It was in the discount section on a shelf in the store marked down 40% making it $30. B&N has other bonuses that apply if you are a member. My final cost was around 25 dollars before tax as a member.
Bought on a whim and am surprised how enjoyable the game is. It is extremely likable especially if you like assigning dice to cards.
It seems like every time Finspan is mentioned, people say the AI is streamlined. Well, it is, but in the same way that Candy Land is streamlined.
The AI randomly takes about 2.5 cards per round (4x rounds per game). It randomly creates eggs, fish, and schools. Not on a board, just counts. And then you count up how many of each thing it did and give it a score, which basically will be in the range of an average game. You then compare your score to the AI and determine how you did.
Or, you could just score what you did and compare it to a chart instead of running an AI that produces an average score, give or take 15 points or so. There is almost no interaction other than the 2.5 cards pulled each round; if the AI pulls a group bonus, you get it too. All you would need to do to simulate this is, each round, pull 2.5 cards and see if there are any bonuses.
There is no competition for placement or resources in this game. It is almost fully solo. Why am i running an AI?
Keep in mind that I like the game itself. As a puzzle, it can be pretty thought-provoking to maximize one's score, and the fish cards are pretty cool. There is just a big enough decision space and lots, I mean lots of resources. You always have a move, and not having to think too much about optimizing it means you can relax. Also, there is so much luck in the cards that are random, even if you do optimize well, there will be a possible huge fluctuation in score just based on your draw. If I want to stretch my mind, I'll play in Anark and think 3 moves ahead and screw up anyway. But why all the effort with that AI? It is so superfluous. On my third solo game, it hit me, you don't need the AI to play this game; it is a solo game with a light group bonus that is very low impact on a game that is very heavy on luck.
Why is that AI even there? Because right now, I feel less like a guy relaxing with a board game and more like a project manager auditing some serious AI gold plating. It is a mountain of procedural overhead just to simulate a basic static chart. How is this happening to such a high-profile, high-volume product?
I'm in the DC area looking to get a standard poodle puppy as a companion pet. There are very few breeders near me. Then I switched to goldendoodle, and labradoodle, and wham, lots of puppies. Mostly using gooddog.com to search.
I have a seven year old toy poodle, and he is great. But, he does not have the physicality to keep up with my family of runners or even walk more than 2 miles these days. We usually end up carrying him a bit. I would like to get a bigger version that will be more of an active dog to go with our lap dog. I can get doodles all day long, for the same money and way less searching than a poodle. Here is my question, how much differnt will a goldendoodle be than a purebred poodle? I love how attentive, quiet, and intelligent our dog is.
Sort of a marketing question. I wanted to buy Distilled for a year, but it was always $90 since I love to play it on BGA. Since I'm new to the board game thing, it was a bit rich. I think the most I had spent was $50. Then I bought Vantage the other week for retail and was like, "Okay, games can be worth that much." So it was easy to buy it after that. Now Distilled is around $70 pretty much everywhere. Why? It is really produced like a $90 game. I bought Unconscious Mind for a huge discount as well, and it's pretty much the same thing—feels like a $90 production at least and the thing is huge when you spread it out. What triggers these big price breaks, and how can I get notified?
Not that I saved that much money, since I like the game a lot and have the two retail expansions for it on the way. They were not very expensive at all and the game classes up the basement since I don't ahve a bar down there.
I have both Final Girl and Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and in both, the random elements are meant to thwart you on average. Thematically, this makes sense in anything that is mechanically creating a sense of hopelessness and fear. It works for me, especially if I go in with the mindset that winning is a goal. However, I remember studying in college how slot machines are "rigged" to give you an initial win because it greatly increases the chances of someone playing again and impacts the psychological cost of losing.
When I first played Final Girl, I made the mistake of thinking Hans could move every turn. He destroyed me for about three games and I nearly lost interest. Then I found this thread and discovered I had made a mistake that is actually very common. When I played again (correctly), I got down to the final heart and lost—and I even forgot to roll an extra die! But I kept playing until I won. I figured out that managing horror is the most important thing and that rolling just two dice has a pretty negative expectation, meaning you will fail most roles.
My question is: for first-time players, should there be an "Easy Mode" that helps them get down to the wire?
The point would be to remove a lot of the rules that people skip and make the game more winnable with Hans. I would suggest:
I think these few things would go a long way in helping the game’s accessibility. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion does this well. It’s even more necessary here because this is a solo game, meaning most people are learning on their own without a group to catch mistakes.
I found the manual to be very clear, but there are a number of edge cases that would benefit from being reinforced. When you get down to that last heart, you are usually pretty stressed, and it is so easy to forget the final health mechanics. If there was a special "first-time" piece you put down that says exactly what to do, it would be a big help.
Let’s give more people a closer game the first time through using training cards and hand-holding. Since they are likely figuring things out alone, extra support for those non-intuitive rules would be a huge win for the community. If you have thoughts or something like this exists I would love to hear them.
I happened to stumble on this and was blown away! So many games on here that are still relevant, and many in the top 100 BBG list. What was happening in 2016, and how can we bring it back? So many beginnings of things that got expanded so many times.... I remember that Scythe was one of the first big kick-starters. So many of these games are still relevant and being reprinted.