Thx for the cool review, Mike! You touched upon the 2 things that cause friction within story-driven games nowadays and they both have to do with how story-gamers like to enjoy their story-games. 1) Dice. Autonomy is a prized aspect for any gamer because it allows them to move forward and not have to rehash the same path just because they rolled badly last time. You're right in that players want to own their decisions. It's one thing to randomly determine what happens going INTO a situation, but it should be up to the player how to get OUT OF that situation. 2) Replayability. I've often claimed that this concept is dead. Now, obviously, many would disagree but my point is that a) we have enough games we could play once and never again and STILL be able to play a new game (and have a fresh game experience) every week. But also that b) story games just don't lend themselves to be replayed. Common game psychology states that thematic narrative is fun to read initially but, over time, gets skipped in favor of 'encountering the mechanical challenge'. As such, games that manage to keep you moving forward with fresh narrative and new challenges will always be favored over games that have you rehashing (parts of) old narrative and same-same mechanics. And in those cases players don't mind if they can only play scenarios once. *THE FIX* Until designers en-masse understand above concepts it's up to players like us to "houserule" systems that are found lacking. To handle 1) I always keep numbered tokens ('1' through '5') handy to add to my next roll when my current roll fails. This way, over time, I am more likely to succeed. When a roll does succeed, these tokens are discarded. To handle 2) one can simple skip previously-encountered dialogue and just do the mechanic/test/check required, but at that point I usually also auto-succeed or auto-fail said test in order to move forward along the 'story-branch' that I have not encountered yet. This way, I'm always enjoying a new path without the 'game mechanics' forcing me to redo my actions (or in worse cases - like TIME Stories - a whole new game). It may be flat-out cheating, but the purpose for story-enthusiasts like myself is to play games that provide new story experiences, not to go through the motions of a game until we are lucky enough to have wandered down every path. No one has the time for that. Anyway, hope this was a bit insightful. I enjoy your reviews and playthroughs as always and until next time... ...onward to the next Choose-your-own-Adventure: "The Incredible Sinking Camera!"
Marcel the Arcubal Wow, really great thoughts here. I agree fully. My variants to fix these are a bit simpler. If I am about to see the same thing, I just change the dice roll ;) But in any case, I really like how they did the game here.
Totally agree with you on point #2 with the dice resolution. A story based game like this should be driven by the player's choices, like the books, and not the luck of a dice.
Tim Teigen I imagine you’ll enjoy it! It’s certainly a faster experience, instead of having to play through the whole thing (and probably never play it again).
I was wondering what your thoughts are on component quality. Zee Garcia did a review of the previous game, and said they were poor quality. Great review as usual Michael!!!
Ji99s 74 Thanks! The cards were of good quality. No concerns at all really. You don’t need to shuffle, of course, so they don’t see hard use in any case. As for the tokens, the die, all fine.
Thanks for featuring our game! Great points made, too.
Great job on it! It was lots of fun.
Thx for the cool review, Mike! You touched upon the 2 things that cause friction within story-driven games nowadays and they both have to do with how story-gamers like to enjoy their story-games.
1) Dice. Autonomy is a prized aspect for any gamer because it allows them to move forward and not have to rehash the same path just because they rolled badly last time. You're right in that players want to own their decisions. It's one thing to randomly determine what happens going INTO a situation, but it should be up to the player how to get OUT OF that situation.
2) Replayability. I've often claimed that this concept is dead. Now, obviously, many would disagree but my point is that a) we have enough games we could play once and never again and STILL be able to play a new game (and have a fresh game experience) every week. But also that b) story games just don't lend themselves to be replayed. Common game psychology states that thematic narrative is fun to read initially but, over time, gets skipped in favor of 'encountering the mechanical challenge'. As such, games that manage to keep you moving forward with fresh narrative and new challenges will always be favored over games that have you rehashing (parts of) old narrative and same-same mechanics. And in those cases players don't mind if they can only play scenarios once.
*THE FIX*
Until designers en-masse understand above concepts it's up to players like us to "houserule" systems that are found lacking. To handle 1) I always keep numbered tokens ('1' through '5') handy to add to my next roll when my current roll fails. This way, over time, I am more likely to succeed. When a roll does succeed, these tokens are discarded. To handle 2) one can simple skip previously-encountered dialogue and just do the mechanic/test/check required, but at that point I usually also auto-succeed or auto-fail said test in order to move forward along the 'story-branch' that I have not encountered yet. This way, I'm always enjoying a new path without the 'game mechanics' forcing me to redo my actions (or in worse cases - like TIME Stories - a whole new game). It may be flat-out cheating, but the purpose for story-enthusiasts like myself is to play games that provide new story experiences, not to go through the motions of a game until we are lucky enough to have wandered down every path. No one has the time for that.
Anyway, hope this was a bit insightful. I enjoy your reviews and playthroughs as always and until next time...
...onward to the next Choose-your-own-Adventure: "The Incredible Sinking Camera!"
Marcel the Arcubal Wow, really great thoughts here. I agree fully. My variants to fix these are a bit simpler. If I am about to see the same thing, I just change the dice roll ;)
But in any case, I really like how they did the game here.
Totally agree with you on point #2 with the dice resolution. A story based game like this should be driven by the player's choices, like the books, and not the luck of a dice.
Mr Gouda yeah, the game still works, but it can lead to some frustrating moments!
I played House of Danger and had a great time. I'm really looking forward to go through this one as well.
Tim Teigen I imagine you’ll enjoy it! It’s certainly a faster experience, instead of having to play through the whole thing (and probably never play it again).
I was wondering what your thoughts are on component quality. Zee Garcia did a review of the previous game, and said they were poor quality. Great review as usual Michael!!!
Ji99s 74 Thanks!
The cards were of good quality. No concerns at all really. You don’t need to shuffle, of course, so they don’t see hard use in any case.
As for the tokens, the die, all fine.