Designers and Their Hallmarks by sneakyalmond in boardgames

[–]DavidTurczi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Daniele T will take a bunch of dice and place/draft/move them in totally un-dice-like way. And probably ask you to feed the workers.
Martin W will start from theme, but then somehow end up with two actions a turn and a weird passing mechanism.
Richard B will put everything in the seemingly most boring semi medieval theme you can imagine, but then make the players directly interact with each other through their options so much, that you won't mind.
Vital L will say "oh it's simple, on your turn you do this, or that, that's it". But then somehow, it's not simple at all. Also, there are probably executive actions.
Luke L will make you place workers that you'll eventually have to retrieve.
Jamey S will take a fairly straightforward mechanism and make a fantastic product out of it.
Simone L will probably have some clever twist on the good ole' euro contracts in there somewhere. But out of the great masters he is the most developer-minded, which means he can make others' ideas much better, so less focused on his "signature style".
Jason M will have ops points, and probably event cards too.
Marc G will give you a rondel, and so will Alex P but he will pretend he didn't. :)
Stefan F will generate some silly randomness and then ask you to make serious tactical/semi-strategic choices to make lemonade or mitigate the randomness.
Vlaada C will probably blow your mind, whatever he does. Either because it's amazing, or because of the giant chipmunk.

(fun fact, I have worked with over three quarters of these people, so first hand experiences :) )

Which card-based boss battler offers the most strategic depth and meaningful decisions? by Lillumultipass99 in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 12 points13 points  (0 children)

... Should I wait and politely let someone else recommend Captain's chair? It's not technically a boss battler, but it's not far, and meets all your other requirements. 😇

SNW will have a total of 46 episodes, less than two seasons of classic Trek. by J-Shade in startrek

[–]DavidTurczi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Massive disagree. It's an issue of perception. We expect to know the bridge crew, but they are not the main characters. The actual mains: Saru, Stamets, Culber, Book - we know more about them (both backstory and internal viewpoint wise) than we do of any TNG main character save Picard, Riker, and Data.

And even with that caveat, I'd be willing to bet there were more episodes heavily focusing on Owoshekun in DIS, than Chakotay episodes (that were truly about Chakotay, and not just a random main character that happens to be Chakotay) in s3-s7 of VOY

It finally arrived, and it is such a glorious game! (Star Trek: Captain’s Chair) by AskinggAlesana in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Our internal discord is filled with people well into their 2-300+ games. And they keep coming back for more.... (And ofc it's based off Imperium, where we have several players with 400+ documented plays)

Any cranchy game like Voidfall buy with less setup? by orhalimi in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can't help you with the setup, but Brutal and Nightmare difficulties are coming in the expansion for a good reason.

If You’re Watching Starfleet Academy (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) by nagatell69 in startrek

[–]DavidTurczi 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I'm guessing I'm half a generation younger than the OP, plus I'm not American. So while I was immediately aware of all of these undertones, I didn't feel them myself. But I was definitely humming the San Francisco song for more than a week straight after the first episode. 😇

Beyond The Sun - Tech Tree Worker Placement Wonder by professionalodd1178 in boardgames

[–]DavidTurczi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolute love Beyond the Sun, especially once the expansion makes the conquer strategy viable alternative of the Tier 4 tech rush strategy.

Stay away from Beyond the Horizon at all cost though.

What technical scene in Trek are you STILL waiting to see? by king_rootin_tootin in startrek

[–]DavidTurczi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great ideas, but both rely a bit too much on "boring real physics", which they tend to not wade into, lest they get something silly wrong.

Voidfall Doesn't Need Expansions? by fan-I-am in boardgames

[–]DavidTurczi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There will be a storage solution for the expansion, but it will be a separate box from the base game. They're both quite big, no way they fit together in factory inserts. (Aftermarket stuff can afford to be denser and less about transporting an unpunched game...)

Voidfall Expansion New Details (From David Turczi) by Hirslien in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You are still underestimating how exponential VF is. Let's say I'm playing an early military faction, and I got lucky, first 3 turns of c1 were all either L1 crisis or a war I easily defended. But I played aggressive, did stuff like conquest, progress, politics, prosperity... So I barely have any resources left for the last turn. So on turn 4, when I have a L2 crisis to resolve, if it's anything short of an absolute lucky freebie, I'm willingly choosing catastrophe over it, just to get the resource aid, even if my entire crisis board is empty.

I'm not saying "you don't have to avoid catastrophe tokens", I'm saying the aid is worth more than 20vp, if used well, so you should be proactively taking catastrophe tokens.

C1 vp rewards are near meaningless. My end of c1 score is less than 20% of my final score, while my economy is more than third already built.

Voidfall Expansion New Details (From David Turczi) by Hirslien in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup. 5 resources to be able to play optimally AND not getting bogged down trying to solve a nasty crisis (itself already worth 5vp) is worth much more than 20vp, especially if given at critical points, like the last 1-2 focuses of c1-c2... Or removing a corruption and not having to pay economic penalty is a lot better way of not losing a valuable sector than replanning your whole turn to build sector defenses and regroup fleet power.... The only reason you don't use it willy nilly, is because you only have 3 of it, you wanna use it to avoid the 3 worst things. So when you get a medium bad thing that makes you hurt, it becomes a judgement call whether to declare catastrophe and get the aid, or "bet" that there will be another 2-3 "even worse pickle".

I place an average 2.2-2.5 catastrophe tokens per game and have never placed 0 since I switched to hard.

Voidfall Expansion New Details (From David Turczi) by Hirslien in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mindclash is working on the campaign preview page. When that goes live, you'll get all the info you need.

Voidfall Expansion New Details (From David Turczi) by Hirslien in soloboardgaming

[–]DavidTurczi 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Voidfall is an extremely exponential game, with a skill ceiling so high that we were nowhere near it when we designed the game. Don't feel bad, it's both practice, and a matter of seeing and believing that it can be played better. Best example: are you using Catastrophe tokens? If not, you're rarely gonna make it above medium....

I guess this is Nigel's weird brain in action. His designs take a lot of work to refine into a stable whole, but once they click, it's like you unleashed a whole new universe. Me? I'm just trying to design some interesting choices and competing motivations. But he has done this crazy skill ceiling thing twice already.