The Stifling Dark - DT Preview with Mark Streed
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 лип 2024
- This is a Dice Tower Paid Preview.
Mark takes a look at "The Stifling Dark".
The Stifling Dark is a one-vs-many hidden-movement horror board game with an innovative line-of-sight mechanic for 2-5 players. One player takes the role of the adversary, whose goal is to prevent the other players (the investigators) from escaping through a variety of unique actions. As an investigator, your only goals are to survive and escape. Investigators move around the board in a point-to-point fashion using their base movement speed. They may sprint to move more quickly, but they need to keep an eye on their stamina so they don't become exhausted. Additionally, investigators can pick up and use items, lock and unlock doors, or use their flashlights to try and find the adversary. Meanwhile, the adversary is secretly moving around the board, trying to stop the investigators from escaping. There are a variety of investigators to choose from, each with their own special abilities. The adversary also has multiple attacks and abilities that change how you play the game.
0:30 Overview
2:42 Objectives
4:52 Investigators
7:07 Flashlight
8:55 Wounds & The Butcher
11:46 In summary
Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
BGG: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
Support the channel by becoming a member!
/ @thedicetower
Subscribe to our newsletter, "The Dice Tower Digest": dicetowerdigest.com
Check out the friendliest conventions on Earth!
Dice Tower Cruise - www.dicetowercruise.com (Q1 2022)
Dice Tower West - www.dicetowerwest.com (Q1 2022)
Dice Tower East - www.dicetowereast.com (Summer 2022)
Dice Tower Retreat - www.dicetowerretreat.com (September 8-12, 2021)
Buy great games at www.GameNerdz.com
Find more reviews and videos at www.dicetower.com
Get a great game table here! www.rathskellers.com/ - Ігри
I was waiting for this kickstarter and I backed the game instantly. I read the comments here and I think the creators of the game have done everything right. And seeing their reply shows they really thought all this through. I hope they won't modify anything because it's great as it is. The board looks great and of course we need numbers on each spot. And the objects and rooms on the board, obviously for balancing reasons, shouldn't be put randomly anywhere. Great job! Letters from Whitechapel had numbers on each spot and the board wasn't awesome looking but it didn't matter, the immersion worked. Here the board works nicely and doesn't prevent immersion at all. Everyone will have a different point of view. I just hope the creators stick to their great idea.
Does anyone know if they scrapped the idea of mitigation cards? They are not in my kickstarter box.
So I understand why they put all those numbers at each of the 'hex' nodes, but it looks pretty bad. They must have had alternatives. One that comes to mind is to put the numbered spaces on the Adversary's Board and have the Adversary place them on the map for the Survivors when indicated by cards. Another, simpler one would be to have a numbered/lettered X and Y axis for the board like Battleship, so when a card says "Place this on G12" you can just find G12 and put it there.
Also, I'm not 100% sure how it would work, but I think the game would benefit immensely if the buildings and terrain were able to be randomly generated and placed on the board, as opposed to having a default layout. While this would add a few minutes to setup time, it would allow for more variety in possible setups, in the same way that Dead By Daylight has semi-random versions of its maps, and that would probably increase the longevity of the game. Of course, the flip-side of the main board and adversary board could have a 'default' layout for quicker games. You could probably account for niche cases of "You can't put this item in G12 because there's a rock in that spot" with something like "If you'd put an item in a space occupied by terrain, the player who drew the card can choose to place it in the closest empty space of their choice". Or maybe just roll a d8 and put it one space away in that direction.
I think the game has a really interesting premise and some potential and that it could be improved without too much hassle.
Thank you for the feedback! This is something we've had lots of discussions on over the past couple years - it comes down to form vs. function. We have not ruled out a Battleship-esque grid, but the main issue with that is we lose the ability to group buildings together. Certain actions/items affect the entire building, and right now all the building have a unique prefix so you can clearly tell what's in and out. It's also quicker to reference since you can look at the exact space each time vs. having to reference the grid. That said, a grid would mean the map has a lot less going on.
As for randomly generated objects, this is another thing we've heard a lot throughout development. The main concern with this comes down to balancing: line of sight for both sides and the distance between objectives and various points on the map. Again, not something we've officially ruled out but it would introduce a number of additional complications into the math/balancing behind the game.
Once again, we sincerely appreciate the feedback and will continue discussing these while we put the finishing touches on the game.
I think the board design is functionally good overall and okay (just okay) with it's look but those sound like some good ideas to explore. However, I think that with the number of spaces on the board, having space numbers just on the adversary's board or the Battleship approach for identifying spaces might lead to increased placement errors. I would be inclined to subdue the spaces and numbers on the main board a bit more and improve the contrast of it's building and terrain features so the spaces are usable and not so distracting while the board as a whole takes on a "more map-like" appearance (especially for those of us with older eyes).
I also like the idea of at least some of the features being randomly generated and placed but with all the moving parts, especially the flashlights, I would be concerned about placed features being inadvertently shifted during a game. In any event, some means of having some layout variety from game to game would be a nice-to-have.
@@SteveRB511 great points - you hit on the two of the exact reasons why we did what we did (both for the numbers and the randomly generated features). We like the idea of modifying the contrast of the map and the opacity of the numbers to make the map stick out more - that's something that we can definitely do!
As for modifying layout, I forgot to mention that we do have ways to do things such as permanently block doors or windows, permanently open windows, add secret passageways, etc. through the evidence cards. Certainly not to the scale of entire obstacles moving around the board, but those cards can have a huge impact if played at the right time.
@@sophcerb Thanks for the reply! I can tell these are points you've discussed at length over the years.
Have you considered using a Battleship-esque grid around the board, and then placing letters and numbers on the floor of building tiles? For example, at 4:42 there's a building with G1 through G-19 indicated on it. You could keep those on the tile itself; it wouldn't completely remove the "clutter" on the board but it might help.
I can see how randomly placed objects would affect the balance of the game. In Dead by Daylight, the placement and shapes of structures and pallets can make certain configurations of the map easier for the killer or for the survivors. I guess it's a matter of how big the variance is and whether it's worth it.
SteveRB511 did bring up a fair point, that tiles of any kind on the board could lead to them getting shifted during the game. It's probably more expensive to manufacture but you could get 'grippy' neoprene matts with the board printed on one/both sides and that would handle that issue - I've seen highly rated ones on Etsy for various tabletop games.
Anyway, I wish your project tons of success. I really appreciate that it uses simple and effective standees for the characters and isn't a box filled to the brim with big, chunky miniatures, unlike loads of other board games on Kickstarter. I have a friend who LOVES horror movies and would probably adore your game.
@@ObsidianKnight90 likewise, thanks again for your feedback! Just to make sure I'm understanding your point about keeping the numbers in the buildings, you're saying we could get rid of all the outside "normal" numbers and then leave the buildings as-is?
Totally agree on the DbD approach, and we agree it would add a nice bit of variety to the game if we're able to implement it. To your point on the neoprene mats, I don't think the manufacturing costs would be too much higher. The main issue with those is shipping / storage - our board is pretty large so the mat would take up quite a bit of room even when rolled up. That leads to significantly increased shipping costs as well, so that and the storage issue are the reason we didn't include those as optional add-ons. Not to say it couldn't happen in the future, but we needed to keep costs low since we're a first-time publisher.
Once again, thank you very much for the constructive feedback! We've already gotten other comments on the UI of the map over on Kickstarter so that is definitely something we'll be diving back into once things on the campaign slow down a bit.
This has intrigued me, it is a good month for KS projects and not a good month for my wallet haha, too many good games out there.
I definitely want to see more of this one as I like the lighting mechanic in it.
How would you say this game compares to Letters from Whitechapel? It looks reasonably similar and I wonder if there are enough differences between the two games to justify backing this. Great theme though!
I'm getting Dead By Daylight vibes, along with Scotland Yard
I'm going to have to stop watching these previews; I'm working on cutting back on Kickstarters and this didn't help at all!. 😉 I find this game very intriguing, something a bit like a multiplayer Final Girl and definitely high up on my list of projects to consider. Great preview, Mark; thank you!
Looks neato, but man is that board ugly.
I completely agree.
You don't look like Mark Dive. Mark Dice looks like he is fit to serve. You, not so much.
The voice acting is horrible, just speak normally.......