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Author Topic: Splotter Games  (Read 5493 times)

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eHalcyon

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Splotter Games
« on: January 20, 2016, 07:30:43 pm »
+1

Splotter has got a few new things available in their shop -- notably, limited pre-orders are open for Indonesia, The Great Zimbabwe, and Food Chain Magnate (their newest game).

They are expensive, but highly acclaimed.  Anybody have thoughts on these titles?

I don't think Indonesia is in my wheel house, but I'm very interested in The Great Zimbabwe.  I'm looking into Food Chain Magnate now.  Watching rahdo's run-through, I'm getting a Dominion-y engine-building feel from it.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2016, 07:47:58 pm »
+1

I can highly recommend Food Chain Magnate.
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Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

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eHalcyon

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2016, 07:54:19 pm »
0

I can highly recommend Food Chain Magnate.

Care to elaborate?

To elaborate on the Dominion vibe I'm getting -- you start with a CEO (yourself) which is basically the action "+3 actions, gain a card".  The cards are employees that you can hire, and among those are other cards that provide + actions and gains.  You're always going to get into an engine because you choose exactly what you play every turn.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2016, 08:14:03 pm »
0

Yeah, I suppose it is kind of Dominion-y in that regard. In which case, Managers would be Villages. (They allow you to have more employees in your structure.)
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Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

Evidence of thriving towns, Pottery, roads, and a centralized government amaze the startled scientists.

Finally, they come upon a stone tablet, which contains but one mysterious phrase!

'ISOTROPIC WILL RETURN!'

Jack Rudd

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2016, 08:15:28 pm »
0

If anyone wants to follow my progress in the BGG PBF, it's here.
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Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

Evidence of thriving towns, Pottery, roads, and a centralized government amaze the startled scientists.

Finally, they come upon a stone tablet, which contains but one mysterious phrase!

'ISOTROPIC WILL RETURN!'

eHalcyon

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2016, 09:36:31 pm »
0

Ah, after shipping, I don't think I can justify the purchase. :(
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Grujah

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2016, 09:55:12 pm »
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seem like pretty poor quality components / art for 75$
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eHalcyon

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2016, 11:57:47 pm »
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seem like pretty poor quality components / art for 75$

Component quality is mediocre to good, depending on who you ask.  Art, likewise -- The Great Zimbabwe looks fine to me, but Food Chain Magnate is a mixed back IMO (the cards and player aids have a great aesthetic but the boards look like prototype stuff).  Going by that alone, it's not worth the cost.

But the gameplay is what makes Splotter Spellen so beloved.  The cost is also higher because their print runs tend to be very small.  It's 75 Euro now, but most of their games tend to command even higher prices later.  Many of them end up being "grail games" to various people.

For me, I'm not even sure I'll like their games.  From watching reviews and play-through videos, I think I'd enjoy both TGZ and FCM (but probably not Indonesia, which is very popular and also up for pre-order).  But I'm not actually sure.  I was prepared to pay the cost, but I can't justify that plus the shipping on something so uncertain.
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Grujah

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2016, 07:01:14 am »
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Yeah, I was talking about FCM.
FCM board looks like prototype indeed, and cards do have an OK "old-timey advertisment" feel but still look pretty cheap / no effort.
I do get "gameplay first" approach, but than doesn't mean you get to slack in other department.
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Ratsia

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2016, 07:03:19 am »
+1

They are expensive, but highly acclaimed.  Anybody have thoughts on these titles?
I guess the best term for describing Splotter games is "unique". They tend to be a bit different from the rest. Unfortunatley I haven't played Zimbabwe, but can comment on the other two.

Indonesia is excellent, one of my favorite games ever. It feels some resembalance with the 18xx-series, the heavy-weight economical train games, and is quite cut-throat economical game that unfolds in different ways depending on how the group plays. Despite the weight, it can be played quite quickly (2 hours or so, with quick players) as long as people don't go for the strategies that make the game longer.

Food chain magnate is also a pure economical game where everything revolves around getting wealthier, often by trying to get some sort of a monopole position. It is extremely open-ended, to the degree that one can easily get stuck at the verge of bankruptcy and it is even possible for the whole game to stop progressing (toward the end condition of players reaching sufficient wealth) for several turns if the players play badly. To me it was already too open-ended (and did not even feel like a game all the time), but most of my friends like it a lot.

I don't think the dominiony -feeling for FCM is really there. The hand management and employer tree definitely play a role, but at the core the game is still about making money by selling stuff in front of others.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2016, 09:20:08 am »
+2

The art style of Food Chain Magnate is the subject of a twelve-page thread on BoardGameGeek. Clearclaw is excelling himself in that one.
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Centuries later, archaeologists discover the remains of your ancient civilization.

Evidence of thriving towns, Pottery, roads, and a centralized government amaze the startled scientists.

Finally, they come upon a stone tablet, which contains but one mysterious phrase!

'ISOTROPIC WILL RETURN!'

eHalcyon

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2016, 12:52:51 pm »
0

The art style of Food Chain Magnate is the subject of a twelve-page thread on BoardGameGeek. Clearclaw is excelling himself in that one.

Did somebody on page 1 of that thread imply that Dominion isn't deep?  Am I reading that right? :(
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GendoIkari

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #12 on: January 21, 2016, 01:18:11 pm »
+1

I've never heard of that company or any of those games, but I can tell you that any game that's over $100, and takes 2-4 hours to play, is an automatic pass for me.
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Ratsia

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2016, 02:14:59 pm »
+4

I've never heard of that company or any of those games, but I can tell you that any game that's over $100, and takes 2-4 hours to play, is an automatic pass for me.
One thing worth noting is that these are not the usual games in that category. Majority of the $100+ games that take too long to play are over-produced theme-dominated ameritrash games, often with excess plastic figurines because of  reaching too many kickstarter goals. Automatic pass is the right default for those, unless you happen to fall into the target audience (in which case you just buy all that you can afford and that have the right theme).

Splotter, however, is an indie Dutch company (well, two guys that have regular jobs as well) that has been producing weird games with small prints for soon 20 years. They explicitly seek to produce games that are complicated and should not have solvable optimal strategies, despite typically being fairly deterministic and not even involving negotiation. They are rather out-of-the-box games (heck, they even have a serious multi-hour game about sea trading that involves players tracing a route with erasable pen, blindfolded and based on instructions given by other players who might not even share the same goal) but typically well balanced.

In brief, these are something one just has to try, but I would indeed recommend trying out with someone else's copy instead of buying one right away. Some people hate them, for some the next Splotter game is always the biggest event of the year. It doesn't quite matter whether one tries Roads & Boats, Food Chain Magnate or Antiquity; playing one of them should tell whether one likes the rest as well.
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Accatitippi

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2016, 01:32:50 pm »
0

They are rather out-of-the-box games (heck, they even have a serious multi-hour game about sea trading that involves players tracing a route with erasable pen, blindfolded and based on instructions given by other players who might not even share the same goal) but typically well balanced.

 ;D What is that game?
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DG

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #15 on: January 22, 2016, 04:33:05 pm »
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I've actually played Roads and Boats, without knowing anything about Splotter, and Ratsia's comments seem spot on.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #16 on: January 22, 2016, 06:28:55 pm »
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I have tried Roads & Boats and did not like it at all, but TGZ and FCM both seem like something I would enjoy based on rahdo's run-throughs and other reviews.  I also watched rahdo's video for Antiquity and thought that one would fall more into the Roads & Boats camp for me.  Likewise after reading reviews of Indonesia.
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Ratsia

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2016, 02:17:16 pm »
+3

They are rather out-of-the-box games (heck, they even have a serious multi-hour game about sea trading that involves players tracing a route with erasable pen, blindfolded and based on instructions given by other players who might not even share the same goal) but typically well balanced.
;D What is that game?
The game is VOC! Founding the Dutch East Indies Trading Company, from 2002.

Half of it feels just like a generic euro-game. You pick up contracts and need to fetch the necessary ingredients from various cities all around the world. The weird part is how the sailing happens. Each ship has a captain and a waiting cue for future captains, allocated in worker-placement fashion. When the ship is full it sails, which means the captain starts drawing a line on a separate map sheet, trying to avoid hitting ground outside the target cities. And yes, that's done blindfolded while other players with pieces in the waiting line tell him/her what to do. The maps are rather tricky so a lot of ships fail (try going from Formosa to Banda...). Luckily it is not even obvious the captain wants to listen for the others (he/she might not benefit from reaching the same goal, or perhaps the captain does not want to reach any of the cities), so often you can just intentionally ram the ship to as difficult place as possible -- the next in line becomes captain and starts from there.

I've only played it once, after midnight in some con, and have no intention of repeating the experience. :) We probably played way more destructively than the developer intended, very rarely trusting for others to actually help the drawing process and hence ended up too often drawing blindfolded without any guidance, either to reach some city or maximally difficult position.


Nevertheless, if you do see a copy somewhere then it might be worth trying as a novelty item. It could certainly be fun in the right company and mood.
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tristan

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #18 on: February 01, 2016, 09:20:33 am »
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Compared to most other Euros Splotter games are pretty unforgiving, i.e. a mistake on turn 1 will hurt you throughout the entire game.Unless you have ample of time to play an 18xx they are probably the best titles out there if you want a heavy Euro in a reasonable play time and as long as you can live with the fact that they are fairly expensive and suck art- and production-wise.
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Ratsia

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Re: Splotter Games
« Reply #19 on: February 02, 2016, 02:23:40 am »
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Compared to most other Euros Splotter games are pretty unforgiving, i.e. a mistake on turn 1 will hurt you throughout the entire game.
Yep, that's a good summary.

Quote
Unless you have ample of time to play an 18xx they are probably the best titles out there if you want a heavy Euro in a reasonable play time and as long as you can live with the fact that they are fairly expensive and suck art- and production-wise.
I wouldn't even count on Splotter games being shorter than 18xx. Sure they take less time than the monster 18xx variants (18C2C), but both the old standard games (1830, 1848, 18GA, 18VA, ....) and the newer somewhat more designed variants are playable 2.5-3 hours, and hence compete for the same slots as many of the Splotter titles.

Just yesterday we played 1830 in a bit less than three hours, including setup and cleaning up, and games like 1862 should also fit in the same slot despite having tons of companies. The development of 18xx games had definitely improved during the past few years, and some of the core improvements are there to speed things up.
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