Top 5 content creation! Appreciate your view points and insights, very informative and helpful!

I made the same similar colors complaint with fractured sky. Not sure why IV insists on using color combos that easily get mixed up

@humanaffectation9021

2 күн бұрын

The colors are tied to the factions in Moonrakers. I can't speak to Fractured Sky, but in MR the colors have specific meanings.

Thank you for helping me save money ;) beautiful production and I love negotiation! But I can wait for the official release to see more thorough breakdowns like yours.

love your guy's perspective! I'm an active participant in their discord for this game and they're hard at work making some pretty cool improvements. Great review as always

Thank you so much for your honest and thoughtful review. I find your videos the most helpful ones on KZread! Seriously considering supporting on Patreon!

I have so much trust in this channel at this point it's crazy. Thank you for another informative preview/ review!

Good review. It goes to show IV Studios game designs aren't their strongest trait and overcomes this with good quality production and clever marketing. Their games aren't cheap to begin with either. Hopefully, they continue to playtest and polish the game further.

What is the name of the game he mentions at 14:55? I can't find it even after typing in the title/names similar.

@KChezwick

2 күн бұрын

He does not mention the name of the game... just says 4Xs (a genre of games). But the game shown in the video is Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game.

@zephocracy702

2 күн бұрын

@@KChezwick oh thank you!!

Fantastic video

Really cool to see you review IV Studios! Love seeing your take especially with your gameplay preferences

Can someone please tell me where i can get the Kickstarter trailer music from this game... or even who made it.

@1017seraph

Күн бұрын

In the "Brink Launch Day Livestream" Zac shared that the Brink trailer music is: Song Name: Kings & Creatures Artist: Lust & Giants kzread.info/dash/bejne/lp-Jt9d8oNHFm7g.html

Yeah, I was a little on the fence about this after watching the dice tower review. It seemed chaotic with no gameplay explanation. Alex was overly optimistic, but I was like "okay, maybe I was wrong". This review cemented my initial thoughts on the game. I think I am gonna pass this one up. Maybe I'll go in at $1 to get the new Moonrakers cards.

ARCS board game review soon?

As a suggestion, do your pros & cons from a top-to-bottom way.

I’d love to see you do a gameplay and review of Godfather. I thought that was a great game and I feel like the extra components was for other expansions

Good review but you can tell the prototype you got is already outdated, as they did add the space that lets you choose the first player. They are also fixing the colorblind issues and have clarified some of the rule vagueness you mentioned. Love the honest reviews, but I hope yall comeback and review the final version of the games! (thinking of grimcoven specifically, I want to see a non prototype review when its out!) Im personally very excited for this game, I pretty much always vibe with what IV puts out. Been playing a lot of fractured sky with the family lately and enjoying it a lot! I think this will work well with them as well.

Playtested this twince on TTS. To me there is just too much randomness. Ambassadors, Action Cards, Riders. It's just too likely to draw the wrong things for a whole game while others draw perfectly. It takes away from the element of strategy when you are left to the luck of random card draws.

Lol folks in this comment section acting like shelfside did a massive take down of this game. They gave it a positive review while being very critical of its shortcomings.

@novon246

2 күн бұрын

I think it’s refreshing after other review channels glaze all over it for its production but deduct nothing for it’s shortcomings

@GameBrigade

2 күн бұрын

​@@novon246 You need to watch different channels then

@LilPugHugs

Күн бұрын

As a huge fan of IV games, i think they did a great job of addressing the games issues. This is why I love shelfside, they are great and having an objective point of view and not only pointing out issues, but trying to offer solutions as well. I do hope they come back and do reviews of games once they are final and in public hands though, as even in this review some of the things mentioned are already fixed or outdated. Really appreciate the honesty from shelfside though! They are quickly becoming one of my favorite reviewers.

I keep saying it again and again. If IV games would spend 25% of their marketing and art budget on gameplay development then maybe one day they will actually put out a game worthy of the price tag

IV Studios can do no wrong :-) 🙈🙉 Jest aside, I prefer fantasy settings for high production value games! I feel like sci-fi is bland and has less of a table presence. See Terra Mystica vs Gaia Project, or Dwellings of Eldervale vs Andromeda’s Edge. I feel like the first round for IV studio games usually doesn’t matter and that is a great way to do for people who learn by doing. Downside is that it unnecessarily extends playtime for veterans.

Outstanding review!!

Thanks for the honest review. BoardgameCo's review was 5/5 I think, so obviously that cheque cleared. I've watched several different reviews and I think you're pretty spot on and the game has some flaws which I think would affect my backing on KS. The game length looks to be a serious deterrent.

@dcrbdh

2 күн бұрын

Waiting for 1.5 - 2 years from now when he trades it away as it "wasn't for him"

@CarbonBallas

2 күн бұрын

Maybe he really just liked it. I have a few games in my collection I adore but most people say are horribe. *Shrug*

@dolo7440

2 күн бұрын

Hi, this is your friendly reminder that all, and I mean ALL, board game reviews are subjective. Something can be a 5/10 for someone and also a 10/10 for someone else. Ashton and Alex are separate beings, with separate tastes. Hundreds of people will play the game and have a 10/10 time, flaws or no flaws. The recommender score is exactly what it says: a recommendation. It's extremely useful, but unfair to use as a tool to discredit other people's experiences.

@mothraw1

2 күн бұрын

Bad take. It’s almost like people have different tastes….. strange. If BGC is rating every IV game a 5/5 then I would see a problem, but that’s clearly not the case. You would know if you watched any of his content.

@mickelboy182

2 күн бұрын

​@mothraw1 BGC's reviews are so surface level and lack any sort of nuance. He is fine for advertising products, but a terrible source of insightful commentary.

This game seems like Settlers with extra steps.

Interesting game but likely not my thing. I think if you want the same style of trading then Sidereal Confluence is very enjoyable.

What if you get one less cube from the explored hex (or make it less swingy/worth it for the resources/whatever you get out of them...) but exploring means you'll be able to go last next round? That way, going last can be something that is determined or challenged by players, but exploration is less of a swingy factor. Plus it makes exploration in the final round extremely unlikely, which could be a good thing. Probably a stupid idea, I don't know the rules to the game.

@peterlopez5676

2 күн бұрын

So it's not said cause it's recently changed but I believe the creators of the game said there will be a rule where if you put a small ship or a ship near the red middle hex, you can choose who goes first.

@zst0rme700

2 күн бұрын

This is correct. The center UA system (red border) has a symbol next to the upgrade action icon that notates this. The last step of end of round cleanup, the person who has their Class I (small) ship in that spot will choose who gets the 1st player marker next. (Can't be someone who already has the 1st player marker) ​@@peterlopez5676

I like IV Studios games but they all suffer from the same design flaw; replayability at the cost of being too random, which also extends the game time, requiring the sacrifice of depth. I still want to play this to decide decisively but I suspect Arcs will be more to my liking.

@LilPugHugs

Күн бұрын

Mechanically though this game isnt close to arcs at all. ARCS is a 4x esque game whereas brink is more adjacent to Catan (as mentioned in the video). So I would not compare them outside of theme. That said, arcs is a fun game, I even got my non gamer partner to play arcs and he picked it up pretty quick. Probably one of the more approachable games by leder games (outside of Fort and Ahoy).

I think you missed quite a bit about the game. Saying a game is unbalanced and swingy after 2 plays is also crazy. Sad you didn't like it...but i think a big part of that has to do with you not having everything finalized and expecting a prototype to be 100% polished and finished. All your concerns/cons except for exploration were already fixed in the current version. I would add exploration is a risk like you said but a good player can turn whatever hex shows up into advantage if they are cunning enough.

feel like eldervale but with added steps to me. was interested in it for a bit but didn't really see any reviews for it. but after seeing it in action.......i'm gonna have to pass. thanks for the review, guys.

When you give games like Rising Sun (kzread.info/dash/bejne/pIR8pLWOpLzJj6Q.html) a 1/10, slowing upgrading to a 3/10 after many plays.... it makes sense why you might give this a 6/10. It seems you may not understand the nuances of a hybrid game with negotiation without many many plays. I'd recommend playing a few more times with Daniel. It definitely feels like Ashton is not a good fit for this style of game. But hey, that's what understanding board game reviewers is about. If I don't align with Ashton's viewpoint on games, then something he rates lower, might still be a good fit for me. It's just unfortunate that as soon as people see a negative review for a game, they automatically assume it's the only honest one, compared to 18 other reviewers that reviewed a game positively. Also... suggesting "Fixes" for a game after you've only played it twice is just pure unprofessionalism.

Because everything from IV has been good, I thoroughly looked into this, watching 2 playthroughs and a "how to play" video. And I think you're spot on: the game just looks "meh". Outside of the negotiation, it actually seems really dry. For all the window dressing, you're mostly collecting cubes. Great. And the whole thing strikes me as a crap shoot since there are far too many variables to consider in order to have a sense of how well any strategy is going to pay off. Ah well. They can't all be bangers.

Great review. Exactly what I was thinking when I watched the gameplay. Seems like a forced design, trying to mix too many mechanics for the sake of appeal over functionality and synergy. As a heavy competitive Dune Imperium player, it seems like they wanted to capitalize on a similar worker placement with their trademark social deduction but this time it didn’t work out. Trading, social deduction and exploration seem contrived and counter productive/intuitive. IV is pumping out games fast - they needed more time on this one. I’ve bought almost all their games at max pledge but I’ll be passing on this one.

You smoked this game. I honestly thought you were going to give it a 4 or 5. A 6 seems too high for me.

Whoa, this game gives me Fractal vibes. Hard to believe, but Fractal's components are significantly better than what I see here.

@SilverFear

2 күн бұрын

This is a preproduction copy and components are not final. There are many updates to what you see here.

@jacobjslee

2 күн бұрын

@@SilverFear That's fine. But I'm just saying Fractal is the most beautiful game I have ever seen. I don't care to play it, however (too long), but the look of it is stunning.

Ladies and gentlemen, a demonstration of how NOT to do accessibility in games:

@thedeltastrat

2 күн бұрын

they've since added a bunch of accessibility stuff btw. the cube symbols have shapes now as well as the actual cubes themselves, and every hex that is coloured has little indicators on either side of the name that represent which colour it is.

@humanaffectation9021

2 күн бұрын

The game shown is just a prototype. And I know they have a bunch of improvements already set for the production copies.

@adrianparente6034

18 сағат бұрын

Seems like you missed that this was a prototype and not the final product.

Honestly, it just looks like Moonrakers reskinned (the reused copy&paste artwork is reaaally rubbing me the wrong way) and it looks boring as hell.

@humanaffectation9021

2 күн бұрын

Are they reusing art? I haven't seen any duplicate artwork.

@VorpalSlade

2 күн бұрын

​@@humanaffectation9021All the contractors or whatever the 'allies' are called appear to be artwork straight out of Moonrakers, I recognise the individual characters

@peterlopez5676

2 күн бұрын

Honestly yeah I can see it. I mean hey set in the same universe so what you gonna do. I think it was fine for noon rollers since it was just a spinoff game but I have to agree that they should've made new art for reoccurring characters.

@VorpalSlade

Күн бұрын

​​@@peterlopez5676 Yeah I definitely get you. I just don't see why such a simple game needed to be set in the same universe for anything other than brand recognition, so the reused assets make that motive even more transparent. As it stands, it just comes across as "You like Moonrakers? How'd you like to play it again but there's none of the fun deckbuilding, varied missions or dozens of upgrades, just abstract voting with cubes?"

@adrianparente6034

18 сағат бұрын

Have any of the nay sayers in these. comments played the game? It's on TTS and demos are offered in the IV Discord. As someone who loves Dune Imperium, Ark Nova, Everdell, Twilight Imperium, and Veiled Fate... This game is a blast! It could honestly become #1 for me. The review this guy gave was based off 2 plays of the game with the same people... He also seems to not enjoy negotiation in games/trading. He missed how hiring different ambassadors can lead to a ton of points at the end of the game due to collection bonuses. He also undervalued the power of the -2 votes which because they are limited and strong people will trade for them and you can basically stop someone/multiple people from. scoring for an entire round with them. The upgrade tracks are different for every player to prevent people from being blocked on upgrades since part of the game is leveraging a limited amount of resources available to the table. Is this game for everyone? probably not... What game is? I will say that he missed quite a few things about the game in this review and that playing it on TTS would give you a much better idea on this game.

Once again, another half-baked game from IV Studios. It's insane to me that they over produce and over price games that still end up with such visual, gameplay, and mechanical flaws. But hey - the game looks pretty and the components are nice!

@humanaffectation9021

2 күн бұрын

As someone who has played the game, nothing about it felt "half-baked". Negotiation felt relevant every time. Ship placement was really strategic. And cube management could make or break your game. It was a very exciting game to play.

@novon246

2 күн бұрын

Coming from someone who’s shelled out a lot of $$$ to own the “super deluxe” edition of all of IV Studio’s games… I’d say you’re a little biased.

@clanechelon

2 күн бұрын

To me, IV studio existence is a bit strange. Their games seems streamlined to the point of being boring to an experience gamer, but they rely heavily on the social aspect of board gaming (social deduction, negotiation) to create their experience and affect replayability. I've only tried Veiled fate at this time and I was reluctant to pay this much for it as there doesn't seem to be a lot of game there (but needed a game in my collection that could play reasonably well at high player count). Only got to play it once so far but I was quite impressed by how it plays. I feel all their game are in a similar state... Thing is, I don't think their primer audience (which seems to be casual to mid gamers) are really thrilled to pay a premium for a game when they can afford a ton of cheap games? And to be fair, this one is still a prototype so I don't see the point in being too harsh

@novon246

2 күн бұрын

@@clanechelon I agree, I am confused by them. I think that their prime audience does want these however… they are drawn in by the “bling” of the upgrade components and the drama that the social aspect creates (have you noticed almost all of their games have some sort of blind aspect to them that helps create drama and tension?). This makes them think they are getting a better game than what it actually is.

@humanaffectation9021

2 күн бұрын

@@novon246 I am biased. I'm a Mod in their discord server. But I'm also honest about what games I like and why. I wouldn't say it felt like a full enjoyable game if it wasn't the case. Personally I prefer Moonrakers with all the expansions over Brink. I even prefer Moonrollers. But brink utilizes an interesting mix of mechanisms that incentivize(or maybe even require?) social interaction to play well. It's not a euro or an engine builder, which are generally my favorite types of games. But the single game I played of it(physically at Origins) was a very fun and complete experience. If I felt your comment was true I probably would have just ignored it and let it stand on its own. But I don't think it's true, from my perspective. So I felt it could use a counterpoint.

Another sponsored moneygrubby kickstarter review.... Where is the John Company review?! Feels like Shelfside has been completely bought and paid for recently.

@LilPugHugs

Күн бұрын

Lol what? Did you even watch the video? Of course they are going to do reviews on current and popular products, its delusional to think they wouldnt. If they were "bought and paid off" this review would have been a glowing 10/10. Instead it was a mid score with good feedback and good points.