Just today, I received my copy of Zephyr: Winds of Change. It’s a cooperative board game set in a SteamPunk world, with fighting, flying airships! What’s it look like?

Unboxing it reveals a lot of good looking components.

This was a Kickstarter that promised delivery in March 2017. It only missed by about 2 weeks (it’s currently April 14th), which is pretty good for a Kickstarter!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portaldragon/zephyr-winds-of-change

It looks fantastic.

My plan is to review this game in several parts. Part I will be the unboxing and first impressions (after playing through it once to see how it works). Later on, after I’ve had a chance to teach it to others and play full sessions, I will have a better idea of how it plays long term.

So, here we go …

Unboxing

Unboxing revealed very high quality components. The cards are nice quality (linen-coated I think), and have some great art.

One of the coolest features of this game is that there are clear cards (the lady below) that go on top of normal cards: the combination makes a “new card” (sorta like Mystic Vale).  There are 40 clear cards (called “personality cards”) that be fitted onto the faction cards.

The rulebook and Introduction look real good. They have plenty of pictures inside, use big fonts and seem easy to read. This is a good sign.

As I am punching out the pieces and separating out decks, I am consulting the main rulebook. I do like everything I am seeing, but I am slightly annoyed that the decks aren’t marked better. They use iconography, which is fine, but a word like “Assignments” and “Missions” coupled with the Iconography on the back of the decks would make the game easier to learn. I understand the goal these days is to make things as language independent as possible, but given the amount of text in this game, it wouldn’t have taken much work to mark the backs of the decks. This is a very minor annoyance, but one nonetheless.

Learn From My Mistake

As I start punching out pieces, I am concerned when I get to the dials. 99% of the time, the teeny-tiny little holes to punch out can be thrown away and/or ignored. THESE MATTER IN Zephyr! The A and B must line up. If you accidentally punch them out too soon, you may lose track of where the As and Bs go!

Probably the easiest thing to do is Punch out just the A pieces (so you don’t lose track of which is which). Don’t forget to punch out the square holes BEFORE you attach the plastic peg/hole. You want the smooth sideof the peg on top, and the rough open side underneath the dial.

 

Attach the A pieces first, then repeat with the B pieces.

It sounds stupid to emphasize this, but, how many games care about these teeny tiny holes? Most games DO NOT .. Zephyr does.

Color Continuity

My first real gripe is that the colors don’t seem consistent. Take a look at all the cards that have the same sign (for this faction).

The symbol is three different colors: deep blood red, white,  and off-red on three different places (target, ship, and cards, respectively).  The faction cards don’t even have a symbol (strictly speaking, the factions can crew any ship, so it maybe confusing to have the symbol).

It’s not the end of the world, as you can follow the symbol, but I would have
expected the color to be the same everywhere. See two other ships below.

Another place: the upgrade cards. The colors on the markers (which are systems you put onto your ship) don’t quite match the colors on the cards. Again, not the end of the world, but still slightly annoying. It’s not a big deal, except that the silver cards in my deck look much more orange than silver. They almost match the bronze upgrades. I am sure it was a printing issue, but hopefully they will fix it in a later version.

Intro Book

The intro book is real good into getting you into the “feel” of the game quickly, and taking you through the core mechnisms quickly.  It’s very well laid-out, with lots of pictures.  It’s a big font, and “thematic”.  I got the sense of the game very quickly after reading this.

I found a few editing minor errors, the biggest of which was that the “Day One” paragraph finished a sentence with an “or” … or WHAT???

The bigger concern was that I couldn’t “play” through the Intro scenario.  They had Missions and Assignments “hard-coded” in the book.  Which first I thought was great (“I don’t have waste an Assignment card or Mission card on the Intro scenario, which I will only play once”).  But, you want to put cubes on these cards to mark things.  See above: I want to put my ship on the Assignment card (like I would in the real game), but I can’t, because I can’t then turn the page!

Honestly, this is a minor quibble, because this introduction is very well-written and really brings you quickly into the game.  I just wanted to “put the cubes and markers” on cards like I would have in the real game.

This Was Cool

Scenarios tell you how long they will take to play!  That’s a GREAT IDEA!  Depending on the group of friends or time constraints, you can decide which Mission.  And even based on the number of playing.  *Stands up and applauds* What a great idea.

First Playthrough

First of all, bravo.  Zephyr has solo rules which are simple: they are just a minor tweak to the main rules.  I can learn the game by myself so I can teach it to others.  It seems, to me, that all cooperative games should have solo rules (I am looking at you, Battle For GreyPort).  And Zephyr’s seems to work well.  I think I got the sense of the game pretty quickly.  I am a little nervous to scale it up because there is some weirdness describing how other players interact with each other, but that’s what the second part of this review will accomplish.

The rulebook was pretty good to good: I could find things when I wanted to, the overview had page numbers to the more “complete” description, but tended to describe everything in outline form so you had a sense of where the game went.

There we also Summary Cards, which I think almost every game needs. *More applause*

I liked that there were “common builds” described on the last page (the back over of the rulebook) for that first few times you play.  I do wish it had been referenced somewhere, because I only found it when I went looking for the Solo Rules modifications.   (It may have been, but I didn’t see it).  Make sure you check out the back cover of the rulebook the first time you play.

So, was the game fun?

Yes.

I built a ship (using the “common builds”) and worked backwards to see how scrap was used to build the systems.  Ahh!  I get it!  I suspect some of the fun in this game comes from building your ship, once you understand all the systems (bronze, silver, gold and epic) and how they can work together.

As you go through the game, you will add onto your ship.  And, to be frank, I liked that.  After some big combat, you get “scrap” as your reward, and you use that scrap to upgrade your ship.  Pretty easy, thematic, and fun!

The combats, a vital part of the game, took me a while to grok.  I’m still not sure I understand everything. When can I play certain cards?  Am I allowed to play an extra card because the Silver upgrade said I could?  Can I heal a shield while in combat, or can I only heal on the next round after the damage is taken?

The combat is basically simultaneous between you and the bad guy(s).  So, sometimes it’s unclear when some effects go off.  I probably need to look through the glossary and/or a FAQ to double-check some of that.  So, some of the combat is a little fiddly and unclear. But, it seemed okay once I got it.

Final Thoughts for Part I

So, I enjoyed myself.  I’d like to play again.

I am very happy with the experience.  I got into the game quickly from the intro book, the rulebooks were pretty good to good for when I started real games, and I had fun.

The components are pretty spectacular.  Barring my issues with the color (which frankly, didn’t get in the way when I was playing), the ship card and crew cards (with the clear backgrounds) were just great to look at and fun to use.

I need to play Zephyr with friends a bunch of times to see if I am going to enjoy this more.   Stay tuned for Part II.

Dedicated to Tobias James.  We’ll miss you little guy.

I have to admit; I’m not really a fan of the “big coooperative” games this year that won the Board Game Geek awards.

1. Arkham Horror: The Living Card Game just failed for me (see my review here).
2. I am still learning Mansions of Madness, but at this point in time, the game is overwhelming me with its complexity. I spent two hours pouring over rules and set-up … and it just took it out of me … I couldn’t take any more, so I boxed up Yig and Hastur (before they turned me mad) hoping to try again soon.
3. And I can’t get Mechs vs Minions. To be fair, I could have Kickstarted it, but the price point scared me away.

So, it almost looks like I didn’t like COOPERATIVE games???? Absolutely not! Here are my Top 5 Games of all time … note that that they are ALL cooperative!

5. Arkham Horror. I love this game, and it was probably the very first cooperative board game I ever played. I just loved that a board game could be cooperative! (And NO, Eldritch Horror has NOT replaced Arkham Horror for me).

4. CO-OP: the co-op game. This is self-serving, but I still like playing my game to this day.  It’s still fun for me to puzzle how to barely save the CO-OP in the last turn!

3. Pandemic (any version). Just a great game.  And yes, I am showing the old cover art because that’s the version I have.

2. Sentinels of the Multiverse! Why did it take so long to realize a cooperative super hero game?   (And yes, I am using the original box art because I got the original game waaaaaay before it was popular and had a second edition.  I had to order it from the web site because that was the only way to get the game back then).

1. Pathfinder and/or Dungeons and Dragons RPG: I love it because of the adventure I explore cooperatively with my friends!  (And yes, I had the old version, so that’s the art I am using … I am seeing a trend here …)

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I put Dungeons and Dragons (or its equivalent Pathfinder, which is really what I am playing these days) at the top of my list because, it is really the first cooperative game I ever played! And it is open to imagination within a rule system. Some of my favorite experiences of all time were my friends and I exploring a world together.

So, I think my RPG experiences with D&D color what I want in a cooperative game. I want to be part of a movie! I want to have a plot that unfurls, where my decisions make a difference, and where there is some critical moment that decides the game!

What I like about Arkham Horror is that I feel like I can do whatever I want: there’s a lot of choices! I can go get a spell, a weapon, a unique item, heal, explore, close gates. My world is wide open! And the way we investigators work together influences whether we win or lose. Sometimes, no matter what we do, we will lose. But those moments when we just barely win or barely lose are the stuff of memories!

“Remember that time I closed the gate in the last round just before the last Doom token came out??!?!”

I like Pandemic and Sentinels because they are more puzzly: you have to do the best you can with the resources you have (which are much more constrained than Arkham Horror or D&D). These games still feel like movies to me though. In SOTM, Legacy punches and takes out the villain just before the the bad guys descend en masse! In Pandemic, the Medic flies to Laos in the nick of time to stop a massive outbreak!

One game that I like (but didn’t mention on my Top 5 list) was Agents of Smersh. It is also cooperative. It has a lot of these movie-like and puzzly qualities too … It has a book of encounters to be read aloud, but you are still making choices and moving around. (In my mind, Agents of Smersh completely replaces 1001 Arabian Nights. Agents of Smersh is a real, honest to goodness game, whereas 1001 Arabian Nights is just an activity … a fun one, but nevertheless not a game).

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So, what do I want in a cooperative game?

Something that feels like a Movie. Me and my friends are working together. Making real choices. Just barely defeating the game in the last moment. And sometimes losing. (But not always losing: AH:LCG, I am looking at you …)

When I designed CO-OP, I wanted:

1. Lots of flavor text like Arkham Horror and Agents of Smersh and SOTM. I like text, and I like the atmosphere it brings when you read it. All the cards in the game have some kind of flavor text, whether it be silly quotes or explaining what the card does.  In some ways, I wanted a book of encounters like Smersh, but I was able to simplify and achieve that with text on the cards …
2. Meaningful choices. There’s a bunch of things you can do on each turn, but the work action forces you to look at all your cards and think about a lot of things at once: What do I play? Should I support another player? SOTM really influenced me a lot on this.  I like how SOTM and Pandemic force you to make the best of what you have.
3. Suspense! … where we just barely defeat the game. I spent a lot of time balancing CO-OP so it wasn’t too easy or too hard. I can’t tell you how many games we just barely won in the last round, only because we puzzled how to use the cards just right. And that’s what I want!

In all the games in my top 5, there are always “movie moments” where we just barely won or lost. And we still remember to this day.

CO-OP represents a fusion of all my favorite games: a movie-like quality in a balanced puzzly game with lots of flavor text.

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So, I am still hopeful for Mansions of Madness: it look like it will definitely evoke a movie-like play environment. I am just worried that “upkeep” will kill it: there’s SO MUCH upkeep at the start of the Investigators Phase! I am worried that all that upkeep will take me “out of the movie”.

I am willing to chalk up my Mansions of Madness issues as simply jet-lag from my Australia trip (see last blog entry). Or maybe I just went mad from playing …………. hahahahahahahah …. hahahahahahaha ……

Recently, my wife and I had a chance to vacation in Australia for 2 weeks.
We saw Kangaroos, Wallabys, Koalas, Wombats, and some other cute creatures.

 

Part of the Australia experience is flying that loooooooong 14 hour flight from the United States into Sydney. I am not great at sleeping on  planes, so I had to keep myself busy/entertained. I ended up trying a lot of solo board game apps on iOS; in other words, a lot of solo play! Strictly speaking, not all the games I played were cooperative, but solo play is something I like to discuss here occasionally too.

Here are the apps I looked at/played for 14 hours!

• Star Realms
• Pandemic
• Agricola
• Sentinels of the Multiverse
• Splendor

I was originally going to write a “review” of each of them, but I realized there were some things they all shared in common (or didn’t share), so I thought I’d touch on those items instead.

No Scrolling

There was a time when I was the Agricola champion in our group. This grew, partly, out of my familiarity with the game. I would play the solo mode of Agricola over and over, trying to amass the most points. (The ‘recommended’ solo mode has you play a campaign, but I preferred the single solo game, where you take some random selection and play it a few times trying to get the best score). It was even so ridiculous that I would play on the airplane! That doesn’t SOUND ridiculous , but this was before there were applications on an iPad!  So how did I play? I took pictures of the cards I drew, then I would “play” the game, writing out my progress. I could fit an entire play on a small piece of paper. Here’s a sample of a few of my plays.

So, when I found the Agricola app, I was ecstatic! No more silly piece of paper! But, then I played it and ergh. I was very frustrated very quickly. Why? I think it boils down to the fact that the actions were all scattered all over the place and you had to “scroll” to look around. Ergh. I didn’t play it much because I was constantly looking and scrolling to see what the actions were. What I WANTED was one screen, with an overview of everything where I could zoom in if I wanted more information! I realized I wanted something like my weird little pictures.

I also downloaded the Pandemic app just before I left for Australia. Pandemic is probably a top 5 game for me. It’s great. I used it when I taught an intro Python course. (I’ll discuss this more in a later blog post). I looove the game. It does a great job … but … it scrolls. Ergh. I want everything on one page. So, again, I didn’t really play it very much.

I also played Star Realms, Sentinels, Splendor on my plane trip. I ended up playing these three things a lot more. Splendor has no scrolling, and Sentinels and Star Realms have minimal scrolling.

My conclusion: I don’t like apps that scroll. Splendor is simple enough that everything can be on one page. Star Realms does a great job of “zooming in” on cards if you want to read them, as does Sentinels. If you get too many cards, both Sentinels and Star Realms have to scroll through.

I want everything on one page so I can get an “overview” of the game, just like playing a real board game. I want to be able to look at the page and get a sense of everything. If I want more information, I want to just click on a card (kind of like picking up a card and reading it during a game).

So, Agricola and Pandemic are fails for me on that front, while Star Realms, Sentinels and Splendor work well.

Apps Might Be the Best Way To Learn

My Star Realms card game has been sitting unplayed for some time. I bought it because some the Dice Tower people really liked it, and it was cheap. I remember opening the box to read the rules, and was just “underwhelmed” by the one sheet of rules. It wasn’t even a booklet, but a kinda pamphlet. Ugh. It was kind of hard to read. So, I put the rules down and moved on to something else. Star Realms remained unplayed.

BUT, the iOS app has a great tutorial! While in Australia, I downloaded it because it was the right price (free with in-app purchases) and because I already have the card game!
I was up and running in about 5 minutes. It was also easy to try stuff and just see what happens. The Star Realms tutorial is the way to learn the game. Don’t (blech) learn from the rules “rulebook” (notice the quotes).

 

While in Australia, I wanted to teach my nephew and niece Pandemic. We couldn’t find a copy of Pandemic board game (not even at Australian Target), so I showed him the app. That was the right way to do it! I could easily go through the rules, show him a lot of the cards and the roles. We never found a copy (surprisingly), but I think he might be getting one for Christmas! The app was just enough to get him interested.

As much as I didn’t enjoy playing the Agricola app, its tutorial was great. Sentinels and Splendor seem to have good tutorials too.

One of the conclusions from this trip: the iOS App might be the right place to teach and/or learn a game! Besides YouTube videos and forums and the rulebook, the iOS/Android app is another resource for learning a game.

Where’s the UNDO?

I had a loooooot of fun playing the Star Realms app. But one thing continually frustrated me. I would hit a card wrong and accidentally play it instead of looking at it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Could I back-up and replay that? Nope. I was just stuck. THERE WAS NO UNDO.

If I were playing Star Realms with my friends, I could say “Whoops! I meant to get the coin not the Authority … is it okay if I slightly redo that?” I am not talking completely redoing a turn, just a minor glitch.

Nope. No UNDO.

When learning a game, it would be nice to be able to “take back” a turn to see if you could do anything different. Or if the plane is “jostled” and you accidentally hit the wrong space!

Sentinels gets this right. You can do a slight UNDO (usually replaying up to 3 turns previously). If you mess up, or just meant to do something else, you can just backup with the UNDO.

I didn’t get far enough into Pandemic or Agricola, but neither Splendor nor Star Realms have an UNDO. Only Sentinels.

I want an UNDO in my iOS games! It is much more like the board game experience: you can a replay a turn, or slightly re-try something. It frustrates me that so few apps have this feature. To me, it is my goto feature for apps.

Music Control

When I play Sentinels, I either put some music on in the background or watch a video (more like “listen” to a video). Sentinels has some good theme music, but you can turn off the theme music so you can listen to your own music. I really appreciate how thoughtful Sentinels was with this level of control.

Splendor and Agricola also worked on this front. I was able to watch a video (“picture in picture”) or listen to my own music. There were controls for the level of music and sound in the game.

Star Realms failed in this regard. I had to listen to its music. It has good enough music. But, after a while, I want my own.

It sounds silly, but I want to be able to control the Music I listen to in a game.

Final Thoughts

• Star Realms was fun as an app, despite its frustrations with Music and NO UNDO. I’d give it 7.5/10 as an iOS app.
• Splendor was particularly fun, and except for it’s lack of an UNDO, was great.
  I’d give it 8.0/10 as an iOS app.
• Sentinels is, in my mind, the prototypical app and fun fun fun. 10/10 as an iOS app.

Agricola and Pandemic were well done and beautifully implemented. But I didn’t
want to play them because of the scrolling. I can’t rate them because
I didn’t want to play them.  I’d rather play Agricola with my weird little pieces of paper.

Yes, the picture below is for the Arkham Horror Board Game, NOT the Arkham Horror Living Card Game (LCG).  We are going to go back in time and look at the board game before the LCG.

Some Background

Cast your mind back not so long ago  … My friends and I would play Arkham Horror: The Board Game (not the LCG) every chance we got. For years, it was our go-to game. We would spend all afternoon, or all evening, playing. Some of the wives didn’t get it, some did. We loved exploring Arkham, plotting how to close the gates, scheming to save our skins. Great fun. Arkham Horror: The Board Game.

For my Bachelor Party, we played an 8-Player Arkham Horror: The Board Game with every available expansion (I think there were 6 at the time). We had to assign one player per expansion to be responsible for the rules, because there were so many. Fun times.

But Arkham Horror: The Board Game got too big. Too many expansions!  (I think this is a common criticism). I actually had an extra copy of the game (for when I taught Software Engineering and had my students implement the game in Java). We had to break open a fresh copy to play it one Halloween.

We loved Arkham Horror: The Board Game, but there were too many expansions. And a common complaint was much set-up and tear-down.
Could Arkham Horror: the Living Card Game (AH:LCG) fix all the problems with Arkham Horror: The Board Game? Could it be just as much fun? Was it to be the savior?

No.

Review of Arkham Horror: The Living Card Game (AH:LCG)

So, I will be stepping on a lot of toes here. On BoardGameGeek, AH:LCG is up for Game of the Year. A lot of people on Dice Tower say it’s their favorite game of 2106. I’m sorry, I don’t get it.

To be clear: I like Arkham Horror: The Board Game. I was *really* looking forward to the LCG. I anticipated liking it so much, I pre-ordered every expansion for the LCG on CoolStuffInc even before I played for the first time.

Then I played AH:LCG. Ergh. Then tried again. Agh. And tried again. Blah. And again. I canceled my order with CoolStuffInc for all the Arkham Horror: LCG expansions.  I don’t want to play it anymore.

What’s good?

There is some goodness about the game.

The art is amazing. Wow. I can’t fault this at all. It’s a beautiful, well-rendered game. It definitely evokes the Cthulu Mythos.

You can play it as a solo player. I will probably finish playing out the game as a solo player to “get my money’s worth”. A lot of other games have solo rules tacked on, but this game works very well as a solo game.

There’s also a neat story here.

What’s bad?

Chits for used for creating “random rolls”.

Really? I was reminded by an old D&Der that the very first box of the D&D game used chits instead of dice because, as the story goes, they ran out of dice in the production, so had to go with the chits. I think if my first D&D box had come with with chits, I may have bailed on D&D. There’s something very cool about the dice, especially to a newbie.

It’s not like this game was cheap. I paid $34 on CoolStuff … for about 200 cards. I regularly see AH:LCG on Amazon for $55 (and more!). It’s even more than that at my FLGS. It’s not like Fantasy Flight aren’t making plenty of money. Some dice would have gone a long way here, especially cool mood dice.

The counter-argument, of course, is that “then the designers can’t adjust the difficulty with dice! The scenarios all have different chit distributions!”  Ok, let’s talk about that …

Swingy!

This game is SOOOOO swingy. One bad pull, and the game is over. One card deals you damage for the difference between the expected and pulled value. If you pull a -4, you are dead. Gee, that was fun.

There are ways to mitigate it: build a better deck (that can cost money, see below), pre-allocate resources better (better playing: I am okay with that), get rid of the -4!

There’s a difference between being a hard game and a lucky game. I feel like there is too much luck involved to win AH:LCG. I want some strategy.

Limited Replayability

Once you played a scenario, a lot of the “magic” is gone. This game looks fantastic, and you want to see the story unfold! But once you’ve seen it unfold, and then you die because of something stupid, you didn’t want to play it again. You know what’s coming now, and you are frustrated because you died because of something stupid.

There is an interesting story here. Don’t get me wrong. But, once I have finished playing this, I just don’t think I’ll play it again.

I payed $45 for Arkham Horror: The Board Game and have gotten easily 50, if not a 100, plays out of it. I don’t think I’ll get more than 8 plays out of AH:LCG.

More Money!

Like I said, I got a “smoking deal” for the game for $34. But, for the price, I expected more components. More dice? More cards? Don’t get me wrong, the cards that came with it are fantastic. But, I don’t think I would have payed $50 for the game (which is what almost everyone else is charging) knowing what I got.

And this whole thing feels like a money grab:
“Hey, buy some new scenarios!”
“Hey, buy our playmat!”
“Buy another copy so you can play 3-4 players”
That really turns me off. And my friend Josh pointed out that building a great deck really requires two copies of the game. So, to make the game less swingy, I have to invest in 2 decks??? Or to play 3-4 players??

So, I am up to $68 to make the game less swingy and/or support 3-4 players. Eh.

Time to Set-Up/Tear-down

So, the set-up and teardown is similar to Arkham Horror: The Board Game. An hour to set-up, and an hour to tear-down. (Putting the cards back in a specific order is essential if you want to play again, so yes, an hour). It’s fiddly, getting the cards out in a specific order. And the numbers are SO SMALL!  I have good eyesight and was straining to see the numbers!

I don’t mind some set-up and tear-down time.

But, for Arkham Horror, we’d get a 2-4 hour game out of it. For AH:LCG, I might get an hour game. If I don’t die from something stupid.

Too much effort for a short game.

Well-Written but LOOOOONG Rules

The rules are well-written. Especially the first-time through.

The rulebook and first time scenario rules reminded me of Mage Knight. (For the record, I really enjoy Mage Knight). Mage Knight!!! For those of you who have never played Mage Knight, it is a large, complex, intricate game with tons of cards/pieces, where you explore a large world. It has one of the most complicated rulebooks I have ever come across. The rulebook does it’s job, but it is a BIG rulebook. But I am okay with it, because Mage Knight is a BIG game.

AH:LCG is NOT a big game. It is small or maybe medium game. In my opinion, there are too many rules for such a small game.

Not As Fun As I Had Hoped

I wanted to like the game SOO MUCH! And it was kinda fun.

But after I beat the first scenario, (barely!), I died in the “post-game” because I made the wrong choice in a “Choose Your Own Adventure” choice. Really? Gee, that was fun.

Although the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books were cool when I was a kid, I never liked the randomness. It seems like you’d make the “right choice”, and it was always the “wrong choice” in the book.
And, ending an closely fought game with a stupid “Choose Your Own Adventure” ending, and then dying because of a random/bad choice, was just deflating.

Summary

Too Swingy, too many rules for what it is, too much set-up for what it is, too expensive, too little replayability.

There was some fun, some great art, and an interesting story, but all the other negatives drove the rating down.
Sorry. My BoardGameGeek rating was a 5.

EDIT: I was trying to figure why I like Time Stories, which also has limited replayability, but why I don’t like AH:LCG. I think it’s because Time Stories is less swingy, and there is a MECHANISM for backing up and restarting that’s part of the game! In AH:LCG, I just die.

 

I know this doesn’t really belong here, but I don’t care. I need to pay homage to someone whose music influenced me.

Recently, John Wetton, songwriter/bass player extraodinaire died. If you don’t know who that is, he was responsible for the voice and bass of the rock band Asia. He was someone I looked up to (as a musician) and someone whose work inspired me throughout his career. He early bass playing with King Crimson was just an amazing testament to how a bass can start to be a lead instrument. His voice was strong and powerful, and his sense of music was breathtaking. His work in the band UK was phenomenal, but his true legacy would be working in Asia.

Why is this here? This is a CO-OP board games list! To my mind, one of the most amazing collaborations in music history is the song-writing duo of Wetton/Downes. How much work does it take to write songs together? Consistently good songs over decades of Asia and the Icon project. In my mind, the friendship of John Wetton and Geoff Downes was one of the hallmarks of cooperation. You liked their music that much more because they were friends. They cooperated well.

When I found out John Wetton had died, I turned up the music on the way to work and cried in my car as I sang along with “Let Me Go” (from the Wetton/Downes Icon project). I had to learn to let John go. I got a chance to see him on his last tour when they came through Tucson on the (under-appreciated) “Gravitas” tour. His voice was amazing, and the last show I saw with John was with Geoff, Carl, and Sam, second row. I’ll miss you and your music John.

Here are the top 11 John Wetton musical moments. These aren’t the big songs, these are my personal favorite John Wetton songs.  I’ve also included links to YouTube videos.  Some Honorable Mentions: Let Me Go (from Icon), Never Again (from Phoenix), and Battlelines (from Battlelines solo album).

11. Anything from the (USA) Live Album, by King Crimson.

I like Wetton-era King Crimson, but I think the live version of that material is better than the studio versions. The studio versions always came off as dry to me. The live versions of all these songs has more energy and passion. If you can only get one album of Wetton from the King Crimson days, I’d get the live USA album. (You’ll notice Eddie Jobson on the credits on this album, and we’ll see more of him later on). John’s bass playing is just great. His singing is great too, but this album is NOT a pop album. He doesn’t sing too much, but his bass playing is very frontward facing.

10. “Hold Me Now” from Battlelines solo Album or Chasing the Dragon (live solo album)

This is a beautiful song. I think the live version might be better. It showcases Wetton’s strong, great voice. And he can pull it off live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oubSCEdSlNA

9. “Finger on the Trigger” either from Icon II (with Wetton/Downes) or Omega (re-recorded with Asia)

When I first got the Asia Omega album, I was like “Wait a minute! I know this song!” They re-recorded this from Wetton/Downes Icon II. And you can see why! It’s a great upbeat, rocking song. I miss some of the Downes keyboard fills from the Icon version, but the Asia versions rocks that much harder with the Howe solo (somedays, Steve Howe can really play!). Shockingly, it’s a Wetton/Downes composition.

8. Tie: “Valkyrie” and/or “Gravitas” from the Gravitas album.

I loved the Steve Howe era of Asia with Wetton, but I think the last album with Asia Howe (XXX) was just ok. I think Howe leaving pushed them, and the resulting “Gravitas” album was phenomenal. I don’t know which songs I like best! The first two are both great songs! “Valkyrie” is definitely more poppy, but so catchy! My wife was singing it in the car (and she’s not really an Asia fan)! But “Gravitas” is almost a prog-rock song with a catchy, catchy chorus. I love this album, and the two leading songs are some of Wetton/Downes best work.

7. “In The Dead Of Night” from UK (by UK)

Before the super-group Asia, was the super-group UK. Bill Bruford on Drums, Eddie Jobson on keys/violin, Alan Holdsworth on guitar and John Wetton on Bass and vocals. This song leads off with John’s bass in an odd time signature. A spanning song that leads into a trilogy of songs. Definitely a prog rock song. John’s bass and singing is amazing.

I feel like the Wetton/Jobson team really gained ground here. Eddie Jobson was John’s writing partner for thre UK albums, and they wrote some amazing material. I am very sad UK broke up, because they were probably my favorite Wetton band. But, we saw what happens when Wetton teams up with a great keyboardist. This was, in some ways, the second greatest writing team of all time. And opened the door from the Wetton/Downes team.

6. “Heart of Darkness” from Welcome To Heaven solo album

Just a great song. It comes from a dark and lonely place in the verse, coming to a chorus full of hope. And the final outro feels like you finally found happiness. Just a great song that takes you on a journey. Another almost proggy, pop song.

5. “Carrying No Cross” from UK album Danger Money

See Wetton holding the Bass there?  My senior picture was an attempt to recreate there.  I was a huge Asia/UK fan back in high school.

After Asia “imploded” (when Wetton was forced out of the band for Greg Lake), I went looking for other Wetton music!  I remember when I found Danger Money.  What a great album!

My favorite song on the album is the giant opus, Carrying No Cross.  It’s full of white space, John’s great bass and singing, and some really choice music.  This song is a very under-appreciated prog rock gem: I think it’s better than most Yes long prog songs (and yes, I am a huge Yes fan).

4. “Open Your Eyes” from Alpha (by Asia)

The greatest album of all time: Asia/Alpha. I know a bunch of people who would disagree with me, and point to Asia/Asia and Sole Survivor and the “hits”. But, I love every single song on this album! I love the singing, the guitar, the arrangements, the harmonies, the drums, the keyboards, the odd collection of time signatures. The singles from this album, musically, were much stronger than the singles from Asia/Asia. “Don’t Cry” has the AMAZING drum intro with Carl palmer, the hooky chorus, and subtle and underappreciated rhythm guitars of Steve Howe. Holy cow! (We’ll talk about the other single in a bit).

But, “Open Your Eyes” was just such a great song. It was an prog rock song on a pop album. They still play it live, even though it was never a single from the album! That’s how great this song was. It’s hard to pick a favorite song on this album, but this is my second favorite song from Alpha.

Oh yes, It’s a Wetton/Downes song.

3. “Extraordinary Life” from Phoenix (by Asia)

This was probably the strongest song from Asia’s Phoenix, but for some reason they had some trouble pulling it off live when I saw them on the Phoenix tour. I think it’s because it’s a song of “white space”, where the song needs to breathe and go from intro to verse to chorus very deliberately. In a rock concert setting, it’s too noisy to pull off the nuance of this song.

This song is about hope. Almost about convincing yourself: you can hear the strain of the verse about how it delivers the words in a minor key, as if trying to convince himself. Then, he believes it in the chorus as we switch to a major key with expansive harmonies. The verse is about living the roller coaster of life, and the chorus is about enjoying that ride.

For a while, this song would make me cry whenever I heard it, as it reminded me of a lost girlfriend. It’s just a great, emotional song.  Another Wetton/Downes tune.

2. Side 1 of the “Night After Night” Album (by UK)

This LIVE album is one of my desert island albums: If I were stuck on a desert island with only a few CDs, what would I choose? I would choose this one.

First off, this doesn’t sound like a live album! Holy cow! Three guys pull off some amazing music LIVE. This is, in some ways, the peak of Wetton for me. His voice was STRONG and his bass playing was STRONG: the perfect combination. This album is where we see the best of Wetton as a singer and bass player.

And these songs are just so catchy. I can’t hear these songs and not sing along. This album side just makes me happy.  Night After Night, Rendezvous 6:02, Nothing to Lose, and As Long As You Want Me Here.  What a great album side!

2. “To Catch a Thief” from Icon II (by Wetton/Downes)

Another Wetton/Downes masterpiece.

This is a rare duet with John and Anneke van Giersbergen. It’s just a beautiful song. The two voices dive back and forth and just blend so well. This song just exhausts me emotionally because it’s so powerful. It’s too bad this was never a single: I think it would have done really well.

1. “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes” from Alpha (by Asia).

This is a sad song, written by John for his buddy, Geoff Downes, who was going through some hard time. The song moves through 3 key changes, with soaring guitars, amazing drums, great keys, and John’s voice.

It’s a testament to friendship of John Wetton and Geoff Downes. I think this is what made them the greatest writing team of all time. They were friends. They augmented each other as players. They worked together. And Wetton/Downes made some amazing music.

This song has an interesting history: when John Payne joined Asia, he did say he would never sing this song, as it was John Wetton’s song. Only John Wetton could pull this off. I think this song is special to Geoff and John.

Another little interesting tidbit: As John Wetton was getting thrown out of Asia (for the Asia in Asia Japanese tour back in 1985), this song was climbing the charts.  If they had left John in Asia, I suspect this song would have done a LOT better.  Greg Lake couldn’t pull this song off live (his voice has a different range), and I think his performance in that worldwide live concert hurt the single.  It should have been a number 1.  Well, it is here. On my chart.

This song is also special to me in many other ways.

The video shows the sad story of a little girl dealing with her parent’s divorce, and the only place she finds refuge is in the song. My parent’s were going through a divorce at this time, and this song gave me some refuge as well. That meant something special to me too.

This song was also my first “solo” performance in college (I played solo guitar and sang it). I was never a great singer, but I came a much better musician later on in life. The Wetton-era Asia always inspired me.

Goodbye John

In the End, John Wetton was very influential on me. I will miss him sorely: I know a lot of musicians have been dying lately, but Wetton was the only one I cried over. His music really meant something to me.

Goodbye John, I’ll miss you. Rest in Peace.

What a fun little game!  I have now played 2 solo games (and there aren’t any solo rules, *cough cough*) and 1 4-Player game.

The components are great: the art of the cards is very thematic, very fun to look at.  The art is almost comic-booky (but in a good way).  So, maybe that’s why I liked it so much.  My friends I played with also loved the art.

Because I got the Kickstarter exclusive, I got some extra content.  The “Taunt!” token is now a really hefty, metal token (rather than a piece of cardboard).  Cool!  This token is for helping out your bethren: if you need to get a monster of your friend’s back, you can Taunt him!  In the game I played, the “Taunt” degenerated into the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Frenchman: “Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelt of Elderberries!”.  Very keeping with the theme.

Some of the extra Kickstarter content you get is for a game called “Red Dragon Inn”.  I was slightly annoyed at HOW MUCH was for Red Dragon Inn.  I have played “Red Dragon Inn” a few times and liked it, but I don’t have it.  I bought this game because I wanted to play THIS GAME.  So, the fact that so much extra content was for a game I didn’t have was actually annoying.  I would have MUCH rather had an extra character, or an extra Scenario for this game.  You know, the one I supported on Kickstarter.

I was also slightly annoyed that there are no solo player rules.  I feel like this is a holy quest for me now!   Games NEED to have a solo mode so I can learn to play them so THEN I can bring them out to my games nights!  I have found that games go  over SO MUCH better if someone knows the game and can teach it.  (I have one game group in Las Cruces where I feel like we can learn a game from scratch, but I feel like this is a rare thing.  Most groups get annoyed if you have to learn a game then and there).

Okay, enough rant.

This is a fun game!  It’s a deck-builder with some twists.  You play heroes, but you can only play 1 hero per turn.  And you can play one item on your hero (but only if it’s the right type: physical or magic).  Since this is a deck-builder, you know you can get cards that let you play one more hero.

The game moves pretty quickly: since it’s a co-op, people are engaged even when it isn’t their turn (one of my major complaints of Dominion).  I found that we were all discussing the best way to fight as a team, which is what I think the game wanted!

The scenarios are clever, and the way you “Protect the Town” is neat:  at every point, you are at a location in the town.  Each location has a number of hit points, and you have to stop the monsters before they destroy the location.  If you protect it successfully (by defeating all the monsters), you get a bonus.  If you not, you get a penalty.

Gameplay: 7 or 8.  We had so much fun.  I think we played it wrong in a few places, but in general, this is a fun game.

Components: 6 or 7 … they’d get an 8 if the extra content was for THIS game …

Rules:  5. Still annoyed at no solo rules, and the reason we played wrong was the rules are a little off.  Good enough, I was able to get going without a video.

Time:  2 hours?  It was a 4 player game, and it seemed a little long.  My 1-player games were maybe 40 minutes.

Overall.  Fun game.  Everyone I played with had fun.  I want to play again.

 

Thumbs up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huzzah! The Kickstarter for CO-OP: the co-op game funded. It was a success, but it didn’t make a major splash. To be honest, I am very happy that it was any kind of success. I have seen some good kickstarters fail. So, I set my funding goal fairly low and made two plans: barely funding and substantial funding. Barely Funded! Huzzah! Still a success! So, I am executing a plan for a small print run.

Along the way, I learned some weird/interesting/simple things about the Kickstarter process. For future Kickstarters, here’s a list of some interesting things I encountered along the way when running my Kickstarter.

Honorable Mention lesson:  Have two plans so you can be successful at a small or large level  of funding.  If you are a small publisher like us, it’s nice to have multiple levels of success.  This may not matter if you have a lot of experience or are a big company.

10) You get SPAM in your Kickstarter messages. What? SPAM? I got 10-20 messages from SPAMMERS who wanted to be my social media outreach, (for a nominal free of course). It was directed SPAM (no real estate deals or anything like that), but still SPAM. Hm. I wonder if someone should do a Kickstarter for a product that filters SPAM in the Kickstarter messages?

9) Vote Trading. Many people (5-10?) with active Kickstarters reached out to me: “Hey, if you support my Kickstarter, I’ll support yours”. A different variant of SPAM. In a dark hour, when my funding velocity was negative, I did it. Only once, for a project that looked okay. I felt dirty and never did it again. I am hoping by posting this, maybe I can get some absolution. Sorry.

8) People will Cancel. Oof, the worst feeling in the world is when someone supports your project, then backs out. And it’s their right: Kickstarter has made that one of the options. So, you have to steel yourself for that. It’s easy to say “Yes, I know that can happen”, it’s different when you see it. Recently, I saw a video by Tom Vasel who said this happened to him in the Dice Tower Kickstarters … up to $30,000 in the last bits of the project! (This is one reason Dice Tower is moving to Indie-Gogo: when someone gives you money, it is immediately withdrawn).

7) Reviews and advertising didn’t help that much. I spent $500 on advertising and maybe, maybe got 2 people from that. A lot of my supporters came from people I had personally met and playtested my game, Social Media, friends, and UNPUB testing (Rincon Tucson and San Diego). If I had made it to GenCon, I suspect I would have gotten a lot more support. I just wasn’t ready for GenCon.

I will say this: even though I didn’t get a lot of click-thrus, the reviews and ads gave me some legitimacy. The reviews showed a real game, and the ads showed someone cared/supported my game enough to spend money on it. So, I can’t quantify the “legitimacy”, but I suspect it helped me keep people who came to my site.
6) BoardGameGeek. I should have put my game on BoardGameGeek sooner. I was under the impression that I couldn’t register a game until it was “legitimate” (in Distribution). Not true. Although when I did finally register, we had just funded, so it was clear the game was legitimate at that point. I think I got some more traffic once I was on BGG.

Like the reviews and advertising, being on BGG gave me some more legitimacy.

5) Non-traditional buyers. As hard as it may be to believe in this day and age, not everyone likes Kickstarter and the act of putting Credit Cards on the Internet. I had one customer send me a check and one customer give me cash. So I did the paperwork of creating an accounts for both of them and “funnelling” their money through a credit card.

I am happy they cared enough to want the game, so I was happy to do the paperwork (Internet work?) for them. Make the customer happy.

4) Try to give lots of updates. When I first started, I didn’t want to give too many updates (I don’t want to annoy people with too many messages). The more I looked around at other projects and talked to people, I came to the conclusion that people seem to want those messages. They may not read them all, maybe they’ll just glance at them, but it gives a warm fuzzy. They may even get slightly annoyed, but it shows you care enough to try to reach your backers.

I heard about some projects where the people just disappeared with the money. I don’t want to be that guy. I want people to feel fully engaged, knowing what I am thinking.

So, I am probably more chatty in my updates than I should be, but I want people to feel like they are being kept in the loop.

3) Eye on Shipping. I made my game to fit in the USPS Fixed Rate Small box. On purpose: if I only got the minimal funding, I wanted to be able to ship by myself (if I had made the bigger levels of funding, I would have gone with Naked Shipping).

One really neat product I found was the Scottie Stuffer: it allows me to fit two of my games in the USPS Fixed Rate small padded envelope and still have great protection. For those of my backers who bought two games, that’s how we are able to get them two games for the cheaper price.

2) Feedback is important. It always good to have several friends you trust give you brutally honest advice at every level. I thought I was ready to Kickstart much sooner, but really got some honest feedback that really helped me. At every stage, my friends have helped by by proofreading, pointing out errors, and so on. Try to get as much feedback as you can at every stage: the Kickstarter, the Updates, the Comments, etc.

1) Friends matter. This was my first Kickstarter, and I got a lot of support from non-traditional gamers. Thank you.

When it comes to Kickstarters, I am a sucker for the cooperative game! I have supported as lot of kickstarters just because they were cooperative! And that’s where Daedalus Sentence came from for me …

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/the-daedalus-sentence-escape-from-space-prison-co

The Daedalus Sentence looks really cool. It has rotating, concentric rings and a LOT of moving pieces. Did it live up to how it looks?

I’ve played two games now with two very different groups of friends. We’ve lost one game and won one game. Group one is me, Josh and Jeremy (Jeremy hates cooperative games, but it looked cool enough for him to try), who are younger gamers. Group 2 is me, Junkerman, CC and Kurt, who are older gamers about my age.

Theme: 8
Gameplay: 7
Instructions: 5 (6 because they have game summary charts)
Cooperative Play: 8

Background: Some of us love cooperative games, and some of us (Jeremy) hate cooperative games.

Theme:
Wow! The whole reason we played this one because Josh and I really wanted to unbox this one and see how it worked. Jeremy came in late and was sucked in to playing (but he thought it looked cool). The whole idea that all there rings can really rotate, and fairly easily I might add, made it “fun” to do maintenance.

I would describe this as the prison from “Guardians of the Galaxy” meets Pandemic! It felt like we were in a prison, trying to discover the way out. We have to get from the inner rings to the outer rings to escape! It looked very science-fictiony, and felt the same way. We are trying to escape a space prison! That theme really came out.

Nit-pick:
If you JUST look at the rules summary, and the rules, it’s not clear how to get out of your cells! It looks like someone has to get you out of your cell, but how do we do that if we are all stuck AT THE START OF THE GAME? After searching the rulebook and the game summary, someone finally read the “flavor text”, which implied all the cells were all open (from a power burst). I’m all for flavor text, but when a rulebook is as big as the Daedalus Sentence, you tend to skip flavor text! Make it CLEAR we can just get out at the very beginning. This cost us about 10-15 minutes and kind of put us in a grumpy space to start.

Like: I like the Game Summary. It’s one of the better ones I’ve seen: it has all the actions you can do, it gives a very good summary of how those actions work, and we could “mostly” figure out the game from the rules summary (occasionally looking at the rulebook for clarifications). Like many games of this ilk, it has special locations with special powers: the Game Summary even summarizes what you can do at the different locations really well! That was great!

Dislike: My only quip with them Game Summary was that the “special locations” didn’t feel well distinguished. You really had to stare at it (“Oh! There’s a vent there”!) or consult the OTHER side of the Games Summary (“Wait, which one was a Research Lab again?”). Seriously, just put a picture of the location (even a small one) on the Game Summary next to the action. That way you can immediately draw your eye from the location to the summary.

In general, I really liked the Game Summary: without it, I think we would have been a lot more frustrated learning the game. I just wish the Special Locations were more distinguished.

Gameplay:
Josh and Jeremy jumped right in. We consulted each other, we tried to figure out the best thing to do, we tried to figure out when to open the way to the next ring. I think it’s a good game for cooperative gameplay: we are all just trying to get out of this prison (which of course we were wrongly put in!)

I am a huge fan of “Player Selected Turn Order”, and Daedalus Sentence uses it! We each get 4 actions per turn, and we are allowed to take those 4 actions in any order with the other players. So I can move (Rich action 1), Josh moves (Josh action 1) then researches (Josh action 2) then give me a card (Josh action 3), then I can (Rich action 2) use that card. Our actions support each other!

Most of the time, each player just used all 4 actions in order, but when it made a difference, we could go in any order. I know some people don’t like “Player Selected Turn Order” because they think it’s too hard to coordinate, but it was definitely NOT a problem in either game I played.

Jumping right in seemed to work. We learned parts of the game “On Demand”: how the circles worked, how to get to the next set of rings, how the locks worked, how to open the locks. The Games Summary really helped for this.

I like that the game has a simplicity to it, in that all actions are related to just one set of cards. The cards show either a colored ring, a minotaur (easy guard) or a Lactate (hard guard). (And they aren’t really called Lactates, but that’s what we called them in both gaming sessions). Rings show a color and a direction. When used in the maintenance phase, they show which ring rotates. A Minotaur or Lactate spawns a new guard in the maintenance phase.

The cards are also used for the actions. The players can replace maintenance cards (on Special Locations) so they force different rings to rotate.

The cards are also used for the combination to the gates. Each gate (to the next ring) needs to be opened by the players playing cards for the combination.

So, prison actions, player actions, and combinations all used the same deck! I thought that was pretty cool. We even did some strategy to keep Lactates and Minotaurs out of the main deck (in our hards) to make sure there was less of a chance they’d come out.
The Good News: I liked both games I played. I had fun, and I think my friends did too (Jeremy had fun, but in spite of the game). The game seems to foster cooperation. I think it’s a good game. The coolness factor of the rotating rings wears off, but I still feel like this is a good game. It has a vaguely Pandemic feel.

The Bad News: Ugh, the first game we lost felt very arbitrary. If you get caught by a guard once, you get sent back to your cell … at the middle of the board. And someone has to come rescue you. The first game felt like … stalemate. We were just about to escape (almost ALL Minotaurs were on on the board), and I got a stray minotaur in my space randomly. So, back to my prison I went. There’s no way my friends could go all the way back in and save me. Too many minotaurs. We knew we couldn’t win anymore, so we just quit.

That’s not good. Part of the reason we quit because the maintenance was unbearable: all the Minotaurs were out, 4 rings were spinning per turn, and it just wasn’t fun. We knew (as experienced gamers) we couldn’t save me and win, but we would have to “plod” and play it out. Nope. We just quit.

The second game (with a different group) was much more fun: I think that’s partly because we kept the Minotaurs and Lactates under control—there weren’t may of them. So, the maintenance didn’t weigh us down too much. Although it still got slightly annoying to go through 4 possible rotations every turn at the end.

Summary:

I like this game. I will play it again. I think CC and Junkerman would too. I think Kurt and Josh are on the fence, but Jeremy definitely won’t play it again.

It’s fun. I like the theme, I like the cooperative gameplay, but the maintenance on the rings and guards might turn you off (especially at end game).

We’re puttering along!

We’re over 50% We’re happy to have enough backers to put us over 50%  And we are still trending towards funding!  Things are looking good!

Kicktraq Link:

We are now live on Kickstarter! Watch out for those MondoMart types!

CO-OP: the co-op game link to Kickstarter!

One brave sole pointed out that a link to a previous rulebook is out of date.  The newest rulebook: version 9.0 (after many many rounds of editing!) is available here!

 

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