I realize I would probably get more discussion of dungeon crawler boardgames on something like Board Game Geek, but I figure ENWorld is my normal gaming community, so I thought I would post here.
I just recently got Massive Darkness 1 about a week before CMON announced the Kickstarter for Massive Darkness 2. I quickly got to work painting all the figures (of which there are close to 80) and learning the rules. My wife and I (in quarantine) are finding that boardgames are a pretty good way to spend time together. She's a gamer, but not the sort like me who reads rules for fun, optimizes character builds, studies different systems for comparison, etc. So a straightforward dungeon hack is a great game for us to play together.
So I quickly backed Massive Darkness 2, being drawn in by a collection of awesome minis and a hope of expanding the original game. To my dismay, it's a completely different system. Diving into the rules, watching online play, I can only compare it to the amount of change that hit from D&D 3.5 to 4E (or more actually Warhammer Fantasy RPG from 2 to 3 by Fantasy Flight).
Whereas in MD1 the characters are similar but have different advancements and slightly different class abilities, in MD2 the classes each resolve their actions with fiddly minigames. Which is going to require each player (no matter how casual) to learn completely different subsets of rules for different action resolutions. Like the equivalent of in D&D, if you're playing a rogue who wants to sneak past a guard, you'll have to stack a number of dice in a column without knocking them over (instead of making a Stealth check). Or the equivalent of a wizard blind-drawing from a component pouch to get the ingredients to be able to cast a spell. There are 6 character classes in MD2 that you have to learn these weird gimmicks. [These are not actual rules from MD2, but they are similar for illustrative purposes.]
In MD1 you draw cards to populate the rooms with monsters and treasures when you open doors. You could get lucky with the number of treasures vs. monsters, depending on the cards - so there's always a risk/reward. In MD2, they are pre-printed on the room tiles, taking away that aspect of the game.
The online demos have been long and confusing - like 3.5 hours to watch through people fumbling through the rules on Tabletop Simulator wearing gamer headsets and no clear audio.
I'm disappointed that I committed to supporting this Kickstarter. I hate that they are discontinuing the original game that I invested a good deal of time and money into - and getting my wife to learn it - I've had it around a month but the game itself has only been available for around 3 years.
I guess I will cannibalize the KS MD2 for its minis and continue to play MD1.
I just recently got Massive Darkness 1 about a week before CMON announced the Kickstarter for Massive Darkness 2. I quickly got to work painting all the figures (of which there are close to 80) and learning the rules. My wife and I (in quarantine) are finding that boardgames are a pretty good way to spend time together. She's a gamer, but not the sort like me who reads rules for fun, optimizes character builds, studies different systems for comparison, etc. So a straightforward dungeon hack is a great game for us to play together.
So I quickly backed Massive Darkness 2, being drawn in by a collection of awesome minis and a hope of expanding the original game. To my dismay, it's a completely different system. Diving into the rules, watching online play, I can only compare it to the amount of change that hit from D&D 3.5 to 4E (or more actually Warhammer Fantasy RPG from 2 to 3 by Fantasy Flight).
Whereas in MD1 the characters are similar but have different advancements and slightly different class abilities, in MD2 the classes each resolve their actions with fiddly minigames. Which is going to require each player (no matter how casual) to learn completely different subsets of rules for different action resolutions. Like the equivalent of in D&D, if you're playing a rogue who wants to sneak past a guard, you'll have to stack a number of dice in a column without knocking them over (instead of making a Stealth check). Or the equivalent of a wizard blind-drawing from a component pouch to get the ingredients to be able to cast a spell. There are 6 character classes in MD2 that you have to learn these weird gimmicks. [These are not actual rules from MD2, but they are similar for illustrative purposes.]
In MD1 you draw cards to populate the rooms with monsters and treasures when you open doors. You could get lucky with the number of treasures vs. monsters, depending on the cards - so there's always a risk/reward. In MD2, they are pre-printed on the room tiles, taking away that aspect of the game.
The online demos have been long and confusing - like 3.5 hours to watch through people fumbling through the rules on Tabletop Simulator wearing gamer headsets and no clear audio.
I'm disappointed that I committed to supporting this Kickstarter. I hate that they are discontinuing the original game that I invested a good deal of time and money into - and getting my wife to learn it - I've had it around a month but the game itself has only been available for around 3 years.
I guess I will cannibalize the KS MD2 for its minis and continue to play MD1.
