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God damn, this is a good looking game. It's also John Clowdus' best design to date by a landslide. This is where it all comes together. And the review is in its usual place at Gameshark.com.
Now, remember kids. Keep the trash talk in Trash Talk or I will cut you.
Two things --
1) I'm not gay but that guy on the front cover has me pretty confused right now.
2) This one is for Mr. Clowdus who I hope is tuned in: Mr. Barnes is indicating that this game is a culmination, a refinement of prior efforts (at least in his opinion) and (if you agree) was the added complexity and depth more a factor of additional inspiration or additional perspiration? I'd be curious to know if this one just clicked or if you put additional man hours into pulling the package together.
S.
Between Drake's review, madwookie's review, and now yours, I'm feeling pretty good about my pre-order from a week or so ago.
I'm trying to recall: What's the normal turn-around on SBG pre-orders? Pre-Orders for several weeks, and then a month or so to have printed & ship?
Then again, with O:RoW's more complicated production, I guess all bets could be off for 1st-wave release timing.:D
If it's like his other titles it's ordered monthly. He announces the timing on his web site so you can see if you made it into last month's request.
S.
@Sagrilarus: Thanks. He'd already closed the March pre-orders before I ordered (3/21 deadline). So I guess I meant, "2nd Wave", in the current pre-orders. :D
3/7-3/21 pre-order window, and he quoted April 2011 ship on that batch (in the FAT post). So I guess it's a safe bet we'll see the current pre-orders in May.
Completing the thought... And per the SBG website,
.
If that holds to pattern, maybe we'll see current pre-orders shipping by the second week of May.
This better be better than Resident Evil, Barnes! I'm actually shelling out cash for this one as opposed to trading for (then selling) RE.
You're bang on with the Amano Yoshitaka comparison. PRE_ORDERED!!!
Good review Michael. Except: "What's Not: ... slight learning curve." Okay, I know you're writing for a more general audience over there, but that kind of jarred. And it made me think. I would love to see a heavyweight boardgame from John. So everyone buy, buy, buy!
(For now, I'll continue to enjoy Dirge: Carnage in Crimson.)
I put that as a "what's not" because for this kind of game, that could put players off. The first couple of games I played had something of an issue where the person I was playing with didn't really understand the resources worked or the different card effects. It's possible for players with unequal skill to have some pretty unsatisfactory games, with one side out of cards and money and pretty much on the ropes for the whole thing. It's a 20-30 minute game with a steeper than normal learning curve, and I think that could be an issue for some.
John is really good about hiding layers of depth in his designs though, so they're worth digging in for.
Jon Jacob, if you liked Elemental Rift I think you'll love this. I thought the objective mechanic was brilliant in ER, but way better in Omen.
Doc, it's not my fault you couldn't see the awesomeness of RE! Dude, Ada Wong is in it!
Thank you for your comments. I think it's one of those games, that if you look over the rulebook, and look at the preview cards on our site or tos, you can get a good feel if this is going to be your type of game or not.
As for preorders, we're still working off the same 3-4 week turnaround. It's been stretching out to 5 weeks here and there, because we've been sending more stuff to the printer, but all in all, it's a pretty decent turnaround. I'd like it to be faster, but, I can't stand over the printer with a cattle prod yelling at him to hurry it up. After all, I'm not the only company they're printing games for, it just gets sort of frustrating sometimes.
Sag, this game was a different animal. I had the initial ideas in my head for a while, and it was one I chipped away at mentally for a few months before anything got put down. Honestly, it was back burner stuff, because I knew to make this game work, it was going to need to look good, and I didn't think I'd be able to make it happen.
It wasn't really any more difficult to design than any of my other stuff. It was harder, though, having the constraints of the Pure Card Line regimen lifted. I had the opportunity to do an expanded rulebook, which is something a game like this really needs. It was hard deciding what needed to be in there, and make it detailed without being too redundant or boring as shit to read through.
From initial design and playtesting, one aspect got dropped and another was added, and aside from that, the end result is what I was carrying around in my head for months. Which is a pretty awesome thing. Originally, the different soldiers were tied to different gods, and there would be bonuses and banes for the different gods' soldiers, but in the end, as I was designing the cards, it just felt too forced, and just didn't add to the game for the amount of effort. The feats came about during the first playtest session; they weren't in the original design. But I think they add a lot to the game without being too overbearing.
I do feel like I've sort of painted myself into a corner with this game, though. It has me really reassessing my previous Pure Card Line stuff. Not that I'm looking at a massive overhaul of the entire line, because the bulk of those games are fine just as they are, cute/innovative $13.00 card games; I think they're great for what they are, if that makes sense. Hell, I'd love for every one of our games to look like this, but I can't afford this caliber of art on every 13.00 game I put out there. But, I think Irondale and Cartouche could really benefit from the "Omen" treatment. It also has me looking back through my notebooks at games that were shelved for similar reasons.
I'm not selling the farm yet, though. It's still kind of early to tell if this is going to be a real success or not. So far, it's looking up, and we couldn't be more proud of how things are going. We just appreciate people spending their hard earned money on our games.
No, no, Cartouche is excellent as it is! The only change I might have made would be for a simpler design on the card backs.
Not sure why you think you might have painted yourself into a corner, I'd've thought most peoples expectations at the moment is that you'll continue to do card games, but with an occasional wonderful surprise like Omen.
I preorded this game immediately. I actually really dug Irondale but I think this game will really hit the sweat spot. I also want to support this model of keeping the middle man out of the selling great games and I hope this catches on quickly.
John posted some pix of the new clamshell packaging over at BGG:
here
Looking good!
Grear review as usual. I've already pre-ordered this based on other reviews but I thought you did a good job trying to understand the game in regards to his previous designs. So far I've had the most fun with Insyllium and Elemental Rift (which is a blast!), Politico didn't really work for us and Irondale was good but didn't see the repeat requests that Elemental Rift and Insyllium had. I don't mind paying double for this as the art work looks like it's worth it. If it means that this artist gets double the pay of the previous ones then that makes sense to me and I don't mind funding that level of quality commitment.
I love how different his games feel. Kind of like Sirlin, not that their design ideals are similar because I don't think they are but because they both seem to be designing like outsiders who don't really know the core "cool" mechanics that are being used ad nauseum these days. Maybe they do but it doesn't feel that way.
I still want to try out Cartouch (or however it's spelled) but with this one on the way I don't really see a need for another two player card game just yet.