I can’t even calculate the all-in cost of this. $300? More? Looks like something Ralph Mazza should get in on.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166119889/medioevo-universalis
I can’t even calculate the all-in cost of this. $300? More? Looks like something Ralph Mazza should get in on.
Holy bejeebers…
Sorely tempted, but I suspect it may scratch the same itch as Fief.
I cringe a bit at people throwing their money at a out of nowhere first time designer designing a huge game like that . How can that possibly work out well?
I have a bit more sympathy for people backing unknown ameritrashy games: it’s easier to get “you’re going to roll some dice and some zombies are going to die” right enough than some grand asymmetric strategy game.
I kinda agree with James Stuart , it’s… ambitious to design such a huge game without a few smaller projects under your belt first. It could be great, but if it fails it’ll crater hard.
Either way it’ll make a big splash, said the bird to the plummeting elephant.
This part seems like asking for trouble: “This project is presented simultaneously on three crowdfunding platforms: Giochistarter, Kickstarter and Spieleschmiede.”
Lester, that actually become a fairly common practice. Lots of games have been successfully funded and delivered after joint funding on those sites.
This is a giant slow-mo trainwreck. It’s basically the boardgame version of a fantasy heartbreaker: it’s the one and only project a guy with no prior game design knowledge has been working on for 17 years.
The giant table of the handmade demo version has been at Play Modena (a convention) for years. A couple of friends were even roped in for a demo… it’s like 7 games, all of Civilization complexity, stacked on top of each other, starting as a deep hack of Risk.
Maybe that’s your jam… definitely not mine. Tread carefully.
(and if that’s your jam, I’m unclear about why you wouldn’t just play Europa Universalis on PC)
Francesco Berni Ezio Melega Lavinia Fantini Luca Veluttini
Renato Ramonda shows up with the local knowledge! Thanks man, it kind of had trainwreck written all over it but the campaign is quite professionally executed. Good to know what you’re in for.
I only know it from seeing the giant table CHOCK FULL of components and staying well away from it. The people I tagged might offer more details 🙂
When I say “gian table” I mean it: the board is like 4 times the size of a normal boardgame.
Are the rules available? There is no way in Hades I would commit to a Kickstarter at that price without first reading the rules. At HALF that price even.
I think it says “soon” for English.
I’ll be blunt, direct and honest. And more than a little asshole-y, but… sometimes a critique needs to be blunt and direct. Sometimes games just suck.
This game doesn’t suck.
This game is horrible and a kickstarter so successful for it is depressing.
If you look closely to the site you can find my perplexed face testing it some years ago.
I never changed expression.
And I’m currenty in the process of finding legal ground to ask them to remove my partner and mine image from their site. Because they never bothered asking, of course.
As Renato said it is the board version of a fantasy heartbreaker. The authors started tinkering with Risk! in the early nineties, adding complexity to complexity in a trial-and error way. And then convinced themselves that, since they had a lot of fun with a game tailored in twenty years over their habits, it was a great game.
They ended up with a game pefect for their own group and only that. It’s baroque, complex, full of rules over rules over rules, and felt old ten years ago.
It’s the kind of monster game where you sit quiet for whole phases, then you start acting all at the same time, but don’t worry, because what a player at the other side of the map will do will never influence you.
And, anyway, the component will create such a chaos that you will not understand it.
It’s baffling.
The authors had this lobster-like tenacity (and I’m actually admired in saying that, it’s the only positive thing I will write) and persevered in touring it to cons, adding, year after year, pieces, minis, minigames and baroque tables.
Five years ago you had an auction stage for the turn order.
It used metal daggers as tokens, but only the first three place (out of 8) mattered something.
It’s that kind of game.
Recently they added a 3D, resin cast map in their con copy.
So you can move miniatures on a 3D map with a baffling ruleset.
The price is so high because there are TONS of materials, but it’s irrilevant.
It’s a game that I will buy for 10 dollars or less, just because my rats need a box to nest in.
The idea that people are throwing money at it without even reading the rules, making it the most succesful Italian crowfounding campaing is depressing.
Do not buy, do not look, turn away.
Please.
Lobster-like tenacity is awesome and I’m going to use it someday.
It’s even older that the MU concept: I stole it from Sir Arthur C. Doyle.
Thanks for the heads up Ezio Melega . And you’re right, sometimes being blunt is the only way to express such thoughts without sugar-coating them.
Let’s add a little detail.
In their site they used a photo taken seven years ago.
I know that, I’m in it.
I now ask you to think: why they didn’t have more recent pictures of interested, concentrated players?
In the Italian con circles they were kind of a running joke, until they found someone willing to support them after heavy editing and cutting off the materials.
We’ve got a few wannabe designers locally who trot out their decades-old obsessions to every local con. “We’ve been working on this for 15 years and can’t get any publisher interested” is both heartbreaking and maybe a clear signal.
This is so good
Why am I tagged in this? Who are you guys?
Your Google Plus settings need to be changed. If you are following this collection, the setting will be in there.
You don’t look like you’re tagged by someone, Jason. Maybe you saw this post because someone in your circles plussed it?
Gimme gimme gimme lol
…maybe set your public posts to “comments by my circles only” Paul Beakley?
Renato Ramonda I’ve been trying to avoid that, but Jesus.
I generally avoid commenting on public posts altogether, unless I know that option is in place (this was an exception ^___^ )