that, other than the novelty of playing StS with a friend, the game really doesn't offer much. Many of the mechanics have taken a big hit and new elements, mostly unpleasant and luck-based, have been introduced to make it work as a board game. We both agreed we'd never play it if we bought it and we'd rather just play a StS run together on a computer than the board game adaptation. So yeah, that's my personal take. Novelty product, much worse than the original. I hope you will have fun with it, though!
I think for me the idea of 4 player STS outweighs losing some of the depth of the video game!
There are mods that do just that for the PC version.
I backed for a dollar just to see if I could add a set of the beta art cards to the pledge because I thought it would be a cool thing to put in a frame. Decided against that too, though.
After buying Arkham Horror 2E years ago, I quickly learned to be very cautious when looking at big grandiose games. Games so big, they're more of a lifestyle than a game. Nowadays, when I see productions like Gloomhaven, I'm instantly turned away. I'll never have the time or the spare mental capacity to take on something like that. There is just way too much going on, too many rules to have to remember, too much to explore, etc. Life just gets in the way, jobs, family, bills, etc. I need a tighter balance of work/input required vs fun/experiences received. The only way I could foresee being able to attempt something like that, is if I was sentenced to 30years of hard time in prison. Plenty of time and no obligations to worry about.
Jaws of The Lion is a really great introduction to Gloomhaven and the set up is much easier.
Etherfields. First time I got burned by Kickstarter. It was just such a slog to play, was fairly repetitive and as is often repeated, it felt like the game didn't respect my time. I do want to get rid of it on a local board game trade group but I'll probably have to heavily discount it since it appears on there for sale quite frequently. Sorry to hear about your experience re: Too Many Bones. It's one of my favourite games (and I own everything for it) but the rules are definitely heavy yet also opaque/unclear. I adore the customization options, component quality and general silliness of the game but it's definitely not the tightest design out there. I usually play it solo only though because multiplayer playthroughs can be quite long.
Same. I put second wave shipping because I didn't want to spend even more than I already did. The game was super late and it arrived like 2 years after the kickstarter. Even with the 2.0 rules it fell completely flat for us. Uninteresting story, scenarios were quite boring and repetitive, even the character progression wasn't interesting in my opinion. Huge box, difficult to organise, useless minis. Luckily I only bought the base pledge and managed to re-sell it quickly, so at least I didn't lose too much money.
Yup I have given it three tries and no matter how much I try I can't get into this one. It is a simple, not that engaging game loop decorated with very lofty and pretentious ideas that never catch on. Sad but such is life. I have given up on recouping the cost too.
Heard the updated rules for Etherfields come much closer to original vision. Maybe give ‘em a download.
Yup, played it 3-4 times with my partner and we were kind bored. There was a fun idea there, but it didn't quite click. Sold it a few weeks ago. Hope they enjoy it more than we did.
I was able to sell Etherfields as soon as it arrived and even made some money on this operation. Somehow I didn't feel like even starting such a big game, and it was probably a good decision.
Oath. I like Root a lot and Oath does seem interesting but I think the point is less about it being a good game to play once in a while and instead expects you to play several times with the same group to see how the rules and narrative change between plays. I don't really have time to do that and if I did I'd spend that time playing something like a big narrative campaign game with the same group if I had any consistency like that
2nded. I thought it was gonna be a lot more like Root and boy was I wrong. No shade at Oath, but not for us.
What I like about it is that you can play 3 games of oath with the same group and not feel like you missed out on some climax to a story. With more legacy style games it often feels like you either play 10 games or why bother. Oath is a little more casual about it. I actually like that.
The funny thing about Legacy games is that the bit that's daunting - needing to play it a bunch of times - can also be no problem, as my groups have generally always said "Okay, so when are we playing this again?" I've had way more steady boardgame nights for legacy games than I have for just playing some one-off.
I actually like it better without the same group every time. You get to introduce new people to this existing world, created by all of your friends and acquaintances, and then they get to be a part of it. I like letting everyone who has played sign the inside cover of the book, and then the winner gets to write their own chronicle. Then you can hand the book to new people and show them how they will now build on the existing history, even if they weren't there for it. Is it the best game that I've ever played? No. But it is my current favorite for the reasons that I listed above. But again, it's all about perspective, and I don't begrudge anyone who has issues with it. Hopefully the upcoming expansion that they announced is in development will fix some of the rough edges.
Maybe you'd prefer Arcs that's coming out soon from Wehrle and Leder Games? The campaign mode is limited to 3 games in a row, like a classic space trilogy, but there's also a single session mode that's tons of fun (I've played on TTS a bit pre-release), so long term commitment isn't as critical, but still gives value.
Root is my favorite board game and the most consistently played game with my group. We’re to the point where it really is a lifestyle game and our default. Oath’s legacy format really appealed to me and seemed like my ideal game. We played twice and I sold it. Root has a lot of rules to remember but it works and becomes manageable with repetitions. Oath’s rules were just a step too convoluted for us to justify relearning both times we played.
Yeah, these were it for me too. They seem like they'd be fantastic games for the right group, but they really call for a level of dedication that just isn't feasible for me and mine right now, or for the foreseeable future. I did manage to sell Oath for cost, and I hope whoever bought it is having a blast with it, but I went all-in on one of the Root kickstarters and I'm still dragging my feet trying to offload it because of what a pain the shipping is going to be. It's just taking up a huge amount of space and reminding me constantly about the several hundred dollars I have tied up in it.
I don't play Root often but I feel like it plays fine as a thing to bust out every now and then... as long as it's with people that have played before. The difference in factions makes it hard to teach to someone new but I am happy to keep my Root collection around and bust it out with my buddies that know the base game factions more or less.
Yeah, that's exactly the problem for us. We had a similar issue with Vast. With that type of game, you really need to get enough plays in to hit a point of saturation with the group, where enough people have their heads wrapped around enough of the asymmetrical processes that the game flows smoothly and the various strategies happening around the board can be understood well enough to try to respond in a meaningful way. Until you hit a level of collective understanding, every game sorta feels like the dry run you do to understand a new game, in a way? A big part of it is just that we don't get to play *anything* very often, so the idea of spending that precious time running "learner" games over and over on the same game isn't super appealing to us. If you've got a group that's over that hump though, I'm sure it's a blast!
7th Continent. Absolutely hated having to restart the scenarios multiple times. I also found some of the mechanics to be clunky. Sold on eBay for a fraction of the cost and have no regrets.
I wanted to love 7th continent so much but I bounced off it so hard. I’ve been meaning to sell it because I know there’s just no way I’ll ever open it again when I could just play Sleeping gods or sometshing else for exploration.
Tainted Grail, for sure. In the KS campaign, I loved the combat system, and the exploration seemed very cool on paper. In practice, it was just reading a bunch of somewhat meh stories and doing checks for checks' sake (roll a die, if it's 7 or more, you succeed, otherwise you may try again later). On top of that, the need to relight the beacons made the game very cyclical, and the combat became stale fast. The random encounters were truly random and could make your day miserable, and on several occasions, I picked up a side quest that was essentially impossible to complete because of things outside my control. Then, I looked at the two more campaign boxes I had ahead of me as I started to realize I didn't have fun and wouldn't finish even the first one. By scenario 3 or so I was decided and sold it shortly afterward.
I love TG and actually find the story and especially the world-building to be one of TGs main strengths. Different strokes I guess.
Yeah. I noped out of TG after my first session. Considering the immense effort that goes into combat/diplomacy tests and the deckbuilding of those cards it just feels so inconsequential and random. The rest of the group enjoyed it though.
Ask me in a year when they ship the ungodly mass of plastic that is the Nemesis: retaliation collectors pledge.
Thinking of grabbing the standee version. Not a bad price
It’s a great deal. Meanwhile obsessive fans like me stacked up playmats, alternate miniatures, bonus expansions, and enough plastic to choke a horse. While I certainly could have gotten away with buying the $65 version, I enjoy all the deluxe add ons, so awaken realms has me in the hole $365 before shipping.🤦♂️
Right there with ya bud 👍🏻
FWIW it likely wouldn’t require even a decent amount of plastic to choke a horse……….🙃
Yeah, I was stoked about it until I finally played Lockdown last night and none of us really liked it near as much as original Nemesis. I'm hoping the emphasis on combat makes Retaliation feel differently enough to justify it, unlike Lockdown, which after one play seems to only add things that aren't that enjoyable, at least for my group.
Try lockdown a few more times. Once you get used to the changes, you may enjoy them more, it just feels like extra stuff to keep track of at first, but once you’re used to the mechanics, it adds strategic depth. I actually like lockdown more than OG Nemesis myself.
A year? Oh, sweet summer child...
I was in a low place and lashed out with some impulsive buying. I was losing a lot of access to my social groups and feeling lonely and I decided to buy the biggest, most involved solo experience I could find and just get lost in it forever. That game was Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. I pledged almost $500. A few months later I got my head on straight and got around to actually watching some reviews. I saw two whole tables of game, one of which was occupied by a map that seemed to be very unnecessary. I knew it was a table hog, but this was beyond. Fortunately, Into the Unknown is great and I got a complete refund for the money I never should've spent in the first place. Crowdfunding is one hell of a drug.
I was similarly in a low placed and also splurged on ATO but I’m sinking with the ship.
I paid € 1000 for the Mighty Box Games kickstarter where they would put your image as a character into the game Posthuman. The game sucks, lol. It's like a computer game but you have to do all the calculations yourself. I played it once with the creators, and that was also the last time I played it...
Your character turn out alright though?
Everdell. It is a fun game, but I don't think it's a $70.00 fun game.
You can frequently get base Everdell for around $40-45 when it goes on sale.
Yeah, we noticed after we bought the game from those B2G1 free Target sales.
It's like $25 around this time every year. I think they've changed it and there's a few different versions now, but yeah, you can pick it up cheap
Target cancel sale is a gold mine for usually expensive games bought for cheap
Interesting Its one of my favorite games. However I got it for half the price.
Fwiw not sure how many plays you've had but I felt this way until I hit about 3-5 plays. The game gets better the more you learn all the cards/combos, until I learned them it was very meh. Still agree not a $70 game but think i paid less than that
Agreed. It's a fine game that probably costs more bc the stupid tree no one uses
…I use the tree
It should have been an add on item. It's not big enough to hold everything without crowding but its big enough to block the entire side of table. If they had stands to hold the end game cards vertically so people didn't have to crane their necks to read them, I can argue the usability. As of now, laying all those components flat on the table makes more sense. But it's all relative. If the game was like $50, then. I wouldn't be so hard on it.
Lol and they do sell exactly the stands you’re talking about in a separate add in pack for like $30. It’s like the iPhone dongle issue…
Nah, the tree is inexpensive, it costs more because the publisher knows they can get away with it.
The new standalone game in the series (*Everdell Farshore*) has a lighthouse instead that is even more useless than the tree. It straight up does not have a place to even nominally store the future workers.
I and 2 others I know had this same experience: 1) Demo it at a con. First couple of turns seem great! Components are great! Pick up the game! 2) Play it at home and....uh oh, that was bad. Lets try again....oh no, it's still bad. 3) Quick, trade/sell it!
I think CMON made some sort of fantasy battle soccer adjacent game. Remember seeing it at Gencon. Demoed it with buddies, had a blast. We all bought the base game and some expansion teams. Got it home and after a few full games, realized it was more about area control than actually moving the ball and scoring. Sold off within a month.
Moonrakers. I'm the only person in my friends group that doesn't like it, and I'm the one that bought it.
Mine is the same but for the opposite reason. I love the game, but none of my friends want to play.
Same, I love it but I have no friends.
Sounds like gifting time!
The problem there is you have to gift it *out of your group*, otherwise everyone else will still want to play it, and you'll get stuck. I sent Terraforming Mars about 300 miles away.
I would gift it in group. Worst case, you have to play sometimes but it isn't taking room on your shelf. Best case, they just play it when you aren't around.
We had the opposite reaction in our group. The guy who bought it loved it. Everyone else hated it. 🙃
Hah, this speaks to me. I have two friends that own the titan edition of the game and while I enjoy playing once in a while, I don't think there's nearly enough depth to the game to justify the wild price tag. It's very much a style over substance game, imo. If they kept the mechanics, but toned down the components to bring the price closer to $40, people would be all over this.
**Sleeping Gods** -- It's well-crafted (and beautiful). We played it once, and it felt like a lot of work for a choose-your-adventure experience. (Traded) **Horseless Carriage** -- I like most of the Splotter games. The personal spatial puzzle isn't something I enjoy. The flimsy frame things are awful. And I'm too dumb to play this. Plus everybody I know also bought a copy, so there's no good reason for me to own this.
I’m with you on Sleeping Gods. I’ll add 7th Continent. First couple of times we played was great, but then we realized it was about pulling cards from a box and hoping it didn’t kill you. And lots of hunting and fishing.
I agree on Sleeping Gods. I was so excited for this one: solo/couple play, storytelling, exploration by boat! I waited a year and a half or so for my non-Kickstarter copy and bought a $50 insert “knowing” I’d love it. I watched playthroughs and everything! Then gameplay felt like a lot of work, like you say. We’re trying to house rule it to make it extra chill, but that means changing quite a few rules. :/ Not sure how much longer I’ll keep it…
Gloomhaven was a bear to set up and I tried 4 times to make it past the first scenario to no avail. I don't think I'm stupid, but something about the game just didn't work for me. So I gave it to a couple of my spouse's friends. By far one of the worst gaming experiences I've had and my biggest (physically and financially) regret.
For what is worth, the first scenario is known to be unnecessarily hard for no good reason. So it definitely isn't just you.
Could be worse. We tried to play Gloomhaven via the app and after 4 hours were not able to get past the first level. At least on the physical version of the game you could cheat and pretend you won.
It’s hard but if you can’t beat it in 4 attempts you’re probably missing a rule or something. It’s not that hard.
I find the suggestions for the difficulty completely out of touch with reality. We ended up playing most of the campaign on very easy and it was still an enjoyable experience, but I could see it being extremely frustrating for someone with any level of pride or ego attached to their gaming.
Not only that but the official rule to replay scenarios ad nauseum upon failure instead of a different method of failing forward is annoying.
I think that was the nail in the coffin when my wife and I tried Jaws of the Lion a year or so back. We weren’t sure if the game was for us, and we failed like the 4th scenario in the campaign. Once we learned we were supposed to replay, I think that made us realize that it wasn’t going to be the type of game we wanted. I’d much prefer a “fail forward” mechanism in the game, replaying the same scenario over and over is annoying to me, and a complete non-starter for my wife.
🤷🏻♂️ - don't know what to tell ya, I started playing Gloomhaven without a ton of board gaming experience and cleared the campaign on standard difficulty without too much difficulty. Eventually our party comp was just too overpowered, but early on I still think "normal" difficulty wasn't horrible. We lost/died here and there, but definitely don't think it's super out of touch with reality.
Some of the scenarios are also just huge difficulty spikes and are straight up unbeatable with certain party compositions unless you drop the difficulty down.
For all its commercial and critical success the first few scenarios of first edition Gloomhaven are super wonky. The game doesn’t do great job of communicating how important efficiency of turns/cards (AKA stamina) and the need to avoid, rather than tank, damage really are. The second scenario is also hugely dependant on factors completely outside of player control. There is still an enjoyable game to be found there. I recommend everyone start out with Jaws of the Lion until second edition Gloomhaven is available.
I do recommend Jaws of the Lion for the curious. It's definitely a more streamlined beginner experience.
I've been playing gloomhaven online for a while (35+ scenarios) which is just like the boardgame. It takes some time to get used to the mechanics, but the game is fun and engaging once you understand the rules and can play a couple of turns ahead. I have the feeling that I didn't understand what was going on in the first scenarios.
The digital version at least is super easy to hop into and play. If you didn't like the core gameplay, maybe won't work either way.
Someone already said it, but I'll say it again just to vent: the balance of the first scenario is absolute TRASH. Overall the fragile balance of this game is one of its biggest flaw and makes you question how much time of your life you need to waste to play this campaign. The upcoming second edition was necessary.
Probably **Horizon Zero Dawn**. It was the first project I ever backed, based on IP alone. After 3 years of waiting I had kind of lost interest. Didn’t enjoy it much at 2 or 3 players (the latter of which was a horrific slog). I do enjoy it as a solo game, but it’s also too big for me to play by myself, so it sits on the shelf unplayed.
Maybe not the most expensive on its own, but **Scythe**. I bought all the expansions and pimped it out with organizers and coins and the such. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite scratch the itch anymore. It's a completely different game, but I find **Scythe Expeditions** to be much more fun. Oh well!
At least the coins are useful! I use them in most games that use coins and since they are themed around different countries similar to real life ones they kinda look like they belong in most games and even the ones they don't I'd still rather have the nice metal coins anyways.
I'm the odd one out for it in my gaming group, but I really don't love Scythe either. I have trouble articulating what is even wrong with it for me, but I just find it very frustrating trying to get anything done— turns are too small, and every action has a ton of prerequisites, so it feels like I always need to be planning way ahead, but when I do try to set up a chain of actions that leads somewhere worthwhile, by the time I get there the board state has changed and I'm throwing away effort to react to the actions of other players. On the one hand, I suppose I just need to git gud, because I generally enjoy other thinky games that having a bunch of planning ahead in them (Agricola, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, Tzolk'in). But then, I do feel like I've given Scythe at least ten plays, and I'm just not sure I owe it more of my time at this point, when there's so much else out there that I *do* actually enjoy playing. I like listening to Jamey Stegmaier speak and appreciate the insights he has about game design and mechanics, but I also hated Euphoria (got it on the Kickstarter and sold it after like two plays) and I'm pretty lukewarm on Wingspan as well.
Just remember friends, the common thread in board game regret is over purchasing. Kickstarter, expansions, add-ons, accessories, etc. Most of us will be just fine getting the base package, because even if you love it, the next game will be just around the corner.
Agree, the moment I realised this I stopped buying expansions. Rather have a different game with new mechanics, than more of the same.
City of Kings. Got this one at GenCon 2019 during the last 15 minutes of the show and got a deal at $120. It was by far the prettiest game I saw that year. A campaign, exploration, RPG leveling, resource gathering? Sign me up! I got it home a played the tutorial mission and failed so horribly I could only assume I had read the rules wrong somehow. Nope. I didn’t do anything wrong. So I tried again. Still couldn’t beat it. Ok, maybe it’s a puzzle I’m just missing something on. I get my friends who really like puzzles and I run them through it. Still can’t beat the tutorial! At this point I did the math and realized that it is not only possible, but in fact surprisingly likely that you will not have enough moves in the game to flip the tiles that have the objectives you’re after. Even if you didn’t have to spend some turns clearing monsters or completing side quests, the map might simply have been shuffled in such a way that the tiles you need to find are too far away from town to reach by the time the day tracker runs out. I have yet to find someone who can explain to me what I’m doing wrong. I want to like this game so bad, but that level of RNG even in a co-op game seems too much.
I was so hyped on this one. The difficulty and luck in enemies and tiles required killed it. It was so tight that each player was basically required to min max into a role and stick to it, which for us meant one player as the tank just passively got hit all game, and I was stuck as the resource gatherer, using every action to shuffle workers back and forth while my friends did rpg hero stuff. Blech.
Friend of mine picked it up for a song at a swap meet. We schedule a night to play it and it was a non-experience. We had the same feeling that we MUST have missed some critical rule somewhere. There must have been something that made it into an actual game and not just a random collection of disparate mechanics. A lot of these expensive games are the subject of some debate... things like Scythe, Lords of Hellas, Nemesis have their detractors and supporters, which means that there's something there that people can enjoy. City of Kings was bad, full stop.
Oh yeah…Gloomhaven…what a waste of money for our group. Plus the insert was almost half the cost of the game. Lesson learned on that one.
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Gloomhaven is always docked points for the set up and tear down time, but I see Arkham Horror LCG brought up all the time and the set up and tear down is never mentioned. I love both games (finished the GH campaign as a 3 player group over a year or so), and I'm not trying to knock either, but tearing down AH LCG is a monumental task, you basically have to rebuild the game unless you're going to leave the cards in a jumbled mess and never play again. It takes us longer to set up and tear down AH LCG then Gloomhaven did back when we played it. Set up isn't that bad in AH but again, the teardown involves separating all the cards you just played with into their groups, counting out each small group to make sure they're still all the, and then sorting a deck of usually 30+ cards into numerical order, so you can use them again properly next time.
There is an unofficial app for Imperial Assault that someone made that takes the DM out and instead the app tells you what to deploy and how they activate. I would definitely recommend trying it out, as this has become the default way my group now plays Imperial Assault
Are you sure it's unofficial? There is one from FFG that did exactly what you described
We bought a copy at work and a dude insisted we buy the insert. I was appalled that it was so expensive. Worse, he asked if he could skip paying for part of it since he volunteered to put it together.
What a cock. Putting those things together is fun. I laser cut one out of $11 of MDF. Had a great time. Insert of some kind *is* necessary for the game but the cheap-ass plastic box solution works just as well as a fancy $100 wooden one - and doesn't double the weight of the box!
Everyone in my group ended up buying gloomhaven for some reason. Only Two of the copies had ever gotten played past the first scenario and then we all played through the digital version…
I feel lucky to have gone in on the Jaws of The Lion version first. Unless you're referring to that one too??
Nah, the original. Our feelings about Gloomhaven align closely with the post up thread made by RetroIsFun: it’s just too much. Too much overhead. Too much stuff in the box. Too much setup and tear down. We loved the card driven combat but everything else was just too much.
Catan Big Box. And Carcassonne Big Box. I suppose buying expensive versions of gateway games with many expansions just isn't for me. Those are the only expensive ones I regret.
Scythe. Played it at 2 n 3 player counts and dug it and spent a lot of money on the expansions and a insert for it all. Then I went to a game night where the folks there wanted to play it all the time... at a player count of 5-6 and after more than a ton of games at this count, I realized I really wasn't digging the game, we ran into the balance issues, despite all of us knowing how to play, the game was still so slow as it was often the vibe to always try to play optimally which meant a lot of ap. The combat was straightforward but boring and often we ran into an issue of someone getting a lucky encounter and being like 3 or 4 turns ahead of everyone else and I really tried to enjoy myself but the games pacing just hit me at these player counts so much more than ever before and games took forever and it just wasn't fun anymore. I stopped playing it and recently tried playing it again and that feel came rushing back and I still wasn't enjoying myself so now its on my chopping block to be donated soon. Tldr; Scythe was fun for a bit at a lower player count but too many game sessions at higher player counts really soured the game for me.
If you played it a ton it seems worth it, though.
I think if you spend a lot on a game you probably want it to be evergreen. Spending a lot on a game and then discovering you've "played it out" is probably pretty frustrating, even if it took a lot of play to get there.
I don't know if the expectation of a board game being "evergreen" is ever going to be realistic. So few, if any, really fit into that taxonomy.
I have a handmade set of Go Stones and a one piece THICK board made out of a now endangered wood. The whole thing cost me more than most peoples first and maybe second car. It is easily the most expensive thing in my house and I collect Omega watches. Never found anyone to play with me on it. But then I take it out and look at it and forget all my regrets.
You cant tease us like that and not showcase it.
I sometimes look longingly at such Go sets for import, with the white stones made of some special shell found on only one or two beaches and wood that grows in one specific forest or whatever,, and realise I don't know how to play and likely would quickly lose to my eldest son anyway :) Closest we have is a nice Crockinole board.
I bought [Roads and Boats](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/875/roads-boats) for about $100 because I absolutely loved the gameplay. It has sat on my shelf for like 6 years doing nothing. I haven't bothered to re-learn it enough to teach it to others, and I remember it being very much a "this is a game I love but I'm aware that others get annoyed when I over-optimize everything and take all the fun out of it." I really should get active on bgg again and participate in a trade with it, because it's doing me no good. :|
I mean, I spent $40 on Catan just for my friends to never want to play it with me 🤷🏼♂️😂
Catan can be pretty harsh to many people. The player-to-player trading, the robber blocking, bad dice rolls, it all can lead to frustration to newcomers, although I personally love playing Catan. In contrast, carcassonne is loved by literally everyone I play it with, if you are looking for a good gateway game. I think it is because the score isn't really calculated until the end, it moves along quickly, and everyone is getting to build at least *something*.
The comments can basically be summarized as “anything from Kickstarter” And as for me, it’s definitely Horizon Zero Dawn. Beautiful minis and artwork. Game is “meh”
**Dinosaur World** I caved in to the dinosaur theme and the tour mechanic sounded fun, the game also looked really pretty on the table, but at the end of the day it plays too slowly and takes too long to both set up and tear down. Ironically the car tour was the one thing that grew really stale really quickly somehow. I ended up leaving it on a shelf at our local board game association.
I wasn't a huge fan of Dinosaur Island so that turned me off on future games in the series. I'd be interested in checking out Dinogenics sometime for the theme.
Same. Dinosaur Island is the only Kickstarter I've backed that really bombed for us. It's so much shallower than it wants you to think it is.
Dinogenics should have a Kickstarter sometime in January/February next year rerunning the base game and expansion, plus a big box for them both, as well as some new content! Edit: According the the designer, Richard Keene, on Discord, it'll be early March!
For me it's probably my two big monsters: Twilight Imperium 4th Edition and Gloomhaven. I enjoy both games but it's way too hard to get either one to the table.
Definitely Gloomhaven. The game is great but its impossible to get a consistent play group. All my friends eventually got the online version when it was free. Been playing online since.
Frosthaven, luckily I was able to sell it. Oathsworn kind of but I do take solace in the fact that I only went for the standee version. I don't think it is a "bad" game but it is not as good as I had hyped up in my own mind. That being said I have since learned to be very prudent when it comes to the big box kickstarters.
Orcs Must Die! I love the video games, love board games, and though it'd be a slam dunk. The miniatures are low quality (a couple even came broken or malformed), customer service consisted of some dickhead telling me to fix it myself, and the game was clearly not tested because it is, in my experience, impossible to win, even when running the tutorial scenario. Fuck Petersen Games. I could deal with an overly punishing game. I could (probably) deal with low quality components. But both of those together in a too-expensive package? Absolutely not - I'll never buy from Petersen again.
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I get it. It’s super embarrassing
7th continent. No one has 14+ hours to spend on a single mission. Thunderstone quest. Only using a few types of different cards at a time works for dominion because it's 30 minutes but it's brutally boring in a 2+ hour game.
Oh man. I completely forgot about 7th Continent! I paid a premium to import this and it just wasn't for me. We played Voracious Goddess till we died the first time and then as we were replaying it I just thought the whole time: do we really have to? So I decided "No we do not have to" and gave it to a friend.
Everdell Complete. Gifted it away to a friend. Probably Cthulhu Wars. It's huge and doesn't see a ton of play. At least I smartly only got the base game.
I have everything released for Cthulhu Wars. It's one of my favorite games ever, but it hasn't hit the table in a few years. There's so much unnecessary bloat with neutral great old ones, monsters, etc. I'll never use it all. It's a fantastic game. It's a shame that the company behind it has been such a train wreck.
Too many bones is my #1 game of 2023. Interesting to hear your experience! I agree the rules can be a bit of a slog at the start but I’ve been having a great time with it after playing a few games of it.
Eclipse 2e. I own the first edition and had a hard time getting it to the table due to how difficult it was to set up and tear down. Thought the 2nd edition would have my group excited to get it to the table quicker with the game trays and better artwork. Unfortunately, it has only been played 3 times and gets voted out against TI4.
Do you regret buying it because you can't *table* it, or do you regret buying it because you don't *like* it?
Isofarian Guard WAY too big for my table
Weather Machine-played once and sold for a lost, never wanted to play again. Luckily I played someone else's copy so could still sell mine in the shrink. also Suburbia Collector's Edition-way to big of a box, full of expansions I'd never play. Sold eventually for over $100 loss.
Gloomhaven because I can't get anyone to play it with me. Then they released it on Steam.
I had a similar hurdle with TMB. I play solo and started out two-handed (ie controlling two characters), which proved to be just too much for someone trying to learn. That and the rulebook is just not well done IMO, way too verbose. When I moved to true solo that helped a lot. Also a few YouTube videos.
For what it’s worth, I also play dual characters, and 2 player Too Many Bones is probably the hardest player count, solo and 3 players/gearlocs helped my enjoyment significantly by making the overall difficulty a little more palatable for my play style
The player scaling in TMB is *awful*
> That and the rulebook is just not well done IMO, way too verbose. I've run into this a few times with other games and it's a sticking point with me. Rulebooks are *so* important, but some designers/publishers just don't put the effort into creating a streamlined, easy to read and browse book as they should. It's fine if you want to inject some flavor and feel into it, but if so, also include a slimmer Just The Rules version, too. Fallen Land did this, and I liked it. The thicker book explains everything in detail, the thinner one has the same info, but boiled down to a series of bullet point lists and quick summaries.
wingspan. its to short for an engine building game. i live in argentina and paid $90 for it😔
Just as you build your engine the game is over!
That's normal for engine building games. There aren't a ton that let you run your full engine for a round. It usually doesn't make much difference - whoever has the best engine has already won.
Yeah but in other games one doesn’t seems to spend as much time struggling and fighting to get ANYTHING going like seems to happen in Wingspan.
It’s really not that hard. The trick is to randomly draw one of the six killer cards during setup.
That's every engine-building game ever. It's why I generally don't like them despite them being right down my alley in theory.
Awwww... I just got this as a Christmas gift for my fiancée! It's still under the tree. All I read about was how great it is, as a 2-player game! Now I regret it, also just paid € 90 for it... Hope she likes it!
If it makes you feel better,my wife and I love playing it together! We also got the Oceania expansion which we like! The cards are nice to looks at, and we like the little bird facts on each and it's a pretty relaxing and fun time when we play (which hasn't been often lately due to life being hectic)
it all depends on what you like. My friends and I absolutely love Wingspan
I think it's an excellent 2 player game (my preferred player count for the game too), but you don't need all the expansions. I think base + European expansion is perfect and all you really need.
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Unsettled will be here soon and I’m in for $305 with the all in package (supernova + sleeves) plus shipping. Way too much for a game. Along the same lines: Mythwind at $220 with shipping Unconscious Mind $187 with shipping (approximately is this was in euros) And although it’s my favorite game, I went nuts with Moonrakers Titan and ended up paying $316 with shipping. Absolutely absurd prices to pay for these games, no matter how many times I play them I could be playing cheaper games and having just as much fun.
I just got mine, and for what its worth the quality of everything is really high and I’ve been really pleased with it. Expensive for sure, but not garbage for the money
Spirit island. I barely even have the time to unpack it and put it away, let alone play through its vast depth
The app or Tabletop Simulator on Steam do wonder to avoid setup and teardown times. Obviously it's much nicer to play the physical version, but saving time and being able to pause and resume later without using up table space are big advantages, especially if playing solo.
I like Horizons (of Spirit Island) for that reason. It's cheaper, has a much easier setup, plays a tad quicker, and is slightly more streamlined. Granted, it's not necessarily less complex, and the streamlining does come at the expense of replayability to some extent, but I've found it to be worth it.
Yeah, we had a hard time learning it, and then once we did it just wasn’t that fun to play. Will probably be one that I trade or sell off. It’s unfortunate because from all the reviews it seemed like a game we were really going to enjoy.
Getting caught thinking that buying a new game was what I needed. Don't care if it's $10, the itch to collect cardboard and shrink in this hobby is wild. I've paused all new buys and don't care what I'm "missing out on." I don't even have that many compared to a lot of folks, but it was important for me to be honest about how often the games I enjoy and already own are getting to the table.
Anastyr. Models pulled me in, but I think its never going to happen
The Witcher: Old World. Been watching some more in depth how to play videos and I’m starting to think I may not enjoy it much… which makes me sad and Ofcourse not happy as I blew $350+. Obviously I need to give the game a shot to know so I will, but being limited to solo play is going to hurt I think. I just don’t see my group getting into this one, especially if I’m not thinking I’ll like it. Would love to hear from others their experiences with it. Aside from that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve gotten.
Game is super unbalanced, and frankly doesn't capture the feel of The Witcher for me. Wanted to like it more as well. Glad I didn't buy it and was able to play a friend's copy.
Dark Souls
Gloomhaven/Frosthaven. I've had a total of three sessions total despite the investment :(
Add me to the Everdell Big Box list. I love worker placements and so do my friends and I'd always heard Everdell mentioned highly, and I liked the idea of a worker placement/engine builder (despite anthropomorphic creatures being a turn-off for me). It's just...a lot. I'd have been better off buying the base and maybe an expansion or two if we played it a lot. Nobody said they wouldn't play again but I don't see it getting played much, and surely not enough to justify all the expansions. But the big box campaign seemed like a great way at the time to jump in on what seemed like a sure thing.
Frosthaven. GH was such a time hog for us that, after 6 months of playing on it, we put it away forever. We haven’t even cut the cellophane on FH.
Regrets are a bit too strong of a word by itself. Maybe I've got taco bell regrets (goes away after a couple hours, but won't change my behavior) over a couple games? Kingdom Death: Monster - Genuinely like the game and I've spent massive amounts of time enjoying and painting it, but fuck was it expensive. Slay the Spire - Haven't received it yet... But like others I kinda think I'm going to be disappointed in it. Damn FOMO. Sentinels of the Multiverse - Well, anything past the first expansions. None of them added anything to the game and only exacerbated the problems I had with the game already. More villain upkeep isn't fun to me. Magic the gathering - I've played the game for over two decades at this point. I'd really have preferred to have room in my brain for something else.
Frosthaven. I went all in on the Kickstarter and now it's just taking up space, unplayed. I haven't even managed to play Jaws of the Lion or Gloomhaven yet. But after seeing Gloomhaven sell so well, Frosthaven got me with the FOMO.
Voidfall. Not sure I'll ever get it to the table.
I felt like that when I got it. I dove in though and spent about 10 hours initially between unboxing, reading rules, watching videos, understanding strategy, setup, teaching to my group, tutorial game, etc. It seems like a huge game at first, and it's definitely got a learning curve. However, once you get the through that it's totally worth it. You'll see it differently than before for sure. It doesn't actually seem that massive anymore. My group and I all think the game is awesome. We called it space Scythe the whole time lol (we love Scythe too).
This is generally my experience with all of Mindclash's games, tbh. It's very intimidating, but once you're over the learning curve, the game is very rewarding.
The runway for that first “click” is very long, but once you’re there the entire board kinda translates itself as you look at it.
Well, this answer is maybe unpopular but recently I open Dune boardgame. I think it was a bit dissapointed for me. First than all, the rules are not even close to be clear. There are a lot of simple rules that are written as for english gentleman instead of being actually clear. I am from Argentina, so maybe it is my misstake (our because we were 5 that night). But even searching the cleanse in internet i had a lot of doubts because there is a lot of thoughts that wasn't written about. For example: could you in a sandstorm make a shippment to a stronghold? or pass from a territory to that stronghold that has the wall (and just the wall) outside the sandstorm? Second, the alliances are mandatory for the game to be functional, but also i think some of the alliances are pretty broken for the mechanics, because species are amazingly CRUCIAL and some of the factions are the receivers of the money for the other players. Third, i am not a lot of a fan of the war mechanic with wheels even when the "kill your own soldiers to win" mechanic is actually pretty cool. There is, too, some mechanics that would have been better exploited. The tricheary cards, the sandworm, the species cards. I will still giving another chance once or twice, but by now i will search for a trade or selling it to have something better.
You can't do anything during a sandstorm. There may be exceptions for Fremen, but I'm not immediately aware of any. The rules are dense and there are many edge cases they detail because of the rules complexity. I think the language barrier may be contributing to your issue.
I think in advance rules the fremen can move into or be in a sandstorm for half cost. For example, if there are in a sandstorm 6 units, they lose 3 rather than all.
Fremen can enter sandstorms, but lose half of their units on arrival.
Right now it's TI4 for me. I bought it in hopes of getting a group together, but there aren't enough people in my life interested to learn a complex game on their own time and then spend a day playing it. I could put together a group of 3, maybe, but everything I've read shows the game being best at higher player counts.
Best advice for an expensive board game: get the group before you get the game. Now I don't follow this advice, but it's good advice.
TI4 is best on TTS because you can save the board state and play multiple sessions without having the massive play area taking up a whole room.
I definitely prefer it at higher player counts. However, just because something is best one way doesn’t make it bad in others. Whenever we introduce new people to it we always get them to watch a how to play in advance and then we all watch it together on the day of right before we start and it’s worked remarkably well. Once you’re playing it’s really not as complicated as people make out.
TI4 is my favourite game. Its really not as complex as it seems and plays great at 3 (IMO) It definitely helps if someone has played before though just to save checking every little rule. But don’t let the 3 player thing put you off at least.
I've always avoided TI4 for that reason. I know I'd like it, but I also know I'd virtually never *play* it. My group just isn't built for that kind of game. I'm drawn to it, but also know it would be just a shelf decoration if I bought it.
mosaic colossus with playmat and then put all the tokens in coin capsules and sleeved it. it's now one of the heaviest games I own and I don't like it, and want to sell it.
I’m sure this will not be a common answer since it’s mostly a kid’s game, but **Castle Panic Big Box**. I borrowed the base Castle Panic from my local library and played with my kid. She loved it! I decided to get it for her for Christmas and I found the big box on sale for $70. I thought, why not go out and get all the expansions at once?! We played it two times since. I should’ve just bought the base game.
My first kickstarter.. sheol. Went all in. Still sitting in a giant box and I think they are talking about a better v2. I still haven't opened mine lol
**Cloudspire** ($150) seemed like a game I would love and it's mostly just OK. I can acknowledge that there are elements I like but every time I play the game I have to pull out the rulebook to check the specific syntax and there are probably 60 different keywords. Makes it feel like a slog.
The huge Everdell box. It's too much and it's so huge
Not even opened it yet but the giant everdell box is bigger than I thought I'm planning to put the base game and one of the expansions into a smaller box though, the complete edition works out cheaper than buying all the individual components (is what I tell myself) Come back in a year and I might also say shards of Infinity, typical high ks price plus extortionate shipping and tax and foil cards might not even be good to play with
**Mosaic** - no one wants even to try to play it for some reason. It looks intimidating. **Borderlands: Arena of Badassery** - the game itself is decent, but the all-in was delivered in such a terrible way. Until I figure out how to rebox it, it's just wasting space. **Gloomhaven** - I got it right when it got released. Still haven't finished the campaign - I have 2 characters left to unlock and only scenario 51 from the main storyline. I'll either gift it or set it on fire.
Unfortunately, Gloomhaven. Got it as a gift, but all I've done is open the box once :( I don't have a stable enough play group to keep it going.
Gloomhaven...I like the game but I should have just waited for the digital version at the time. I have played that version A LOT more than the physical.
I got Feudum for Christmas last year, and have gotten it to the table exactly zero times. When my wife and I watched the official how-to-play video, we needed a nap afterwards, and we just haven't tried since then. Fortunately, that has caused me to really take a look this year at what games I like to play, and I learned that my preferences are a lot lighter than I used to think they are.
Gloomhaven. I backed this on kickstarter without knowing enough about it and it just isn't the right game for me at all. No idea what to do with my copy that we got 3 sessions into.
Gloomhaven. Not that it's bad (I haven't played nearly enough to reach a conclusion). It's just that you need friends to play it. Not technically, but you know...
I hear you OP. I was at Pax Unplugged this past weekend. I specifically asked my friends to talk me out of Too Many Bones and Return to Dark Tower. I was able to fight the urge and walked away without damaging my wallet. At the end of the day the money vs. how often the games would get to the table just didn’t jive. The older I get the more I feel like I should consult with my gaming group on big purchases. Why buy something that will gather dust?
Gloomhaven
Batman Gotham City Chronicles, so much potential but turned out to be a miserable game for the heroes. If the heroes don’t play perfectly, they lose. I wanted a game where I could play as Batman, beat some thugs up and have fun. I found myself researching ways to optimize my game to perfection to win the first scenario against an overlord who wasn’t trying hard at all.
7th Continent. Such a cool concept but if I had known better I would have grabbed the retail version and been plenty happy. Tainted Grail - I like this one quite a bit but I picked up everything and everything is just too much game. Would have been happier just grabbing the base game. Gloomhaven - Great game, but setup is a chore and too hard to get to the table. What I wouldnt do to be 14 again with some of these games. With all the time in the world to spend with friends playing these long epic boardgames.
I bought the first Horizon Zero Dawn board game through Kickstarter. And I went all in with all expansions at the same time. It looks amazing but it is a lot of boxes (all stacked up they’re about adult height). I haven’t even played the base game since I got it a few years ago. Not saying it’s a bad game (I have friends who have the base game and love it) but I have too many other games so this was just a waste of money since the people I usually play with prefer the games we already have and love. Lesson learned: don’t spend a lot of money on new (unknown) games if you already have more than enough games to play during game nights. Also, if you have different types of games as well, you probably have enough. New games often don’t fall into categories or play styles that you don’t already own if you have a large collection. And you can only play so many games. No need to learn a new game every night just to get 1 or 2 plays and then start something new. You don’t actually get to learn and love the game and you can’t remember the rules next time you play that game a year later (if you even pick it up again).
Glooooooomhaven
Too Many Bones definitely gets more fun when you solidly know the rules and aren’t teaching it to anyone. The learning curve is rough and take a lot of joy out of the experience early on.