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SeaFall is receiving very mellow reactions

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07 Sep 2016 19:08 #233541 by DukeofChutney
Having played a Legacy game, i think its best suited to rather simple systems. If Rob was to design a complex naval exploration and conquest game i'd be quite interested, but mix that with legacy and the rather onerous level of commitment those games require and I'm a lot less interested.

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07 Sep 2016 21:00 #233543 by John Myers
I'm listening to the Shut Up and Sit Down review and a few things are standing out to me:

- It sounds like there is a lot of down time. This is the kind of thing that for our group generally means a game only gets played infrequently. It can make make the experience exhausting and we have to be willing to settle into something like this. One the best things about adapting the Pandemic engine is that it means each turn is fairly short and everyone has a stake in how everyone else's turn plays out.

- It also sounds like Seafall has a problem that a lot of long conquest/exploration type games have, which is each player starts working through one of the game's many interesting systems and before they can be fully explored someone wins. And it often feels like all of these great ideas are being dangled in front of you but you never get to see them play out because they are not the shortest path to victory.

-Critically,Quinns makes the story sound boring and I have feeling that will be a deal breaker for many people. One of the things that works great about Pandemic Legacy is that even without the Legacy element most games of Pandemic have a pretty tight and exciting story (the virus! and we have to cure it! or everybody dies!); The review gives the impression the events are just too generically written to be engaging.

This seems like problem that could well served by an app, a well designed piece of software could take advantage of tags that characters might receive from one game to a next and tailor the event to them.

Is your captain "Vicious?" When you encounter the natives it means it well almost certainly be a combat encounter. Is he or she "Charming" then odds are you will make friends. This might give the storytelling a sense of weight and seem more like the choices earlier in the game that lead to those tags have more consequence.

- I wonder if making the game competitive is another strike against it. The problem with competitive games, especially games with more than two players, is that they have to feel exciting and engaging for everybody. If you are the player who is consistently loosing it;s going to be harder and harder to mount the enthusiasm to come back for another multi-hour expedition, compound this with the sense that you have to keep playing so you friends can, it seem like this would expand the exhaustion factor.

God forbid if one one player just keeps running away with it every game.
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07 Sep 2016 21:30 #233544 by Michael Barnes
It sounds a lot like folks are over analyzing a game that really is just a flat disappointment. Usually when reviews go long and the reviewer appears to be searching for something good, whatever good is there is negligible.

And nobody seems to want be the one to say "sorry, the game sucks".
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07 Sep 2016 21:39 #233545 by metalface13
It's a shame, sounded like a really cool, ambitious project but ... yeah ...

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08 Sep 2016 01:57 #233548 by cdennett
I was on the fence after Shut Up and Sit Down and No Pun Included "reviews," but this thread has firmly pushed me over the edge and I sent the pre-order cancel e-mail to Plaid Hat. I don't have a group for this game, period. I was hoping to include the wife, but I can already tell she'd absolutely hate it. I'm am curious about it, but we couldn't even finish Risk Legacy, so fuck this.

If it turns out to be better than being reported, not like I can't pick one up later from an FOLGS for less then my direct pre-order...

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08 Sep 2016 05:26 #233551 by Chaz
Did the same. Since that money was already gone and will get refunded, I feel pretty okay about applying it to another game, so I'm trying to decide which FFG stuff to get.

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08 Sep 2016 08:34 #233560 by Legomancer

John Myers wrote: -Critically,Quinns makes the story sound boring and I have feeling that will be a deal breaker for many people. One of the things that works great about Pandemic Legacy is that even without the Legacy element most games of Pandemic have a pretty tight and exciting story (the virus! and we have to cure it! or everybody dies!); The review gives the impression the events are just too generically written to be engaging.


Is there anyone who pays any attention to "paragraphs" in any game? When we playtested, we read them aloud in dramatic voices, but I don't think anyone was looking at them to give us narrative direction. I'm trying to imagine looking at a blob of text on a card or in a booklet, written by a game designer, and going, "well this story is lacking".

I'm not necessarily going to bat for Seafall here. I'd just as soon the discovery booklet ditch the paragraphs altogether and just tell you what you found. For me the point is, flavor text is just flavor text. It's not story, and it doesn't make a game "drip with theme". Nor should it be expected to do the heavy lifting of narrative. In a game, that's done by the actions of the players.

It's like when someone criticizes the "lore" books in some video game. My reaction isn't "you're right" or "I disagree; I found them fascinating". It's "you READ those?"
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08 Sep 2016 09:00 #233562 by Msample
Michael, do you have a review copy in the pipeline ? Til a FATtie plays this. we'll never know the truth.
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08 Sep 2016 09:04 #233563 by Mr. White
Has Legomancer not played it?

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08 Sep 2016 09:07 #233565 by Michael Barnes
I'm not covering it, I've got a couple of my guys at MM doing it there. I think we are going to do a H2H or a round table with it.

I'm totally disinterested in it.

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08 Sep 2016 09:15 #233569 by JEM
I'd hope so. That's the main criterion for a reviewer.
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08 Sep 2016 09:49 #233575 by Gary Sax

Legomancer wrote: It went through at least one more round of editing and changes after I playtested, so I don't know how much changed at that point. I liked it (and pre-ordered) but didn't love it, but I also discovered I don't like playtesting and shouldn't do it.


Mr. White: from upthread
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08 Sep 2016 11:48 #233592 by Count Orlok
While totally anecdotal, I had concerns when I witnessed a group playtesting this about 2 years ago (so who knows how much has changed since then). They were at it for a very long time, and when finished, they had a long discussion about the game that seemed to settle on the fact that regardless of how clever it was, the experience was ultimately not very fun. If that element is absent, I'm not sure any kind of clever legacy mechanic can save it.

I haven't read every comment about it, but this seems to be settling into the same problematic groove that I have seen and have with many games. It's fun to think of the experience and potential of the game, but at the moment it isn't really very satisfying. How many of us have bought games or systems with grand visions of the joy to be had, only to be ultimately disappointed? I can look at my collection of Battlestations for a prime example of this phenomenon.
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08 Sep 2016 18:16 #233623 by dontbecruel

JEM wrote: I'd hope so. That's the main criterion for a reviewer.

Yup. Glad I'm not the only disinterested vs uninterested language pedant.

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08 Sep 2016 23:10 #233671 by Cranberries

Count Orlok wrote: How many of us have bought games or systems with grand visions of the joy to be had, only to be ultimately disappointed? I can look at my collection of Battlestations for a prime example of this phenomenon.


Yes, this is the core question. I've talked myself into so many games that one or two people raved about, and then been disappointed, or, more commonly, unable to put together a group of players who enjoy the game. The last game I bought that exceeded my expectations was Pax Pamir. I need two more players for that gem and hope to play it many times. Assassins. Spies. Drenched in history. Heavy enough to leave you thinking for a few days afterwards.

With games like Seafall, I keep wishing there was a game doctor out there who could combine the most important house rules into something authoritative and coherent. Games are made of rules, and rules are elastic--they're just words.
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