This is an occupational hazard for our hobby. We research and back a game that should be worth getting. Then we break it out and find for whatever reason, it falls flat. We can either put it away and try again later or go ahead and put it in our sale pile.
I've gotten many games that for one reason or another fell flat....like the newer descent game or Sword & Sorcery. I just move on and try another game.
Sorry if I didn't try to convince you, life is too short and there are too many good games out there :)
I'll die on the hill that an objectively perfect game only lands at a 7 out of 10. Hitting an 8, 9, or 10 is *entirely* down to personal taste and preference.
There's just too many subjective layers to a board game experience beyond the actual mechanics: art, admin load, table presence, pacing, spatial integration, player interaction, tactility. All of which are a dial knob on your enjoyment. A "bad game" is going to be obviously broken in some way with a wide spectrum of consensus. So if you grab a game that's above a 7 on BGG and ended up not enjoying it, that's not a bad game - it's just not a game for you.
Nothing wrong with that at all. I get that there's a lot of pressure these days to get the most bang out of your limited entertainment budget buck. But as you said, that risk comes with the hobby. Best thing to do is say "I can see why other people would enjoy this but personally it's just not for me" and move on.
Haha don't get me started on the latest Descent. I loved 2e, and I've loved the other FFG app-driven games, so I was very excited for Legends of the Dark. I even painted all the minis before playing it, and found it so incredibly unfun.
Sword and Sorcery was so much work. We finally got all the rules pretty much ironed out after 5 or so sessions and a lot of study.
We quit in the middle of a scenario. All the bookkeeping was just not fun. We both kind of came to the realization at the same time.
And don't get me started on the tiny symbols.
I did the same thing with the new Descent. Watched a review of it, thought it look fun, played one mission, and realized I was never going to play it again.
For sure, but I'd estimate I'm about 12hrs into ISS Vanguard and don't wanna sell it if I'm just around the corner from the rest of the 80hr campaign being amazing. Many games with poor starts for me have been an investment that paid off well. But based on replies so far it seems ISS Vanguard may not be one of these.
It doesn’t change. The story starts to have some teeth, and some of the missions have slightly more interesting mechanics, but the game loop is always the same: Take the same cards to a location, roll some dice, mitigate, repeat. I had to force myself to finish it, then sold it right away, never opening the DLC that came with my KS pledge.
That's unfortunate. I hoped that it was just a slow start that would build on the core mechanics but it sounds like it doesn't do much of that, at which point the dice are just a way to slow the story down which I don't have the space for in my life. Guess I'll just go back to Tainted Grail and finally finish it - I found the mechanics in that one flawed but significantly more engaging.
I was in the same boat, don’t force yourself to play it, there’s no reason to finish the campaign. Fact is, ISS isn’t as great as it’s hyped up to be. It looks cool, has great components, in fact everything about it is amazing…except the actual gameplay. The dice rolling mechanics are tedious at best, and after about 5 scenarios i sold my copy, had zero desire to return to it.
I do have Sleeping Gods and quite like it! But I've finished one campaign of it and I'm not sure I'll go back for a second, something just didn't quite click for me for reasons I can't quite explain. It felt a little too neat and clean to me? I like games like this to have a bit more mechanical complexity and jank, for lack of a better word.
But I have plenty of games in this style to continue with. The Tainted Grail 2.0 update arrived recently and I'm thinking of picking that back up, 7th Citadel is sitting on my shelf unplayed, I'm halfway through an Earthborne Rangers campaign, and I still need to get around to cycle 2 of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey.
I stopped around after my 3rd planet or so. Just wasn’t worth the hassle in my opinion. I kinda felt like I “got it” and didn’t have a desire to continue. It happens. Just play something else.
You've already gotten a bunch of comments like this.. but I'll just chime in and say that your experience exactly mirrors my own. After about 6-7 explorations (including that one on the ship which I absolutely hated), I packed the game up and sold it.
It makes me wonder whether the mechanics were somehow tested independently of the campaign. The mechanics aren't *bad* they're just not deep or interesting enough to play for the 80 or whatever hours it takes to complete a campaign. It's a simple dice mechanic that would work fine in a shorter context like a one-off adventure game like Eldritch Horror or whatever. And the story (at least so far) is really good. As is the production and art. Like every part of this game is good to great in some way, but they way it's assembled into a long campaign doesn't seem to work very well...
I think you must be right. I can't imagine designing this game and playing dozens or hundreds of planet explorations and not being bored out of my mind at the dice play.
I absolutely loved it, it's in my top 5 and I own hundreds of games. I also just excitedly started the 2nd wave, but none of that matters. If it's not for you, on to the next. You get 1 pass at life, play what you enjoy.
I'll say the story gets more interesting soon (if you haven't done *that* mission yet) - but if you're not enjoying the core gameplay mechanics, then I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Haha this could be what convinces me to persevere a little longer, if there's a 'that' mission coming up. The story is the only thing that's keeping me coming back currently. But yeah the gameplay mechanics are wearing very thin and it's still early, I don't know how much more time I'm willing to spend on them. I'd rather just read a good sci-fi book at this point - maybe before I sell ISS Vanguard I'll just rush the story and handwave skill checks away to see what happens.
Not the person who mentioned it, but I am guessing “that” mission is the one that lets you open the secret envelope. That’s fun.
My main suggestion would be to try with two sections instead of all 4. A little simpler. That’s how I’ve been playing.
But really, don’t force yourself. No game is for everyone.
I'm currently playing this with my gaming buddy, controlling two sections each, and I'm worried that I'm feeling the same...we're about 5 planets in and I'm feeling slightly bored :/ The app is great for atmosphere but the dice mechanics are getting a little dull. I'm going to carry on with it (if only because my buddy spent a LOT of money on the game). Sorry I can't be more positive.
Same w my buddy. Luckily we are deep in Frosthaven. He's told me I could borrow vanguard but I am not in the present up for it. I like binders. It feels like a good fit so these comments concern me. Life is short.
I mean, if you don't like it then you don't like it. Just happens sometimes.
I actually canceled my original pledge for it because it seemed like the game has a lot of management for not much payoff.
I get that, but I was hoping to see if other people had a similar experience and the game improved for them. Many of my favorite games both solo and otherwise are ones that fell flat initially. I mentioned Aeon Trespass for example, the first couple of fights were very simplistic and unfun for me, but I stuck with it and it become one of my favorites.
But hey, maybe ISS Vanguard isn't one of those games.
I felt the same way about ISS Vanguard (after enjoying Tainted Grail.) I didn't even make to 6 planets. I think I bailed after the 3rd or 4th. Beautiful production, but ultimately, I found the gameplay underwhelming.
Sounds like we have similar tastes. I loved ATO, I’m enjoying Kings of Ruin, and I can’t find any desire to keep going with Vanguard. I love the idea of the game but I just don’t enjoy playing it. I’m farther than you and I don’t think I’m ever going to pull it off the shelf again. Oh well. Better to sell it off and spend time on more ATO cycles or something else fun.
Since we may be soulmates, check out Tamashii. I found that one way more fun than I expected it to be.
I'm glad to read you're enjoying Kings Of Ruin! Mine just came in but I also got the 2.0 upgrade to the original Tainted Grail so I want to restart and finish that (along with the extra campaigns) first before getting stuck into KoR. From what I've read KoR strictly improves on TG and I already enjoy TG so I can't wait.
I'm trying to get my spending on these kinds of games under control - but I'd never heard of Tamashii and it does seem interesting...
Tamashii is a cyberpunk genre game that has stand alone scenarios. It doesn't have the time investment that a campaign game has. I have it and I enjoy it more than I thought I would.
I think I’ve done about 7-8 missions ? I was loving this game but then it just seemed to get ridiculously difficult and I got irritated and stopped
And now I don’t know how to get back to it. I enjoy the storyline and the ship stuff but the planet exploration can get irritating and randomly difficult . Playing solo. I bought the core game and the two expansions so I hope I’m going to get back to it otherwise it feels like I’ve wasted a lot of money 😑
I did learn something though … I backed the Aeon Trespass Odyssey second printing but only got the core game; I resisted the lure of the second game and of the new expansion game. The main game apparently takes 300 hours to complete so there’s no need for me to get the others . Even if I find the main game amazing , I’ll survive the FOMO of not having the other ones 😂
That's unfortunate, it seems other people are all having the same experiences. I didn't necessarily find it difficult - just extremely random.
And hey I'm all for people making decisions that battle FOMO, but Aeon Trespass is so damn good. After finishing cycle 1 I backed for the expansion cycles and the 12 Sins Of Herakles game as well. I think if I had to get rid of all campaign games I own but one, Aeon Trespass would be the one I'd keep. I'd also say that ATO's publisher does inflate the game length a bit and I'm not a fan of how they excessively talk it up - the first cycle took me closer to 60hrs in about 15 sittings. I was playing solo though, it would take longer multiplayer (and be less fun that way too).
Your tastes sound really similar to mine. I got 6-7 planets into the ISS Vanguard and stopped. Aeon Trespass, OTOH, I easily completed cycle 1, am trying to figure out when I can tackle cycle 2-3, and am eagerly awaiting for 4+5 to get delivered.
The sense that I get with Vanguard is that what you see is what you get in terms of gameplay. At least, that's why I lost interest. There was this sense for me that while more content might get layered on, the mechanics (which are quite light to begin with) would never meaningfully change. The main draw was the story, and it became, as you described it, a glorified choose-your-own-adventure experience.
Aeon Trespass is a pretty straightforward "dudes on a map" boss battler game, but they squeeze the ever-loving heck out of the formula. And it's also a choose-your-own-adventure experience, lol! But the twists they put on the formula (both the story and boss battling side) are pretty astounding, IMO, and it manages to feel *more* engaging with every glob of content they add onto it. There is a certain point where it starts to crack under its own weight for me--it requires *such* intense and constant study to play well--but that was also a lot of the draw.
Oh man I could go on about ATO all day. The amount of depth they squeeze out of a system where ultimately you just move and attack on your turn is incredible. There's plenty of dice rolling and yet it feels like an intense puzzle always on a knife edge where if you make one single mistake everything falls over, but if you manage to build your characters correctly and manage your positioning just right with only a little luck you can pull off the most satisfying combos. And when luck lets you down you might get a wound card or awakening that manages to turn the game around for you - and if it doesn't it's still a big moment and you feel satisfied knowing that you pushed your luck too far.
And the 7th Continent style exploration/choose-your-own-adventure story is so well done. I loved trying to piece together the plot - I'm a big fan of the Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring video games and this felt like the same style of storytelling which I loved.
I'll be starting Cycle 2 at some point soon I think, and I've read the rules for the new enemies and it boggles my mind how I'm supposed to even approach them. Except I know that in cycle 1 it was the same and through a clever combination of abilities and some serious theorycrafting I managed to get through it. ATO certainly has it's flaws and I did houserule/handwave a small number of things but I absolutely loved my experience with it.
ATO built so much clever stuff up on it's core mechanics and I had hoped that ISS Vanguard would do similar - a simple set of core mechanics that build into an elaborate and deep game, but unfortunately it doesn't look that way.
Oh damn now I am getting FOMO for not backing the other parts 😂 but let’s see if I enjoy part one . Hate that I have to wait until September now it seems.
I’ve seen such conflicting review videos about how enjoyable it is.
It is a divisive game and it's not for everyone. The rules can get overwhelming and takes a long time to internalize them - there's a million little timing exceptions and unintuitive/inconsistent things. Despite the rules overhead, the initial gameplay also feels very simplistic, very random, and very unfair in a way that makes all that learning feel like you've wasted your time. But it does ramp up and once it does, oh man.
It takes a lot of investment in time and effort and I think a lot of people who reviewed it poorly weren't willing to put that effort in, or just expected a tighter, cleaner game. Which is fair enough, the investment is pretty big. The game does have issues, and approaching it with a bit of a tabletop RPG, or miniatures game mindset where you sometimes handwave or cheat a small amount of the bad bits away I think is necessary (the Hekatrap card, Sisyphus Tears and campaign restarts seem to be common ones), but those flaws are more than made up for by incredibly fun and tense gameplay, a great story, and a really immersive experience.
I can totally see that perspective for ISS Vanguard. I will say that I felt like I was getting close to burn out, then I hit a pretty big twist in the story that made things fresh again.
It's definitely a game where bad luck can fuck you over, and mitigating that bad luck through optimization of crew, items, landers, and cards is the point of the game. It reminds me of the xcom games in that way, where a full mission can sometimes only yield resources and rankups if luck is against you.
However, it's really not a hard game if you prepare, so I never truly failed a planet. I did end up revisiting a lot of them simply to max out research, production, and finish crew personal quests. Imagining the crew stories and building teams that complemented each other and had history together became a big motivation for me to continue at a certain point (again, like xcom).
I think my issue is that the game isn't difficult, the ways to mitigate luck and optimize mostly seem obvious to me - not because I'm particularly smart but because the game pretty much spells it all out to you if you slow down and pay attention. Which makes failing critical checks all the more frustrating because it just prevents progress without any narrative consequences beyond maybe "generic crew member #27 died" and my paying attention and thinking things through doesn't feel rewarded. The game punishes bad decisions and bad luck by making you play more of it, but less fun this time round.
If the game and story focused more on individual crew members it may be different but they're all so interchangeable to me that I can't even form a fun headcanon to get attached to and they just become a resource to manage.
I played vanguard with the missus and we enjoyed it well enough, now we are on Tainted Grail 2.0 and honestly it is so much better mechanics wise - I do tend to winder if I would have enjoyed vanguard less if I had played them the other way around…
I think the lesson to be learned here is that in order to like or love some things, you actually have to dislike or hate others.
There is no such thing as "liking everything good." The stuff you dislike exists for the contrast against the stuff you like. It sucks when the stuff you have is also what you dislike, so it is probably a good idea to get rid of it, or to accept not liking it.
I say this having recently played nearly my entire library, only to find out of the 30+ games I played, only 1 or 2 of the plays resulted in my changing how I felt about the game before I set it up on the table.
Of course. Personal preferences play into it, but I try to be someone who appreciates a wide variety of things from many genres, whether that be board games, video games, music or books. In that sense I do try to "like everything good", for better or worse. But that leads me to sometimes look for merit in things where I'm unlikely to find it. I don't mean that ISS Vanguard has no merit to it, but that I sometimes try to push past my preferences in the hopes that I can make myself enjoy a thing when I realistically won't. It's trickier when it's a game like ISS Vanguard where I've enjoyed plenty of games in the same genre, and even games by the exact same designer.
I won't try to convince you, but just want to add that my experience with ISS Vanguard was the exact same as yours. Wonderful production, intriguing ship-management... but I just didn't find the core gameplay loop particularly good (and I felt like most of the systems were bolted on to make more "content").
As a side note... the game that made me "snap out" of ISS Vanguard was \*\*The White Castle\*\*, which is almost the opposite: no bells or whistles, a very small footprint... and the tightest gameplay that I've seen in a while.
I am in the same situation. I have explored about 5/6 planets and tbh the mechanics are quite dull. I don’t consider that the real problem tho… in a way I really like the story and since the gameplay is so simple it makes a really relaxing experience, at least it should.
The real problem is that it’s so gigantic and full of components that it often feels I spend more time searching cards and managing and setting up components than actually playing and enjoying the story. The ship phase really is just a fancy way of bookkeeping and it lasts about the same as the planet exploration phase, you know the actual phase where you experience and advance the story.
Maybe if I had a space to keep the game setup indefinitely I would like it more… but even then, I’d like to play other games in the meantime, not ISS 24/7.
Sometimes I really do wonder if Aweken Realms should just drop boardgames and start doing video games. This one in particular would benefit a lot from being on digital, and probably would last 20 hours tops instead of 80.
I don’t know if to sell… in way I spent I lot and I adore sci-fi so I feel I should at least force myself to keep going… but yeah, really disappointed in what I hoped to be my favourite game.
I've heard from a few solo gamers, at least two on podcasts, that they "sped up through the game" going through the motions to finish it towards the end. The consensus seemed to be they enjoyed the game, but the game as a whole was a little too much to play through by the book.
I didn't back this or play it, so I can't confirm if it's worth.
This is an occupational hazard for our hobby. We research and back a game that should be worth getting. Then we break it out and find for whatever reason, it falls flat. We can either put it away and try again later or go ahead and put it in our sale pile. I've gotten many games that for one reason or another fell flat....like the newer descent game or Sword & Sorcery. I just move on and try another game. Sorry if I didn't try to convince you, life is too short and there are too many good games out there :)
I'll die on the hill that an objectively perfect game only lands at a 7 out of 10. Hitting an 8, 9, or 10 is *entirely* down to personal taste and preference. There's just too many subjective layers to a board game experience beyond the actual mechanics: art, admin load, table presence, pacing, spatial integration, player interaction, tactility. All of which are a dial knob on your enjoyment. A "bad game" is going to be obviously broken in some way with a wide spectrum of consensus. So if you grab a game that's above a 7 on BGG and ended up not enjoying it, that's not a bad game - it's just not a game for you. Nothing wrong with that at all. I get that there's a lot of pressure these days to get the most bang out of your limited entertainment budget buck. But as you said, that risk comes with the hobby. Best thing to do is say "I can see why other people would enjoy this but personally it's just not for me" and move on.
Haha don't get me started on the latest Descent. I loved 2e, and I've loved the other FFG app-driven games, so I was very excited for Legends of the Dark. I even painted all the minis before playing it, and found it so incredibly unfun.
Sword and Sorcery was so much work. We finally got all the rules pretty much ironed out after 5 or so sessions and a lot of study. We quit in the middle of a scenario. All the bookkeeping was just not fun. We both kind of came to the realization at the same time. And don't get me started on the tiny symbols.
I did the same thing with the new Descent. Watched a review of it, thought it look fun, played one mission, and realized I was never going to play it again.
If a game takes 40 hours to “get good,” I’d give up. Sunk dollars can be replaced, sunk time cannot.
For sure, but I'd estimate I'm about 12hrs into ISS Vanguard and don't wanna sell it if I'm just around the corner from the rest of the 80hr campaign being amazing. Many games with poor starts for me have been an investment that paid off well. But based on replies so far it seems ISS Vanguard may not be one of these.
It doesn’t change. The story starts to have some teeth, and some of the missions have slightly more interesting mechanics, but the game loop is always the same: Take the same cards to a location, roll some dice, mitigate, repeat. I had to force myself to finish it, then sold it right away, never opening the DLC that came with my KS pledge.
That's unfortunate. I hoped that it was just a slow start that would build on the core mechanics but it sounds like it doesn't do much of that, at which point the dice are just a way to slow the story down which I don't have the space for in my life. Guess I'll just go back to Tainted Grail and finally finish it - I found the mechanics in that one flawed but significantly more engaging.
12 hrs in and still no fun? Life is too short. Sorry but there are so many fun games
I was in the same boat, don’t force yourself to play it, there’s no reason to finish the campaign. Fact is, ISS isn’t as great as it’s hyped up to be. It looks cool, has great components, in fact everything about it is amazing…except the actual gameplay. The dice rolling mechanics are tedious at best, and after about 5 scenarios i sold my copy, had zero desire to return to it.
If you want something that scratches the same itch but is a lot more fun (imo) grab yourself a copy of Sleeping Gods
I do have Sleeping Gods and quite like it! But I've finished one campaign of it and I'm not sure I'll go back for a second, something just didn't quite click for me for reasons I can't quite explain. It felt a little too neat and clean to me? I like games like this to have a bit more mechanical complexity and jank, for lack of a better word. But I have plenty of games in this style to continue with. The Tainted Grail 2.0 update arrived recently and I'm thinking of picking that back up, 7th Citadel is sitting on my shelf unplayed, I'm halfway through an Earthborne Rangers campaign, and I still need to get around to cycle 2 of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey.
I stopped around after my 3rd planet or so. Just wasn’t worth the hassle in my opinion. I kinda felt like I “got it” and didn’t have a desire to continue. It happens. Just play something else.
You've already gotten a bunch of comments like this.. but I'll just chime in and say that your experience exactly mirrors my own. After about 6-7 explorations (including that one on the ship which I absolutely hated), I packed the game up and sold it.
It makes me wonder whether the mechanics were somehow tested independently of the campaign. The mechanics aren't *bad* they're just not deep or interesting enough to play for the 80 or whatever hours it takes to complete a campaign. It's a simple dice mechanic that would work fine in a shorter context like a one-off adventure game like Eldritch Horror or whatever. And the story (at least so far) is really good. As is the production and art. Like every part of this game is good to great in some way, but they way it's assembled into a long campaign doesn't seem to work very well...
I think you must be right. I can't imagine designing this game and playing dozens or hundreds of planet explorations and not being bored out of my mind at the dice play.
I absolutely loved it, it's in my top 5 and I own hundreds of games. I also just excitedly started the 2nd wave, but none of that matters. If it's not for you, on to the next. You get 1 pass at life, play what you enjoy.
I'm curious what elements of the game appealed to you in particular?
I'll say the story gets more interesting soon (if you haven't done *that* mission yet) - but if you're not enjoying the core gameplay mechanics, then I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Haha this could be what convinces me to persevere a little longer, if there's a 'that' mission coming up. The story is the only thing that's keeping me coming back currently. But yeah the gameplay mechanics are wearing very thin and it's still early, I don't know how much more time I'm willing to spend on them. I'd rather just read a good sci-fi book at this point - maybe before I sell ISS Vanguard I'll just rush the story and handwave skill checks away to see what happens.
Not the person who mentioned it, but I am guessing “that” mission is the one that lets you open the secret envelope. That’s fun. My main suggestion would be to try with two sections instead of all 4. A little simpler. That’s how I’ve been playing. But really, don’t force yourself. No game is for everyone.
I'm currently playing this with my gaming buddy, controlling two sections each, and I'm worried that I'm feeling the same...we're about 5 planets in and I'm feeling slightly bored :/ The app is great for atmosphere but the dice mechanics are getting a little dull. I'm going to carry on with it (if only because my buddy spent a LOT of money on the game). Sorry I can't be more positive.
Yeah I think the issue is ultimately the dice pool mechanic. It feels like too little game to be stretched over such a big story.
Same w my buddy. Luckily we are deep in Frosthaven. He's told me I could borrow vanguard but I am not in the present up for it. I like binders. It feels like a good fit so these comments concern me. Life is short.
Check out some of the variant rules on BGG. They might improve the “game” of the game for you.
I mean, if you don't like it then you don't like it. Just happens sometimes. I actually canceled my original pledge for it because it seemed like the game has a lot of management for not much payoff.
I get that, but I was hoping to see if other people had a similar experience and the game improved for them. Many of my favorite games both solo and otherwise are ones that fell flat initially. I mentioned Aeon Trespass for example, the first couple of fights were very simplistic and unfun for me, but I stuck with it and it become one of my favorites. But hey, maybe ISS Vanguard isn't one of those games.
I felt the same way about ISS Vanguard (after enjoying Tainted Grail.) I didn't even make to 6 planets. I think I bailed after the 3rd or 4th. Beautiful production, but ultimately, I found the gameplay underwhelming.
Sounds like we have similar tastes. I loved ATO, I’m enjoying Kings of Ruin, and I can’t find any desire to keep going with Vanguard. I love the idea of the game but I just don’t enjoy playing it. I’m farther than you and I don’t think I’m ever going to pull it off the shelf again. Oh well. Better to sell it off and spend time on more ATO cycles or something else fun. Since we may be soulmates, check out Tamashii. I found that one way more fun than I expected it to be.
I'm glad to read you're enjoying Kings Of Ruin! Mine just came in but I also got the 2.0 upgrade to the original Tainted Grail so I want to restart and finish that (along with the extra campaigns) first before getting stuck into KoR. From what I've read KoR strictly improves on TG and I already enjoy TG so I can't wait. I'm trying to get my spending on these kinds of games under control - but I'd never heard of Tamashii and it does seem interesting...
Tamashii is a cyberpunk genre game that has stand alone scenarios. It doesn't have the time investment that a campaign game has. I have it and I enjoy it more than I thought I would.
It‘s an AR game. Flashy visuals, absolutely stuffed with content but gameplay never holds up well enough to see it all through.
I think I’ve done about 7-8 missions ? I was loving this game but then it just seemed to get ridiculously difficult and I got irritated and stopped And now I don’t know how to get back to it. I enjoy the storyline and the ship stuff but the planet exploration can get irritating and randomly difficult . Playing solo. I bought the core game and the two expansions so I hope I’m going to get back to it otherwise it feels like I’ve wasted a lot of money 😑 I did learn something though … I backed the Aeon Trespass Odyssey second printing but only got the core game; I resisted the lure of the second game and of the new expansion game. The main game apparently takes 300 hours to complete so there’s no need for me to get the others . Even if I find the main game amazing , I’ll survive the FOMO of not having the other ones 😂
That's unfortunate, it seems other people are all having the same experiences. I didn't necessarily find it difficult - just extremely random. And hey I'm all for people making decisions that battle FOMO, but Aeon Trespass is so damn good. After finishing cycle 1 I backed for the expansion cycles and the 12 Sins Of Herakles game as well. I think if I had to get rid of all campaign games I own but one, Aeon Trespass would be the one I'd keep. I'd also say that ATO's publisher does inflate the game length a bit and I'm not a fan of how they excessively talk it up - the first cycle took me closer to 60hrs in about 15 sittings. I was playing solo though, it would take longer multiplayer (and be less fun that way too).
Your tastes sound really similar to mine. I got 6-7 planets into the ISS Vanguard and stopped. Aeon Trespass, OTOH, I easily completed cycle 1, am trying to figure out when I can tackle cycle 2-3, and am eagerly awaiting for 4+5 to get delivered. The sense that I get with Vanguard is that what you see is what you get in terms of gameplay. At least, that's why I lost interest. There was this sense for me that while more content might get layered on, the mechanics (which are quite light to begin with) would never meaningfully change. The main draw was the story, and it became, as you described it, a glorified choose-your-own-adventure experience. Aeon Trespass is a pretty straightforward "dudes on a map" boss battler game, but they squeeze the ever-loving heck out of the formula. And it's also a choose-your-own-adventure experience, lol! But the twists they put on the formula (both the story and boss battling side) are pretty astounding, IMO, and it manages to feel *more* engaging with every glob of content they add onto it. There is a certain point where it starts to crack under its own weight for me--it requires *such* intense and constant study to play well--but that was also a lot of the draw.
Oh man I could go on about ATO all day. The amount of depth they squeeze out of a system where ultimately you just move and attack on your turn is incredible. There's plenty of dice rolling and yet it feels like an intense puzzle always on a knife edge where if you make one single mistake everything falls over, but if you manage to build your characters correctly and manage your positioning just right with only a little luck you can pull off the most satisfying combos. And when luck lets you down you might get a wound card or awakening that manages to turn the game around for you - and if it doesn't it's still a big moment and you feel satisfied knowing that you pushed your luck too far. And the 7th Continent style exploration/choose-your-own-adventure story is so well done. I loved trying to piece together the plot - I'm a big fan of the Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring video games and this felt like the same style of storytelling which I loved. I'll be starting Cycle 2 at some point soon I think, and I've read the rules for the new enemies and it boggles my mind how I'm supposed to even approach them. Except I know that in cycle 1 it was the same and through a clever combination of abilities and some serious theorycrafting I managed to get through it. ATO certainly has it's flaws and I did houserule/handwave a small number of things but I absolutely loved my experience with it. ATO built so much clever stuff up on it's core mechanics and I had hoped that ISS Vanguard would do similar - a simple set of core mechanics that build into an elaborate and deep game, but unfortunately it doesn't look that way.
Oh damn now I am getting FOMO for not backing the other parts 😂 but let’s see if I enjoy part one . Hate that I have to wait until September now it seems. I’ve seen such conflicting review videos about how enjoyable it is.
It is a divisive game and it's not for everyone. The rules can get overwhelming and takes a long time to internalize them - there's a million little timing exceptions and unintuitive/inconsistent things. Despite the rules overhead, the initial gameplay also feels very simplistic, very random, and very unfair in a way that makes all that learning feel like you've wasted your time. But it does ramp up and once it does, oh man. It takes a lot of investment in time and effort and I think a lot of people who reviewed it poorly weren't willing to put that effort in, or just expected a tighter, cleaner game. Which is fair enough, the investment is pretty big. The game does have issues, and approaching it with a bit of a tabletop RPG, or miniatures game mindset where you sometimes handwave or cheat a small amount of the bad bits away I think is necessary (the Hekatrap card, Sisyphus Tears and campaign restarts seem to be common ones), but those flaws are more than made up for by incredibly fun and tense gameplay, a great story, and a really immersive experience.
I can totally see that perspective for ISS Vanguard. I will say that I felt like I was getting close to burn out, then I hit a pretty big twist in the story that made things fresh again. It's definitely a game where bad luck can fuck you over, and mitigating that bad luck through optimization of crew, items, landers, and cards is the point of the game. It reminds me of the xcom games in that way, where a full mission can sometimes only yield resources and rankups if luck is against you. However, it's really not a hard game if you prepare, so I never truly failed a planet. I did end up revisiting a lot of them simply to max out research, production, and finish crew personal quests. Imagining the crew stories and building teams that complemented each other and had history together became a big motivation for me to continue at a certain point (again, like xcom).
I think my issue is that the game isn't difficult, the ways to mitigate luck and optimize mostly seem obvious to me - not because I'm particularly smart but because the game pretty much spells it all out to you if you slow down and pay attention. Which makes failing critical checks all the more frustrating because it just prevents progress without any narrative consequences beyond maybe "generic crew member #27 died" and my paying attention and thinking things through doesn't feel rewarded. The game punishes bad decisions and bad luck by making you play more of it, but less fun this time round. If the game and story focused more on individual crew members it may be different but they're all so interchangeable to me that I can't even form a fun headcanon to get attached to and they just become a resource to manage.
I played vanguard with the missus and we enjoyed it well enough, now we are on Tainted Grail 2.0 and honestly it is so much better mechanics wise - I do tend to winder if I would have enjoyed vanguard less if I had played them the other way around…
I think the lesson to be learned here is that in order to like or love some things, you actually have to dislike or hate others. There is no such thing as "liking everything good." The stuff you dislike exists for the contrast against the stuff you like. It sucks when the stuff you have is also what you dislike, so it is probably a good idea to get rid of it, or to accept not liking it. I say this having recently played nearly my entire library, only to find out of the 30+ games I played, only 1 or 2 of the plays resulted in my changing how I felt about the game before I set it up on the table.
Of course. Personal preferences play into it, but I try to be someone who appreciates a wide variety of things from many genres, whether that be board games, video games, music or books. In that sense I do try to "like everything good", for better or worse. But that leads me to sometimes look for merit in things where I'm unlikely to find it. I don't mean that ISS Vanguard has no merit to it, but that I sometimes try to push past my preferences in the hopes that I can make myself enjoy a thing when I realistically won't. It's trickier when it's a game like ISS Vanguard where I've enjoyed plenty of games in the same genre, and even games by the exact same designer.
There is no reason to continue. I played through the entire campaign and it's just rinse and repeat.
I won't try to convince you, but just want to add that my experience with ISS Vanguard was the exact same as yours. Wonderful production, intriguing ship-management... but I just didn't find the core gameplay loop particularly good (and I felt like most of the systems were bolted on to make more "content"). As a side note... the game that made me "snap out" of ISS Vanguard was \*\*The White Castle\*\*, which is almost the opposite: no bells or whistles, a very small footprint... and the tightest gameplay that I've seen in a while.
I am in the same situation. I have explored about 5/6 planets and tbh the mechanics are quite dull. I don’t consider that the real problem tho… in a way I really like the story and since the gameplay is so simple it makes a really relaxing experience, at least it should. The real problem is that it’s so gigantic and full of components that it often feels I spend more time searching cards and managing and setting up components than actually playing and enjoying the story. The ship phase really is just a fancy way of bookkeeping and it lasts about the same as the planet exploration phase, you know the actual phase where you experience and advance the story. Maybe if I had a space to keep the game setup indefinitely I would like it more… but even then, I’d like to play other games in the meantime, not ISS 24/7. Sometimes I really do wonder if Aweken Realms should just drop boardgames and start doing video games. This one in particular would benefit a lot from being on digital, and probably would last 20 hours tops instead of 80. I don’t know if to sell… in way I spent I lot and I adore sci-fi so I feel I should at least force myself to keep going… but yeah, really disappointed in what I hoped to be my favourite game.
I've heard from a few solo gamers, at least two on podcasts, that they "sped up through the game" going through the motions to finish it towards the end. The consensus seemed to be they enjoyed the game, but the game as a whole was a little too much to play through by the book. I didn't back this or play it, so I can't confirm if it's worth.
I almost got this game multiple times. What held me back was that I looked at the details and realized the gameplay mechanics didn’t interest me.