I know I'm making a video games to board games transition when I stop watching a video game video because I get a notification of a new NPI video review.
Plus cookies! People bring them all the time when you play board games. When's the last time someone brought you a cookie when you played a video game?
@@NoPunIncluded Literally never. That has never happened. Face to face time with friends is the main reason board games is taking over for me. Thanks for all that you do!
@@NoPunIncluded You guys play video games with the wrong people. There's always cookies (and coffee/tea/cocoa) when meeting up for some nice couch co-op or lan gaming with me & my friends. ;P
I totally agree with everything you said. We are over 6+ hours into the game (Campaign mode) and although we love the narrative, you both hit the nail on the head with the issues regarding the rule book, the finicky mechanics especially the die draw, which despite having several ways to mitigate, still always seems to come up short at the most urgent of times. Your end game recommendation is spot on and how I ultimately feel about the game, however, we are pressing on with the goal of completing the game because we love the story. Thanks for another great and honest review.
I'm super late to this conversation, but I just started Stuffed Fables with our two older kids (7 and 9). The mechanics (not to mention the rules) are definitely wonky. Two things that got me passed that wonkiness : First, these games are great for an experienced player to play the GM with less experienced players that might be turned away by rigid and complex rules. I like a strong set of game mechanics, but I am happy to let that go when I get to host a really engaging experience for my partner or our kids that aren't as intense about mechanics as I am. Second, I came up with a slight adjustment to the rules that has seemed to help. Rather than putting the dice back in the bag after a players turn, we leave them out until every player has had a turn. This mean that the pool of discarded dice grows giving flexibility when players have the option to swap for a die in the discard pool. It also increases the odds that the following players will get the dice the group needs. Gonna give Comanauts a try with my partner. Thanks for the thoughtful review!
The mechanics don't seem like they changed much from stuffed fables which we really enjoyed with our kids. I think I will still pick this up because I love a good narrative even with the negatives of the game play
Good review. I do like the game on a whole more than you guys, though. It's funny. I actually find the mechanisms of Gloomhaven to be far more frustrating than those in Comanauts, so much so that, as a collector of only dungeon crawls and adventure games, I don't even own GH anymore. Typically, I tend to really like Jerry Hawthorn's designs, and I like this new dice bag approach to action selection. It also makes it easy to increase or decrease the difficulty of the game by adding or removing more dice of a particular color.
Fascinating stuff. Not sure it's in my wheelhouse, but it does make me wish to see a playthrough or even just thumb through the book. Hopefully someone can take the ball with this and run with it! Thanks, as always, for an entertaining and thought provoking piece. Keep up the great work!
I like the final sum up .. Narrative and games is important to me in a lot of games and I have long had the illusive search for something that really feels like a story/rpg in a box. Much as I love Gloomhaven narratively its a skirmish game. Sword and Sorcery is nearly there and (personally) I think Folklore is an RPG in a box (I’d be seriously interested in your take on folklore - and in fact I think a comparison of the three is overdue) ...
From everything I've seen from these two, they would absolutely loath Folklore. Way too much luck involved for their tastes. FL is basically the Anti-Gloomhaven in terms of mechanisms and approach.
There's definitely something wrong with me. I absorb the nuances of the game, lament the use of dice as a cop-out way to create choices/randomness/story forks but what actually make me really get excited is seeing an AT-ST walker at the end of the video! Yay! I can imagine Efka and Elaine rolling their eyes and wondering why they put in so much effort. 😬
This channel is choc-o-block with personality. Well done. I simply love all your presentation choices. Fabulous work. Very thorough and entertaining reviews. Can I get away with cheating the dice in this game? Such as, colors that are contained in other colors can be used for that color as well? Purple contains red and blue so if I draw one of those colors too, it can pinch hit for purple die perhaps? Or yellow die can pinch hit for orange or something? Does that help keep the game moving at all or would that break it too much?
Thanks for the review and honest opinions during your videos. This is the reason I watch NPI. Have you played Escape Tales: the Awakening? It’s another narrative game wrapped around an.escape room game.
Looks like you put the threat die on the wrong track. But I don't blame you because after reading the rule book for four hours learning how to play it all sorts of blends together. I am looking forward to trying it all again now that I have some idea of what is going on.
I think taking the mechanism & idea of "Stuffed Fables" , and just use it in an "adult game" was a bad idea. You can't take mechanism in a game for young children, and use it just like that. The dice bag work with stuffed fables because of the "child" factor. So... thanks for the review. It confirm the few I have tried of it.
Seems like a lot of Plaid Hat games do that -- great setting/storytelling, but frustrating or tedious gameplay. I always want to like their games, but I never really do.
@@NoPunIncluded oh hi there! I didn't expect a reply back. I guess the best to say that dreams are an odd pool of creativity for me, even the nightmares. A game like this really fasinates me. Have you guys played Don't Rest Your Head by Evil Hat? I've never tried it yet, but it seems interesting
So, in short, a game you can respect for its sheer ambition and well-constructed narrative, but it’s gameplay hampered with a core gameplay mechanic that comes out as half-baked and clearly untested?
The biggest issue here is the game mechanisms do not line up with the type of game it's trying to be. I feel like the story and theme are developed but the game play is pasted on, the rulebook an afterthought. Itsjnot just lazy, it does this a disservice. why use the exact same system from stuffed fables when this is a more mature and unique story? For some they do not mind, for me it ruins the experience.
So, it should have been a book and NOT a game. After that review, Comanauts is big thumbs down to me. Bad if the mechanics are bad and totally broken if it is not replayable.
Not at all. It works more as a game than a work of interactive fiction. Mechanisms aren't bad, either, just not to their, or your, tastes. For a game that is more of a book/work of interactive fiction, see City of Chaos.
@@TheDungeonDive I guess there are a few people out there that may like this game, but getting a few of them together to play it with broken mechanics is just trouble than the game is worth. With so many more fun games and new ones coming out every week, why put yourself to sleep with this comatose game.
Didn't watch the video till the very end did you? ;) Also, last year we positively reviewed Sidereal Confluence, Gaia Project, Clans of Caledonia, High Society, Ganz Schon Clever, Welcome To, Lowlands, Brass, Star Wars: Legion, Orbis, Railroad Ink and Treasure Island - so I have to honestly ask you, do you even like NPI :P
If its deserving I'd imagine it would be positive. But the last two, Gen 7 and Comanauts, are definitely deserving of the commentary. Great narratives that are executed poorly; at least with Comanauts we got a caveat from NPI, which as person who is currently playing it, is a great assessment IMHO.
I think, looking back, they've mixed it up pretty well between positive and negative reviews. I also get the sense that they never *want* to incorporate negativity unless they feel it would betray their true feelings to do so.
