All Comments

  • From umondy on Kit Fisto

    I like the concept in general but INSTILL COURAGE is something I would avoid playing as it reduces the number of PERSITANCE attacks you could play. I also don’t get why a 2nd one is considered better by you?
    Maybe a big card (maybe an attack) that allows/forces you to reshuffle the discard pile into the draw pile would help? This way you could load up PERSISTANCE for a big attack and than shuffle those attacks back into your draw pile maybe for more smaller attacks…?

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    • From roman on Kit Fisto

      Yeah I’d like for INSTILL COURAGE to interact with PERSISTENCE but the current effect probably isn’t the right one. Maybe look at your top 3 cards and if there’s a PERSISTENCE then put it in your hand? Still probably only one of these IC cards, and then he could have another version of NAUTOLEAN INSIGHT or something else entirely. It should probably be pretty weak though, because he’s a sturdy duelist right now, can dish it out and take it.

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      • From JAG18 on Kit Fisto

        First, let me say that this is probably my favorite version of any of the Kit Fisto decks you’ve done. I was thinking the same as you about having a second IC, but I think Umondy’s right here. I also like the idea of IC interacting with PERSISTENCE, but I can’t think of anything other than making it a WOOKIEE INSTINCTS (NAUTOLEAN INSTINCTS?), but that sounds redundant when you already have 4 copies of it.

        Also, I think another Kit Fisto deck does this, but what do you think of changing CLONE CHARGE to ATTACK OF THE CLONES? (Unless you think that’s too cheesy. :p)

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        • From roman on Kit Fisto

          Ha! Well, in deference to the old deck by PD Magnus I’d like to leave it as CLONE CHARGE, a good name itself.

          We just need to figure out something for those last 2 card slots. At least one movement card, possibly 2. Like I said, he’s already pretty strong so if the secondary effect is weak it’s fine, I just don’t want “draw a card”.

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  • From umondy on Bolg

    Looks cool, my concern though would be that as an opponent I would never attack his weak minors, keeping him weak as well. Do I miss something or is this really the big weak spot of the deck?

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    • From roman on Bolg

      Maybe you’re right, but not killing any minors is a disadvantage and at some point it gets hard to avoid.

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  • From Alastair on Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter

    Thank you for this deck!

    Does Wrath really mean everyone, or just the adjacent minors?

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    • From roman on Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter

      You’re welcome! This is one of our favorite decks and also one of our most popular.

      Only the minors take damage but NO ONE may move. The idea is that Vader can get next to someone and isolate them together for a turn.

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  • From Alastair on Rey

    Will it be safe for me to keep this deck the same then, but just modify the starting HP?

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    • From roman on Rey

      Personally I think it’s always safe to tinker with HP.

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  • From Phil on The Orion Cygnus Arm

    Just found this page. I’ve been working on a game that looks almost the exact same! I have my prototype of 91 hexes, and a separate mini hex map (although I use mine for a different purpose that you do). I’ll give your game a whirl. If it scratches the itch that made me start designing mine, I’ll just stick with yours πŸ™‚

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    • From roman on The Orion Cygnus Arm

      Hey Phil! Thanks for your interest. Yes, I am working on it. You can see the prototype on screentop.gg. Still has a long way to go, so if you’ve got the ideas, go for it and maybe we’ll publish yours! Or, maybe we can collaborate because there’s so much that needs to be done. The map wasn’t that hard and the ships are looking interesting. Now it’s about giving the different sectors of the galaxy their own unique feel, and about adding some mysteries to be solved as you explore deep space.

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  • From Phil on A Vast Space-y Feeling

    Hello. Loved this post. Did you go forward with working on this game? I just found this blog post after having the exact same thoughts, and started working on my own game which is very similar to what you describe here.

    But if you’re already in middle of the process, I’ll probably just stop working on mine!

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  • From JOHN SANDORA on Kylo Ren

    I think Mind Probe and Focused Rage are a bit overpowered.

    I will probably change Focused Rage to a Direct Damage card of say 3 from range like a blaster. As for Mind Probe, go from 2 cards to 1 and Force Restrain from 2 to 3.

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  • From JOHN SANDORA on Rey

    I like the deck a lot. I really do. But, I really think Rey needs a Blue deck. After all Rey becomes…”All The Jedi”.

    Also, I think the HP needs to be no less than 17. I will go with 18 as I want her in a higher tier.

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    • From roman on Rey

      You know I think it’s probably a good idea to change it to 18 so she matches the other major characters from the original set. With such a fragile minor it’s not like she’ll be too tough to bring down.

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  • From Andy on Out of the Darkness: Fearsome Wilderness Kickstarter Review

    This will be a bit of a read, so apologies ahead of time, but this comes from a first-time Kickstarter that (is likely to have) failed to succeed.

    TL:DR; Kickstarter is fickle, and marketing, visibility and reach is more important than you might think.

    Our first efforts on Kickstarter have resulted in what looks to be a failure to meet the campaign goal. Some of this is undoubtedly down to the nuances of being new to the production of commercial boardgames, but a lot of it is down to visibility. I have spoken to many people (of both successful and unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns) who have provided an overwhelmingly aligned opinion – going onto Kickstarter without a prebaked audience is almost guaranteed to result in a failure.

    That’s not to say this is the case with everyone. Those with the ‘killer product’ are just as much likely to have runaway success as those that are just ‘in the right place at the right time’ (another form of ‘secret sauce’ that eludes many of us).

    Marketing is expensive. I ran a multi-week Facebook campaign that yielded a decent ROI on money spent vs. new backers. If all of my backers came from that avenue, I calculated that I would’ve spent about 30% of my budget on marketing to assist in reaching my goal. That’s a decent chunk of your operating profit right there.

    My naivete in launching a campaign without much market reach was a mistake. I felt that we had a strong campaign pitch and pretty good graphic design / assets. We were a couple of days late with a playthrough video, but based on the analytics from Kickstarter, only about 46% were willing to watch a 2 minute promo video right to the end. I’m not sure how this compares with other campaigns.

    I was happy with the conversion rate of visitors vs. converted backers – this tells me that the campaign does have enough meat on the bones to be viable. But again, the numbers do show that there weren’t enough people from non-KS origins hitting the page. The often given values of ‘50% from Kickstarter’ are pretty accurate, in my opinion, so that effectively validates the proposition that you need to generate 50% of the campaign’s funding from other sources.

    These are hard, but valuable lessons to learn by being burned on the first try.
    Part of the problem is that if you’re an independent developer, there is no capital to start producing great prototypes for sending out to reviewers and other such mechanisms that seem to be part and parcel of many successful Kickstarters. That’s not to say you can’t start basic and ‘work with what you’ve got’, but in reality – the best campaigns, and those that seem to succeed, seem to have all of these pieces in concert.

    This won’t be the first and last time I’ll try. It’s hard to watch something you’ve laboured over for years get lost in the dust of bigger and better things going on, but this industry seems less about being ‘the next big thing’ and more about being visible, even at a low level. Building an audience and cultivating awareness about-a-thing is just as , if not more important than the quality of the actual campaign that promotes it.

    Hopefully I can look back on this post one day and see that the application of these lessons allowed me to navigate the murky waters of Kickstarter successfully, so that we can at least have the first title under the belt.

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    • From roman on Out of the Darkness: Fearsome Wilderness Kickstarter Review

      Our key marketing was word of mouth to get to half of our stated goal. The additional marketing that most aided us was MyMiniFactory, Facebook and Board Game Geek, all paid (MMF gets a cut of our KS). The reviews and such, and working with Fen the blogger, helped a little but I think we reach our $10K goal without any of that. They probably helped push us to the 12-13 range, then Kickstarter basically matched our effort.

      An important detail I left out of the article was the funding goal. We intentionally set it low enough at $10K to make success more likely. Had we only raised $10K, however, that wouldn’t have funded the entire manufacturing process and we were prepared to spend some from our own pockets.

      Our family & friends came through with 5K and that was 50% of our goal, which I think created enough momentum for Kickstarters to jump on board. I don’t think it works if our goal is $25K (the amount we eventually raised) and your friends and family are only getting you 20% of the way there instead of 50%. So one final tip is to set your goal low enough to give you a good chance to succeed. If you have to, get your friends & family to commit so you have a good idea of where you might get on Day 1, set your goal somewhere around double that, then marketing is just gravy that brings in more Kickstarters.

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      • From Andy on Out of the Darkness: Fearsome Wilderness Kickstarter Review

        I agree with this. Part of the problem for my campaign, at least, is making the mistake of trying to create the game in its ‘ideal format’. That is, with the component types, cards, spit and polish that you want it to be. I suspect that for many projects that’s just not feasible (who wouldn’t want to upcycle cardboard components for plastic or metal ones?). This is especially true for a first-time campaign, I’ve learned.

        Lowering the campaign goal is definitely an essential first step for the next campaign. Simply getting manufacturing and shipping quotes, working out storage and transit costs etc. and then adding contingency on top isn’t really a viable option for reducing costs. Actually trimming back on the scope of production is.

        To that end, it makes sense to scale the campaign goal way back, and as you say – looking (where feasible) to contribute non-campaign funds to the actual budget of the project. These are all important lessons in successfully crowdfunding, it seems.

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  • From umondy on San Hill & Wat Tambor

    Like I already said. Love the deck. Curious how it plays. The pdf is missing the health chart though and here DROID ARMY is no power combat and has no value I believe that is wrong?

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    • From roman on San Hill & Wat Tambor

      The PDF isn’t ready but should be coming soon. In the meantime I’ve corrected the text on DROID ARMY — thanks. Something that’s bothering me is, Wat is completely reliant on the Super Battle Droids. Without them, he’s got 2 useless cards and no real threat. I like the little direct damage game he has going, but maybe instead of DROID ARMY it needs to be DROID SACRIFICE, A4 + 2 for each Super Battle Droid that has been destroyed.

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  • From Jackson Pope on Out of the Darkness: Fearsome Wilderness Kickstarter Review

    We’ve run three FlickFleet projects on Kickstarter and they’ve all had a lot of backers come from Kickstarter. Though I wonder at the accuracy of that – it’s in Kickstarter’s interest to show how much they bring to the party, so backers who followed a link in an ad and then clicked the remind me link and back after the reminder email – do they count against the ad or Kickstarter: Reminder email?
    I think if your project is successful, you tend to get featured more by KS too, our projects:
    1) Funded with 4 hours to spare, 101% funded, KS brought 46%
    2) Funded in 3 days, 188% funded, KS brought 56%
    3) Funded in 15 mins, 3744% funded, KS brought 67%
    So funding early means you get more KS support. We’re going back to Kickstarter again in 3 weeks, so I’ll have more data soon!

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  • From Raistlin on Little Red Riding Hood

    Just a side note: INTO THE WOODS has all 3 symbols, each on one different card.

    Raistlin

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  • From BMLDESIGNS on Frodo

    Hey there isn’t a back for these guys? It’s the same as page 1

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  • From KingofAngmar on Dark Troopers

    You guys should do a Boba Fett and Fennec Shand deck, that would be really cool!

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    • From roman on Dark Troopers

      Thanks for your interest! If Boba has his own show, I will almost for sure make a deck for him, but I’d like to see the show play out a bit first.

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  • From Separatist18 on Dark Troopers

    Its been awhile since I’ve played/haven’t seen Mandalorian but check the site now and again.

    32 hit points does seem ludicrously high. Most sets in SWED don’t have more than 28, and we’re talking all the points being “major characters”, *and* there’s the potential for “wasted damage” (if your killing blow on one of the troopers does more damage than the health a trooper has remaining, it doesn’t transfer to another trooper.)

    Even if the deck itself somehow played moderate or weak, it still seems like a heck of a lot of hit points to carve through for no reason, given you said even all four of these guys are no match for a jedi.

    I’d probably do 5 or 6 hit points each (6 would best fit the normal distribution of “total hit points” for a deck, while 5 would be accommodating the fact that these guys are all major characters. I could see a case for 7 if you only had to kill 3 of the 4 to win, even then 8 would kinda seem like a lot.

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    • From roman on Dark Troopers

      I was actually thinking that I’ll probably go 7, which is still a pretty robust 28 hit points. Unlikely I want to go less than that but we’ll see how 7 plays. I think they should be pretty tough.

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  • From Carlos Vidal on LOTRED - Print and Play

    Where are the rules of the game?

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  • From Carlos Vidal on LOTRED - Print and Play

    Hi. I would like to know about the “rules” of the game?

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  • From BML Designs on Tobias Beckett

    Hey, the link doesn’t work? any chance this could work again?

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  • From Raistlin on King Arthur

    I know, the Boost 4 for those cards may be very strong. It is the tweak I’m monitoring the most.
    Alternatively I also considered to remove it and add the “DRAW 1 CARD.” text as the last sentence in Arthur’s ability (so he can draw when feinted).

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  • From Raistlin on Sherlock Holmes

    Great deck this one. It depicts the characters very well, thematic and strong.

    In the end I tweaked one card (at least for now): COUNTERPUNCH. I limited its direct damage to only 1.

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  • From Raistlin on Medusa

    A very strong ranged deck.
    For a ranged deck, Medusa has too many defences in my opinion, granting her a bit too much staying power, so I tweaked one card, HISS AND SLITHER; now it has defense 2.

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  • From Raistlin on Big Foot

    This deck is really straightforward and strong. A bit too much in my opinion.

    So, for now, I tweaked two cards in Bigfoot’s deck to better balance it. LARGER THAN LIFE is now Attack 5 and IT’S JUST YOUR IMAGINATION is now Defense 1.
    I think it should be enough to better balance it.

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  • From Raistlin on King Arthur

    I really like the game, but King Arthur is WEAK. No doubts about it.

    Here are the tweaks I adopted to rebalance him.

    EXCALIBUR: attack value is now 8
    THE LADY OF THE LAKE: added “Gain 1 action.”
    COMMAND THE STORMS: added “Draw 2 cards.”
    SWIFT STRIKE and REGROUP: the Boost value on these cards is now 4

    Tweaks motivations:

    EXCALIBUR: well, it must be better represented. The magical sword should have had a unique, powerful ability in my opinion. Now, at least, it has a unique powerful value. 8 is a really high value in Unmatched, but considering that on average we will strike with EXCALIBUR once in the game, I think 2 more damage are acceptable. I know, it can be boosted too, but boosting it’s not so automatic with King Arthur as many of us has seen during play. In the end I consider EXCALIBUR a bit like Bowcaster for the Han-Chuby’s deck in Epic Duels, which also has a ‘tutor’ card to find it in the same way THE LADY OF THE LAKE does.

    THE LADY OF THE LAKE: giving to this card the “Gain 1 action” ability will grant a half surprise effect. Half because the opponent will know that your next action will probably be an EXCALIBUR’s attack, but it’s now to you to bluff or not. Anyway the other half of the surprise effect resides in the fact that you can now strike with EXCALIBUR in the same turn you draw THE LADY OF THE LAKE, which is great in my opinion.

    COMMAND THE STORMS: the deck has a terrible lack of drawing power, mostly considering King Arthur’s ability. So I checked all cards, trying to find the one to power up. I wanted a sure un-feintable draw effect, so I opted for a Scheme card. COMMAND THE STORMS is a so and so card by its own, so I found it perfect for the tweak. Now you move all characters 3 spaces and draw 2 cards. It’s strong as a defense, putting spaces between you and the opponent if you need it, for a breath moment; but it’s strong also in offense, shortening distances for an attack, if desired. To be honest I would liked most a King Arthur’s card, but Merlin is quite resilient and it shouldn’t be a great problem to rely on him.

    SWIFT STRIKE and REGROUP: I wanted here some better Boost cards. I chose SWIFT STRIKE and REGROUP because they are not those great cards to play, so at least now they have a better, alternative use.

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    • From roman on King Arthur

      I don’t follow what you did with SWIFT STRIKE and REGROUP but I like the other tweaks, EXCALIBUR especially. Why should Excalibur be no better than an attack Big Foot has 3 of? Yes 8 is a high value but if there’s one card in the game that should be a higher attack than all of the others, it’s Excalibur.

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  • From Raistlin on Is Unmatched the new Epic Duels?

    Ok, I’ll check the page you suggest.
    Yes, I see you produced two games. Congratulations! I’ll check them too.

    I’ve seen your Mandalorian deck. It’s interesting. Ah, by the way, I added some Battle Systems pieces to my SW Epic Duels scenery. Maybe you know the Battle Systems productions. The sci-fi environment is suitable fo SW Epic Duels.

    I’m watching The Mandalorian and I like it. Finally something interesting from the Star Wars universe… I don’t know what you think about it, but the last trilogy was really BAD in my opinion, a total mess and a wasted opportunity to say something new. I think the SW movie saga is irretrievably dead… sigh πŸ™

    Maurizio

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  • From Raistlin on Is Unmatched the new Epic Duels?

    Un saluto dall’Italia πŸ™‚

    Hi Roman, I’m happy to see you always active at the game table. I bought Unmatched too and I like it very much. I think I’ll buy everithing of the game; I miss the Star Wars brand, to be honest, but I like so much the game system that it’s ok anyway.
    I’m quite satisfied with the average balance of the characters; while one is clearly weak (Arthur) and some are a bit too much strong (Medusa, Bigfoot, S. Holmes), generally the authors did a really good job – also with theme, artwork and new twists to the mechanics.
    You know, I’m obsessed with balance in games, so I’m already tweaking here and there to better balance the whole eheh. However the premises are good, I think I will not have too much work to do in Unmatched! πŸ™‚

    Now I salute you, old friend. In time we will meet again.
    See you!

    Maurizio “Raistlin”

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    • From roman on Is Unmatched the new Epic Duels?

      Ciao Maurizio,

      If you have tweaks please share them at the main Unmatched page! I’m enjoying the game, not that I have gotten much chance to play it in 2020. I have some tweaks for Mando I want to make to get him into the stronger range.

      We’ve got a couple of games out now, have you checked them out?

      https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/314350/fearsome-wilderness
      https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266084/cage-match-mma-fight-game

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