Batman: The Dark Knight Returns -Solo Board Game - on Kickstarter Now

In the solitaire Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Board Game, you...

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I think Batman stories make perfect sense as a solo board game. Esp Dark Knight Returns connected

I just finished reading Dark Knight Returns. It was good... honestly though, I don't think I'm much for Frank Miller work.

hotseatgames wrote: I just finished reading Dark Knight Returns. It was good... honestly though, I don't think I'm much for Frank Miller work.

Am I still the resident Batman expert here? Anyway, I at least at one time had a reputation for being THE Batman guy on this site and even I will tell you that we're long past due for FM to not be the definitive Batman. Animated Series or Englehart's Batman should be looked to for inspiration more often. DKR should be seen as A Batman, not THE Batman. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer Year One over DKR.

That said, I'm not going to knock DKR. I love it, I still pull it off the shelf every couple of years or so and I like it more every time I read it. My problem with pulling inspiration from DKR is that it's an extreme example of the character, and without that very specific context that you get in the book, that version of Batman doesn't work. Zack Snyder didn't seem to get that (surprise surprise, as he doesn't seem to understand the intricacies of anything he works with).

I am not the target audience for this game but I gotta say the art direction is underwhelming. When I think Batman/Dark Knight I think dark and gritty, not the pastel color palette of the board shown in the KS depiction. The funding response so far seems tepid esp given the IP involved.

It has been too long since I last re-read The Dark Knight Returns, but maybe the pastel color scheme is a reference to the comics. My vague recollection of the colors was lots of drab blues and grays with occasional splashes of bright colors. But maybe the color scheme was more garish than I recall, like Watchmen or the Simonson Thor run that was overflowing with yellow, pink, and orange.

When I started designing the game, I spent a lot of time reading and reading the series. But, on my first reread I was shocked at how different what my memory of the books was vs what the actual books were. There's lots of bright colors in this. The Mutants wear lots of neon, and Robin's panels are bright by choice. It's especially amusing to see her riding around in the bat-cycle with her day-glow pink mutant outfit when she goes undercover.

The explosions are frequently bright oranges, pinks, and purples; especially when Supes is getting irradiated.

Maps like this tend to have brighter versions of these colors (see the map for No Man's Land an equally dark Batman Story). The board is really muted, but it is important to differentiate each district and each region during gameplay, and we didn't want things mixed up with all the other color representations. The playtesters found these colors to be the most playable.

But hey if you don't like a thing, de gustibus non est disputandum.

I thought the board was fine. There's plenty of color in Gotham, especially in the 1980s neon dystopia version of Gotham.

I'm all for readability and functionality, even if that causes a disconnect with the setting/subject matter. I much prefer this board to something like that Batman Talisman one. Yeah, I get it, it's Arkham Asylum, but the entire thing looks like one, big, drab ugly color that I don't want to spend time with.

Josh Look wrote: I thought the board was fine. There's plenty of color in Gotham, especially in the 1980s neon dystopia version of Gotham.

I'm all for readability and functionality, even if that causes a disconnect with the setting/subject matter. I much prefer this board to something like that Batman Talisman one. Yeah, I get it, it's Arkham Asylum, but the entire thing looks like one, big, drab ugly color that I don't want to spend time with.

My wife got me Batman Talisman for the holidays. I was surprised to receive it, and even more surprised to enjoy the game! I'd consider it more of a Talisman "one-shot." It's a fun variant, if Talisman is your jam. If not, you certainly won't like a Batman version. The colors are muted, but it doesn't do the board a disservice. I thought it was pretty clever, and there's enough distinction to tell the difference between regions. The character and encounter cards have plenty of color to go around.

I like Talisman. I like Batman. I like Batman Talisman. And... I'm seriously thinking about this DKR game (surprise surprise).

If it makes you feel any better (it shouldn't), I am in on this Batman game. Standees version, because I'd prefer to play with Miller's art than bubblegum machine minis, but I am in on it.

It's something I've wanted comic book games to do for a long time now (in fact, I feel like my first post on FAT was about this very subject). Just pick a story and do that story. I get the kitchen sink thing, you're a publisher, you've got this IP, let's throw every character we can into that box. You can put some special powers on these characters, a line of flavor text, and the idiots who throw money at anything because "I'm a fan" will be satisfied enough to put you into the black.

But that's not enough for me. Yeah, I love Batman and a ton of other superheroes as characters, but that's not what keeps me reading these books/seeing these movies/etc. It's the individual stories. I like Batman, that doesn't mean I like ALL Batman. It's the individual stories, seeing these well-defined characters, each with their own set of rules, thrown into situations that push those rules, seeing which ones they break and which ones further reinforce what fascinates me about them in the first place. That's what is at the heart of what makes superhero comics so enduring in my opinion. I'm not sure if board games are a medium that that can translate to, nobody has done it yet, but focusing in on just one story instead of the whole kit and kaboodle is the first step in finding out.

Now could someone finally make a goddamned No Mans Land game?