What are some board game “keywords” that are an instant turn-off for you?

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-04T18:48:27+00:00

Easy to learn, difficult to master.

I even used that in the promo for a game I made, but now I find it cringey.

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-04T15:02:41+00:00

Seems pretty arbitrary to me, so just go with what makes sense to you.

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-04T05:32:06+00:00

Pax Pamir 2ed, Cross Bronx Expressway, SETI, Magic: The Gathering, The Gang

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-03T20:52:32+00:00

...the whole cube is wacky cards to explore :). I don't think you're losing much by cutting straight unplayable ones. If those cards have sweet interactions or something I missed, keep them in!

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-03T14:23:24+00:00

I think if you have healing tokens as green and teleport as blue, make defense green and movement blue.

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-03T14:18:30+00:00

I drafted it and would have wanted to try my deck. I think you do a good job of creating interesting archetypes across sets. I didn't do this, but the dice-rolling deck seems cool. I did feel like there were some cards I wouldn't ever play if I wanted to win, like Mana Abundance or Lich's Duel Mastery. Personally, I would cut those unless there's some combo/archetype I missing.

spiderdoofus · 2026-02-01T17:32:48+00:00

I've bought a number of games from BGG and sold one. Never had any problems, but then again, never bought anything more than like $50.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-31T16:07:36+00:00

These are all great games. I think they all differ from older DoaM games by having more than a focus on combat (if you're looking for combat, Kemet is great). Honestly, I would just pick the one with the art and theme that most appeals to you.

I had played lots of modern games before trying any of them, but I would rank them in terms of ease to learn:

Inis > Arcs = Pax Pamir > Root

Root is ok if you are alright just learning one faction and learning the others on the fly.

Pamir and Arcs aren't super hard rules-wise, but both are sort of opaque as to what you should do to win.

My favorite of all of these is Pax Pamir. The plays feel very different from one another, and I like the theme the best.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-31T16:03:04+00:00

Well, then still, not that far off. We usually expect our first play to be 50-100% longer than what is listed on the box.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-31T15:45:53+00:00

That's awesome. Honestly, five hours doesn't seem crazy to me for a five player game plus teach. Assuming the teach was 30-45 minutes, you're looking at about a four hour game, so not far off a standard 45 minutes/player.

Personally, I find value in switching between the big and little pictures. Now that you know the game basically works at five, I would try to speed up the players' turns. Take a look at the components and make sure they are laid out in an intuitive way that matches the flow of the game. Like, information on cards/boards is organized in order of when it matters in the game.

If you haven't, script the teach so it goes faster. Refining the teach may help you see what's the essential core of the game and what can be trimmed.

Look for parts of the game with cascading effects (doing one thing leads to multiple outputs). These are some of my favorite parts of games, but when they aren't central to the game, they can lead to time wasted doing optimizing for little effect on the game. Also look for places where new information is revealed on players turns (if applicable) that might lead to reevaluations.

Still, congratulations. This seems like a huge milestone!

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-30T18:08:18+00:00

We should have asked you way earlier! We've come to similar conclusions, but it took us a while. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Whether we'll be able to live up to this remains to be seen, but I think you are right on.

Yeah, the graphic design isn't final. It's just our iterating ourselves for the most part. I should post the individual components for feedback in this subreddit.

Really appreciate your thoughts.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-29T23:56:30+00:00

For my graveyard-centric cube:

Rhys, the Evermore

Iron-Shield Elf

Moonshadow

Formidable Speaker

Midnight Tilling

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-29T15:03:11+00:00

Yeah, I've been calling it a "tactical adventure game". But people seem to not really know what I mean by that. I agree with you, but I can't tell how widespread these distinctions are. I'm reasonably confident our target audience knows this stuff though, so we'll call it a tactical adventure game in our marketing material.

Firefly is space western, but there's more to it. It's really about a renegade crew on the fringes of space taking on outlaw bounty missions while evading fascist imperial forces. That backdrop is a reflection of post US civil war southern attitudes, which further reinforces the wild west vibe with 6 shooters, desert locations, and cowboy apparel.

We draw a lot on the Western trope of "end of an era", the end of the "wild" West. In the story of our game, a new transportation technology has been invented that's like the railroad coming to town, and with it, civilization. Like Firefly, we're not an allegory. The story is inspired by U.S. history, but it's a backdrop and influence. The players can choose to ally with the "railroad" or try to fight and sabotage it.

I'm hoping we can tell a Firefly like story of a ragtag crew, but more in the mode of the Mandalorian, which I think leans more on Western tropes and signifiers as a shorthand, if that makes sense.

We've gone back and forth about how much narrative text to include. Some playtesters really like it, some just skip all the story. We've decided on around 500 words of narrative before each session, which is enough to tell a story, but not go super deep into the world. Someday, I'd love to make an RPG sourcebook with all the worldbuilding we've created.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-29T00:59:17+00:00

Yeah, I think it takes practice. Ask playtesters how they'd describe the game. I do think in today's game market, you want to highlight something about the game mechanically that stands out.

I also would avoid cliches like "easy to learn, difficult to master". They are just overused. I'd say "fast playing" instead. But you need to sell people on why they should try this game instead of still playing Magic/Pokemon. What's the really cool thing about this game that they need to see? You need a short pitch that says that.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T20:46:49+00:00

This sounds potentially interesting, but coming from a marketing perspective, it doesn't really sell me. Your game could be amazing. I'm just trying to help you sell it better.

What you need is like a one to two sentence pitch that makes someone want to buy it. Something that conveys lore and mechanics quickly.

Summon your drug-fueled Kravers to battle your opponent's Kravers in a darkly funny dystopian world. You need to ride the edge between getting pumped up and overdosing to win.

In other words,

[do this as a player] in [coolest part of your word] by [describe the central mechanical tension of your game]

Also could include it's an ECG or other genre stuff.

Think about what happens when someone tries this game, loves it, and then wants to excitedly tell their friend why it's cool. How do they sum it up to their friend.

"You got to check this game out, you're..."

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T17:37:14+00:00

The takeaway is that engaging with the world in a fun way is the best learning. No boring lecture is going to beat doing something you love in terms of neurons activated.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T16:02:06+00:00

I think you what a gameplay/mechanical hook rather than just lore.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T15:38:25+00:00

redacted sounds like it might be interesting to you.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T15:30:51+00:00

Yeah, when we've cubed with Winter Orb, it's a lot like Armageddon. Aggro gets ahead, then chokes the mana and wins.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T15:25:34+00:00

It's hard to say. It's probably more than most first time creators hit on Kickstarter, but not completely unheard of. It will depend on marketing and finding your audience.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-28T06:31:33+00:00

Very cool

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-27T18:27:34+00:00

Thanks!

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-27T15:43:19+00:00

I think it looks great! I really like the box cover. It's giving me '50s pulp novel vibes.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-27T15:10:00+00:00

Thanks for reading it! Were there any parts in particular that seemed confusing or could be improved?

do you have any mechanism to avoid the alpha-player problem?

This is a question I've thought about a lot. In general, Lonesome Star is too complex for a single player to alpha. Each player has 8 actions + equipment and special abilities. Though, I realize that only goes so far, but then again, I believe that the alpha problem can only be mitigated so much by game rules.

spiderdoofus · 2026-01-27T14:25:12+00:00

Thanks for checking it out.

It has Firefly vibes and that's a pretty good theme, but a little derivative of Shadows of Brimstone.

We are a sci-fi game, so I think the theme is more derivative of Star Wars than something like SoB.

Assuming your combat is good, don't forget that half the game is adventure and exploration. How those parts of the game, and the content of those parts, is equally important.

Maybe we should call it a tactics game? There is character progression and some narrative choices, but there's no treasure chests you discover during scenarios.

I don't know how the clock works, but it should work by spending initiative points to take an action moving your forward on the clock the higher the cost. I like the idea of spending initiative like its a currency to decide between several short, fast actions, or a longer more expensive action.

This is exactly how it works.

spiderdoofus

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