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Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition

scottcr

By scottcr
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Hexx

Hexx

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Yeah one new scenario each. I'd seen $42 as price, but hadn't realised what that would be in the UK (Especially post Brexit).

 

Got (hopefully) my first play through with my set this weekend - not sure whether to run through scenario 1 again (I've played, other haven't played MoM at all) or go for another one.

 

What are the various lengths like (we'll be 5 people). I remember scenario 1 said "90 minutes" and it was nearer 2.5 hours...

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Hexx

Hexx

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So played this again over the weekend, and really didn't have a good time - and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what caused the issues.

 

We played 5 player starter scenario...and it was endless. I think we threw in the towel at about 4.5-5 hours.

 

The room layout was much more "corridor"-y with lots of deadends or with pointless clues (oh there's an allignment tonight - we've been told that 4 times already), and there seemed to be much more monsters - which led to so much time resolving horror checks. (I think we only had one turn where a couple weren't in range of something).

 

There were two ways to unlock the door - but one spawned 2 monsters (and a long puzzle to get to right room) and other was relatively far away (and there was another puzzle in there to tell us the alignment was tonight)

 

The first "half" was quite good - but the last half was drawn out mess. The "rush" mechanics of spawning more mods in didn't actually rush us - but slowed us even further as we had to deal with them. More fighting/horror checks etc (we could have tried to avoid and run past, but we'd still be horror checked and had no idea what was outside) - despite all this we were only taking pitiful damage as well, so while it added up over time, it didn't really pressure us for time.

 

So think it's a combination of poor "random" layout, poor scaling, poor "time's running out" and some poor choices from us (that we only know where poor with hindsight)

 

So yeah - really downer experience at the end, and put me way off. Certainly never playing with 5 again - and maybe not even 4. Don't think I want to play it for a while either.

 

Decidedly disappointing experience - really soured my thoughts on the game (after previously playing it once and then making it a near certain purchase - which it became when I found it for "cheap" above)

 

Edit - One thing that also happened this time (likely because of 5 players, monster numbers (and lack of variety) and time we played - the same checks came up again and again. We could predict what we had to do from the first line of text...which made things ever more tiresome as you lost involvement being asked for the 3rd time "are you related to this hell beast"?)

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DoctorEggo

DoctorEggo

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Have to reluctantly agree - from what I'd read and heard I was expecting great things, and though the first hour or so was very enjoyable (contemplate the painting! Barricade the thing in the place! Place the tokens...AS INDICATED!), the 3+ hours that followed slowly bled the fun from the experience, and by the time the puzzle came up asking us to play a reskinned version of Mastermind: The Board Game from the 1970s, I'd long since lost interest. As @Hexx noted, all the "speed up" mechanics seemed to have the opposite effect - it felt lumbering, repetitive, and surprisingly clunky for a game with an app at its heart.

 

I'm glad others are enjoying it, and maybe it's simply a scaling issue, but I'm in no rush to play it again.

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Hexx

Hexx

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14 minutes ago, therearerules said:

Towards the end the game definitely slows- there are no more investigations to be done, but dozens of monsters. Not sure what could be done to stop that though.

 

When the game started "slowing" we still had roughly half the mansion to explore/investigate (including the 2 rooms with the keys to the garden in - one of which we'd barricaded a Sea beast in as when it spawns only 1 player was anywhere near and they were scared).

 

I think the warning "you hear the chanting increase in volume" or something alone would be enough. It was the random cultists that appeared (or the 2nd sea beast) that slowed us...as it was it was telling us to get a move on, and then throwing more hurdles at us. Counter-intuitive when you still need to work out what to do.

 

We could definitely have done stuff quicker - but not much, and it would have meant ignoring 2-3 side rooms which we had no idea the value/benefit off.

 

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scottcr

scottcr

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Well I solo played Escape from Innsmouth last night and really enjoyed it - although I never managed to finish it.  It's such a quick game to set up and get going.  I think a lack of cards and stuff, the whole AI phase being hidden by the app, could be off putting to some.

 

I'm really looking forward to the expansions.

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DoctorEggo

DoctorEggo

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2 hours ago, Doctor Shark said:

It sounds like they're trying to ramp up the tension and sense of impending doom by throwing more stuff at you, but instead of geeing you up it just bogs everything down. Shame. 

Exactly this. It's a damned shame, because thematically there was some really cool shit happening, but mechanically it was just a chore.

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Hexx

Hexx

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1 hour ago, scottcr said:

Well I solo played Escape from Innsmouth last night and really enjoyed it - although I never managed to finish it.  It's such a quick game to set up and get going.  I think a lack of cards and stuff, the whole AI phase being hidden by the app, could be off putting to some.

 

I'm really looking forward to the expansions.

 

That was one thing I did very very badly - didn't bother putting all the creature bases etc together thinking it would be quick and simple - ha (I made a man with very dextrous fingers do them all)

 

See. Thinking about it today makes me want to give it another go (and a different scenario). Maybe at halloween with some booze.

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jonamok

jonamok

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Played one of the expansions on Friday (not sure which) with 4 players.

 

If anything the RNG of the mythos phase went the other way and (somewhat disappointingly) it spawned only 1 mob and we defeated the end boss in short order. All done in exactly 2 hours.

 

My character went insane but the other three were in pretty good shape at the end. Would have liked it a bit tougher, but still thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

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therearerules

therearerules

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Well unlike Scott I just won the Innsmouth Scenario! albeit by becoming a pyromaniac and benefitting from the torches thrown by the mob. We got close to the end, optimising our route compared to last time, but let the monsters build up too much again. Another go, with experienced escapees, and I reckon I could do it. 

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scottcr

scottcr

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Just got the expansions delivered and attempted to shove it all into the one box.  There's now 55 creatures and a massive pile of investigators.  Jeeeezo these miniatures with those bases are *fiddly*.  After persevering, I finally gave up with the Byakhee and had to get the glue out.  So I've glued all the things to their bases now so they can all go into the one box without getting jumbled together.  There's now a huge pile of tiles too...

 

Do the tiles *only* get used in the expansions.  I've heard that adding content to app means that some of the monsters and potentially tiles get used in existing scenarios?

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