Anyone else here backing Golem Arcana on Kickstarter? If not, why not?

The just posted update #5 and it added more figures, a new "faction" (Elite Golems), a new backer reward, and stretch goals.


The first stretch goal up? Remote play. You'll be able to play the tabletop minis game with friends over the internet. How cool is that??!!?

Nobody else? Wow.

If you're a fan of fantasy-type minis games, you really should check it out. Giant golems created by powerful mages and riden into combat by skillful knights!

Looks like an amazing project done by Jordan Weisman (the guy who created Mage Knight and HeroClix). If you ever played MK you know that along with the game, Jordan is big on creating a whole "world" for his characters to live in. And it all comes pre-painted (like clix, although you can get unpainted versions if that's your thing) so you don't have to spend hours before you play.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...7/golem-arcana

We've already discussed this in the board game thread. Not to say that it may or may not deserve its own thread. But I have to ask, do you have stock in this game or something? You've been pushing it pretty hard. Is Jordan you're cousin or something? Or are you just uber excited about this, which I can understand?

A) I didn't want to clutter up that thread with an unreleased game (didn't seem to be the intent of the thread) and B) I figured more people would see it if it was its own thread, thereby generating more discussion.

The bolded one. I would really like to see this funded. As both a gamer and "tech junkie", I think the concept behind it is amazing. The mash up of a real world minis game that utilizes a computer (smartphone, tablet, etc) to handle everything from rules updates to rules enforcement to tracking modifiers is brilliant!

The digital components are slick, the augmented reality just looks cool, and the ability to set up the tabletop game and play an opponent over the 'net is dream come true for a lot of players. And lets not forget the models look dang cool to boot.

Looks really cool, but I don't have the money for it. Good luck.

I still don't see the point of this game.
If the ruleset of your tabletop game is so complicated that you need a computer to keep track of everything - simplify the ruleset. There are hundreds of tabletop games out there with different degrees of complexity that do just fine without having to rely on computers.
And why set up a tabletop game to play against somebody over the computer? Why not just play a computer game then without the added hassle?
And then there are the miniatures, which can't hold a candle to the half dozen tabletop games I play.

Look at how difficult it is for new players to get into HC right now. Its become a very complex game. Now, what if you didn't have to explain in detail combat modifiers, replacement values, action types, power interactions, etc. What if you could say that those things exist but beyond that, something else handles all of those "little things", while leaving the new player to focus on his team building, strategy, and simply playing the game. Don't you think that would be worth something to the new guy? And, to a lesser extent, you for not having to explain it all? Well, that's what the software portion is for.

But its also a lot more. It allows for instant rules updates. It's the ultimate rules judge. You can get downloadable scenarios. Tracking leader boards. Event reporting. Expanded content. Tourney tracking. And I'm sure a ton more things in not thinking of.

So while removing a bunch of the 'mundane' its also providing lots of content.

And couldn't they be enhanced with an app built around them?

Its not the default mode of play, its a nice option (which is why its a stretch goal).
First, these are prepainted, which appeals to me. I won't play a game that I need to paint first. Second, these models are better looking than anything WK is producing right now...but yet you play clix. Finally, if it doesn't appeal to you, then its not a game for you. But I thought others might be interested in checking it out.

I haven't played HC in years, so I really don't have any idea how difficult it is for new players to start nowadays.
I do remember, however, how easy it used to be to get into the game when it started out and I stopped playing when it was needlessly complicated with cards and special powers that robbed the game of its simple elegance.
Could computer support help with that? No doubt, but it's still the solution for a problem I think shouldn't exist in the first place.

Possibly, and I have seen such an app for one of those games. But essentially the app fulfills the same function as a laminated card with the character information and an overhead marker. And in that case I don't really see the upside of adding electronic gadgets.

Not all of us are Luddite's. Some of us actually like our electronic gadgets!

I can see the usefulness of having an app to keep track of things in a game. Heck, one of the main reason some of my friends wouldn't of the original Axis and Allies was because there was too much to keep track of. If there were an app back then (or even a tablet on which said app would run) I'm sure I would have conquered/saved the world hundreds of times over by now.

I disagree that an app is a good teaching tool though. One of my biggest peeves, in gaming, is when a person refuses to read the rules for a game at least once. Instead they always say "just explain it to me". Regardless of how well I know the rules, I know that such behavior only encourages them to ask me the same questions over and over. Using HC as an example, said player would constantly be asking me, "well I can use X with Charge, why can't I use it with HSS?" and my inevitable answer would be "because X requires Y type of action." Its one thing to know how something works; its another to know why something works. And if you don't understand why things work the way they work, then everything else, team building, strategy, all of that starts to fail as well. So in the end the app as a rules teaching media will fail. If its there solely to enhance the game, then it will work beautifully, I think.

And on that note, there are already many games that have apps for player 'mats' or other experience enhancements. I think there's one for Arkham Horror, which is such a great game, but there is just too many pieces and, when its in the whee hours of the morning, some of the lesser rules will be forgotten. ZPocalypse has an app for a player board that replaces the physical board you would normally have in front of you. So app companion media isn't a new thing. GA takes it to another level.

I think the online play aspect is a great idea. HCO is a great idea...in theory. The problem with HCO is that the rules aren't always implemented properly, I can't use all the figures that I have in my physical collection, and I have to spend money to get virtual figures which I may or may not already own already. Now, I would think the rules problem would be a non-issue with GA. And I would think that playing with my physical collection is going to be a non-issue as well. Where GA can, maybe, really shine is if it offered players the chance to 'buy' virtual copies of physical pieces that they don't already own. If they were offered at an extreme discount (say, 25% or less), then it would a great way to allow players to try out a piece/army/faction that they aren't sure about. Going a step further, GA can set up its own store, or set up a partnership with an online retailer where the money spent on the virtual figure could be applied towards the cost of a physical copy (paying the difference only) if the player decided they wanted to get one. It would also solve the "I don't know anyone else that plays" problem that these games inherently have. And it would allow me to play a game with my friend, who is 15-30 minutes away, at 2am in the morning without requiring one of us to travel and lug part of our collection around.

So yeah, the potential for this game is pretty high. Its still something that I will more than likely not be investing in unless I can find it dirt cheap a year or two down the road.

Never meant to imply that it was... just that it helps people jump into the game easier. It also makes it impossible to forget things.


Yep.

Jordan has said that GA will always be a tabletop game. The software piece is just another bit of the game, but you'll still need the physical components to play. An "online" game of GA just means that you and your opponent can track each others moves and such... but it's not sitting down at the computer and running a virtualized version (HCO) of the game.

seems pretty cool

I can't seem to visualize how the a 2 player game can work out without having at least half the game be virtual for each player. Lets say I have figures from only a single faction. I decide to play a game against you and you want to use figures from one of the factions I don't own. How can I set up the board when I don't physically have the pieces? It also seems like a pain to have to actually set up a board to play a game online. It also seems rather tedious to always have to tap the physical game pieces just to move them. Actually that last point would apply to any game, online or face to face.

I'm not sure at this point. Its a stretch goal, so we'll see what happens.

Is it any more tedious than breaking out a string to check LOF? Or counting squares for range? Or stopping to calculate all the modifiers? I guess I'm looking at as an overall time savings throughout the game.

True enough. I guess at this point none of us can really say anything for sure about this game. Well, we can comment on the concept art which looks pretty cool. But without seeing what the actual interface looks like, its impossible to say how great/fail this game will be. If I tap on a figure, and a screen popped up with a small section of the map to show all the areas I could move into, and there was a list of targets, and both movement and targets' names were somehow differentiated, say with color coding, to denote things like terrain effect or other modifiers (like anything that is effected by hindering is shown in green), I can see how something like that would be awesome.