Thursday 7 August 2014

Kickstarter watch: Mantic - Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King's Quest

Say what you like about whether its the way the Kickstarter team originally designed Kickstarter to be used; Mantic do seem to have pretty much nailed it as a presales and promotion system. That said, I do know some people have had a few issues with delivery etc with previous Kickstarters, and have decided to wait until things hit the shops.

Their latest kicked off on Monday - you do pretty much have to have been living under a rock to miss it, but just in case, the bare bones:
  • 2-5 players - one plays the monsters, the rest the adventurers
  • classic dungeon crawl
  • comes with a set of 'advanced' rules that cover role-play as well
  • Ronnie from Mantic talks about it here.
  • And of course, it's a Jake Thornton designed game, so the first cut at the rules is already up here  (allegedly, but that link's 404ing for me - to quote Jake: "At least, they were briefly, then the demand crashed the servers". Whoops. Guys? Rent some Amazon S3 storage and stick it up there, huh? [Guess what, they did. See the comments to Jake's link above]). 
  • I'll confidently expect, being a fan of Jake's designs, that this will include some elegantly simple mechanics and Just Work.
In short? Looks like a great introduction to RPGs for my son - so I've signed up, as for my money the lack of hassle beats the occasional issues.

It's a Mantic Kickstarter., so you should know what to expect. Reached its target ($50K) in 4 minutes,  already over $250K, add-ons a-go-go. There are now two pledge levels - one for the whole shebang at $100 (you're WAY too late for the $95 earlybird!) and a $1 if you just want to use the Kickstarter as a shopping cart for the add-ons.

And as for the add ons... to save my typing, here's how it stands...


4 comments:

  1. I had to sit in my refresh button waiting for the launch to get my hands on the early bird, they all went in about a minute.

    I probably wouldn't have bothered if I'd known how little I'd be saving (currently at something like $190 from add ons).

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  2. I have it on 48h warning, looks tempting, but I don't really need it. Need, bah. I want it.

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  3. Not really much value there currently. Mini count is really low for 100 dollars. The D&D Coop games all have more and MSRP for like 65 dollars meaning they can be had for like 50. Those minis are not wargame quality but it is hard to comment on how these will be as they are also single piece and they are labeling them as colored plastic compared to premium plastic for many of the Kings of War pieces available as add ons.

    The D&D games also have solid quality cardstock components, not quite the embossed components from the Space Hulk game a few years ago but well aligned and thick and heavy. I have not heard great things about mantic's previous cardstock including stuff from the more recent deadzone

    The board tiles also do not appear to be interlocking and some are small which means that it is pretty easy to mess up the board accidently.

    While in 25 more days maybe they can add enough stuff to make it seem on par with other boardgames at this price point it seems pretty weak right now. They have totally listed stuff that would be in the game anyway as stretch goals like the 275K Paladin Hero who is on the cover art for the game.

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  4. It looks very tempting. I bought up some of the Dwarf King's Hold stuff but still haven't played the game. For some reason this grabs me a little more than the D & D games, but I haven't looked at them much to be honest.

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