Descent definitely totally not 3.0

Shellhead wrote: I suppose that someone could make Twister into an app-based game, but then players would lose the tactile sensation of humping their friends.

Skimmed back through this thread since it popped back up, this caught my eye because I definitely see ads for Twister Air these days

It looked like the kind of game my kids would be super into and one I'd be down to play with them but the big price made it a non-starter for me. It's $330 here which is ridiculous money.

If it had hit Ashardalon level pricing then I probably would have jumped on it as my 5-year-old loves that game.

EDIT: For context, the RRP for FFG's Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth is $160.

Forbes just shouted out about the new Descent expansion: www.forbes.com/sites/robwieland/2023/09/...t-arrives-today/amp/

We have a glut of offerings in every genre nowadays, so it's interesting to see their focus when a big publication does an off-topic bit about boardgames.

HA! That's hilarious. I went and looked on FFG's website on Friday to see if there had been any Descent expansions and saw the link for The Betrayer's War, not realizing that it had been released that day. It was complete coincidence that I posted in this thread on the day that more content for the game was finally released.

“ “The Betrayer’s War is the culmination of years of passion and dedication from the entire team, and we can't wait for players to experience the next installment in the beloved franchise,” said Philip D. Henry, Senior Game Designer at Fantasy Flight Games. “Each step players take and every decision they make will leave a lasting mark on the world. Act II offers a journey filled with heroism and we’re excited for players to take on the challenge!”

This feels like it was written by AI

Damn, jackwraith doing PR for free now?

I saw a few copies of the core (? is there anything else for it?) on the shelf of a local game store. Didn't check the price but normally something this big and shelf toady would be on steep discount 2 years later. The same place had like 50 copies of the latest Warhammer big box thing though, so I imagine Descent was only a rounding error on their expense sheets.

So did this tank? Miss the boat with dungeoncrawler fatigue or just FFG fatigue?

Well, that's what I'm asking. Here we are, two years later, and the first expansion for a game in a genre that basically demands them has finally emerged. Have people been able to get what they would consider "their money's worth" out of the original box. IIRC, there were several scenarios included and the app allowed for some variation within those scenarios, so there was some distance to cover if you wanted to finish the game, as it were. But I never played or even saw it in the wild outside of sitting on a store shelf. I know that Gloomhaven had almost 100 scenarios in its initial box and I'm pretty sure Descent didn't have anything close to that, so that's why I was asking if this had transformed the genre as much as MB and others were suggesting.

I know they have not supported this game digitally the way a lot of people were hoping they would. New scenarios using the stuff from the first box, randomly generated dungeon crawls, etc etc, all of that seemed like really easy additions and they didn't do any of it. And now you can buy another huge box of stuff that also won't get additional support!

Wonder if it was a design/economics conflict? FFG, at studio level, says we want to make this really cool advancement in the dungeon crawler genre that will have electronic support to take away a lot of the up-front costs. But there's still going to be a lot of up-front cost because it's a board game with miniatures. Asmodee, at corporate level says, OK, you can have the funding to do this, but we'll only sign off on expanding it if it sells X number of copies. Because of that significant up-front cost, only X minus Y copies were sold and so no money was allocated for that continuing support you suggested. It plausibly fits the "studio want to take risk, corporate does not" kind of scenario.

Ironically, the kind of digital support Ah_Pook suggests would have undoubtedly led to selling more copies of the physical game. Buzz would have continued and a new DLC campaign would have added tremendous value to the super expensive box. Unhampered by shipping logistics they could have even reanimated the old LCG monthly release model for these DLC campaign chapters or standalone missions to sustain social media chatter.

That would have been cool. Of course the suits weren't on board.

Ah_Pook wrote: I know they have not supported this game digitally the way a lot of people were hoping they would. New scenarios using the stuff from the first box, randomly generated dungeon crawls, etc etc, all of that seemed like really easy additions and they didn't do any of it. And now you can buy another huge box of stuff that also won't get additional support!

I think digital was just their buzz-mechanic that year. Star Wars Imperial Assault got some digital love too for a while. But ultimately they just didn't seem to care. I'm assuming it didn't prove to drive sales.

I honestly wasn't expecting them to do a big digital push on this post release, because if that was their plan they would have talked about it at release to drive hype and tried to monetize it. They didn't do that at all so y'know. But it seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Jackwraith wrote: Well, that's what I'm asking. Here we are, two years later, and the first expansion for a game in a genre that basically demands them has finally emerged. Have people been able to get what they would consider "their money's worth" out of the original box. IIRC, there were several scenarios included and the app allowed for some variation within those scenarios, so there was some distance to cover if you wanted to finish the game, as it were. But I never played or even saw it in the wild outside of sitting on a store shelf. I know that Gloomhaven had almost 100 scenarios in its initial box and I'm pretty sure Descent didn't have anything close to that, so that's why I was asking if this had transformed the genre as much as MB and others were suggesting.

Sounds like JOURNEYS IN MIDDLE EARTH, the app supported LotR dungeon crawler. App supported as well. You’d think given the IP they would have had a steady stream of expansions lined up behind the core box but in the four years since it came out, only one expansion. Then again I was rather disappointed in the game play so no big loss .

Speaking of app-supported, can you download and play that Xcom game app today? IIRC the big fear is that it would eventually disappear, rendering the physical game part useless.

So I found the app on the google play store and of course there are directly contradicting reviews

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Not compatible with Android 13. Game is dead without support for its app as cannot be played without. Developer really needs to step up if it want's to continue to release app driven games.
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September 2, 2023
Does exactly what it needs to. I'm using this app on a Pixel 6 Pro, running Android 13, and it works just perfectly.