Out with the Old; in with the New: A 2022 Retrospective (Patreon)

2022 has proven to be a very busy year for APG; with 14 releases (plus the Simulator) that had game content, while the exact quality of the content varied from being great all the way down to actively bad for the game's health it overall trended towards positive and I wanted to take a quick retrospective look at each release to see if my previous experiences hold up alongside the reviews based upon initial campaigns.

Grimmory

Grimmory's twin Gusk Knives give access to late game Gorm weapons that are not cheesy,  perfect for players who like hunting the Gussy. They lack synergy with the Screaming Oni Armor, but they have plenty of power for other survivor builds, strength is a fair issue, but the weapon's inbuilt strength boosts can help make up for that with the right build. They've continued to be interesting and fun weapons to use.

Pascha

Pasha's content is just great, having a variant “Zanbato” in the weapon crafter location is super useful, but it is a shame that they did not have the sword weapon keyword in addition to being scissors. The Ashen Shears have inbuilt block which would interact well with the Novel Sword proficiency.

Willow

Willow brought some absolutely superb content with the first novel weapon proficiency, the concept of novel proficiency allows for survivors is really exciting and the new sword version gave us a method of using weapons in a new fashion. It's also a really great ability for swords as it opens up the Block/Deflect swords with more utility than they had previously. Sword tanking is a lot of fun.

Badar

A very potent weapon and it's a reason for hunting the L3 Spidicules instead of the rather underwhelming (for the portion of the game you get it) Silk Turban. Spidicules remains in a bit of a mess balance-wise when it comes to discussing its gear, but there are nice things there and the showdown fight is excellent. This content has potential to be really exciting – I especially like the miniature and he was one of the few models I managed to paint for my personal collection this year.

Lantern Armor Aya

I absolutely do not like the model released with this, it's bizarre and doesn't match the body shape and style of Aya elsewhere. The content itself is fine, but it's People of the Lantern specific and getting campaign locked gear, especially for the weakest of the three campaigns is frustrating. The gear itself is interesting and fun to utilise and the novel armor set proficiency is super super cool.

Summer Cyrus

Very, very good gear that has breathed new life into the Flower Knight by giving a non-abusive reason to hunt it. All of the pieces are interesting individually and super fun when linked together. This is just great content to get.

Doll

In the exact inverse; Doll is content that is actively bad for the game due to how it can be abused. While it is a super interesting concept, it gets broken by a very easy to get ability in Crystal Skin. That's very frustrating because Crystal Skin often breaks cursed gear in very obvious fashions and Doll could have avoided this entire situation by having a simple jinx that ensures both Doll's gear and Crystal Skin can't be combined together. The Needle Sword is also abusable in the way that the old Counterweighted Axe can be abused and it demonstrates a concerning lack of learning from the design team. When you can kill the Gold Smoke Knight on the first attack with a weapon without any concerns of retaliation/traps being triggered, you know the item is busted in a very basic manner. I would call this the worst release we've had this year in respect to game balance.

Summer Aya

A fun little piece with a lovely sculpt, the Survival Spear remains always a relevant and interesting piece of gear, early on it is useful in combat, later on it provides a very useful resource every hunt. Having the spear also be provided through a somewhat marginal terrain piece is also an excellent expansion of the design space.

Summer Goth Twilight Knight

More People of the Lantern specific pattern gear content; I'm pretty tired of this particular category of promotional content as Lantern has become something of a drudge due to its length and final nemesis monsters. Personal feelings aside, for the tiny % of the player base that gets to engage with this content it does have some good options.

Reapokratis

Grimmory's brother has an interesting but ultimately useless (in game for now) sculpt; especially when you consider that the superb Gloomleather gear/armor set that comes with this content is something you'll want to play with over and over. This was a fantastic piece of game content.

I REALLY, REALLY hope that we get a full plastic release of this, but instead of getting Reapokratis's miniature again we instead get two full narrative sculpts (male and female) of the Gloomleather armor set, it deserves it.

Erza of Dedheim

While interesting and boasting synergies with the Summer Cyrus gear, Erza's pattern gear cards suffer from needing a second weapon (usually spear) to keep the scythe active. They also suffer from being pattern cards because one has no control over when they reach play and you do really want to have as many of these gear cards from this set available, crafted and on the same survivor. It's definitely something that could get stronger if we get more Doom supporting gear/fighting arts in the future.

Halloween Flower Knight Survivor Costume

Not the best halloween costume, but one with a very high power ceiling if you seek to abuse it with the intention of ensuring that those Luck tokens get onto the survivors who need them. Ultimately the Flower Knight does need more craftable content to make it something that has repeated play through value. In concert with Summer Cyrus this has gone a fair ways towards helping sort that out.

Kingdom Death Simulator

I've still not had a chance to play this myself and probably won't until the new year. So for the moment I would like to direct you to a warm, awful feeling's videos here. (https://www.youtube.com/@anawfulfeeling). I am honestly excited about this because the TTS versions of KDM are unofficial and therefore not something that I want to support if I can have access to an official rendition instead.

Screaming Oni Armor

We need a novel weapon proficiency that cares about Perfect hits for daggers, but this is an absolutely excellent release that I hope just becomes available for all campaigns with the Screaming Antelope in them (I do not want to see it get locked into a specific campaign). My personal pick for the content I most enjoyed this year. Hopefully APG give whips and thrown weapons a similar treatment, my partner is very disappointed with the variety in whip options we currently have and I am the same with thrown weapons.

White Sunlion Armor – Plastic

The first beta content to be minted into non-beta plastic form, it is now a People of the Sun specific armor set and it is pretty interesting if not really powerful enough to make White Lion armor truly exciting outside of playing it for fun. The updates to the model are fantastic and the only physical complaint I have is the lack of a male version of this armor set.

Overall the content released this year trended towards the positive; while it is difficult and expensive to keep up with this release schedule of new content; the schedule does provide new content for the most hardcore players. The best of the content is the stuff which is mostly gained early/mid game specifically the new hybrid armors, but also the novel sword and armor proficiencies are very exciting areas for the game's future. A single double sided card can completely refresh and change the way that players engage with weapon, armor and builds.

Biggest Winners

People of the Lantern

Every year People of the Lantern gets more goodies and 2022 was no exception. This year gave it the Refined Lantern Axe and Curaiss, plus the Refined Lantern Sword along with other campaign specific pattern gear cards. If you love Lantern you've really won out this year; I prefer Sun & Stars when given a choice, but if we get Exhausted Lantern Horde stuff in other future campaigns then all this lantern specific content could be really hype.

Daggers

I think we could call 2022 the year of the Dagger in KDM because between Grimmory, the Screaming Oni Armor and the White Sunlion Armor we've seen a bunch of great Dagger support. But it's worth noting that Daggers have got great support year after year; in the past we've received the Ghost Dagger, the Cult Speaker Knife and the Backstabber Strain Fighting Art (to mention a few) there has been a huge push to make daggers something that the main community wants to use and I think this year, with the Dagger specific armor set (Screaming Oni) that they've done it.

However the weapon type is in a desperate need for a novel proficiency because we have a lot of stuff surrounding Perfect hits with daggers and that's not something the current Specialization/Mastery engages with at all.

People of the Sun

Not only did People of the Sun get an exclusive mini-expansion with the White Sunlion Armor box, but in addition they have also seen improvements to one of the core armor sets they have to use with the Screaming Armor getting the strong dagger alternative in the Screaming Oni Armor set. All People of the Sun needs now is a revision to its ending/boss rush portion, plus more lightweight content (come on lightweight Lantern Ring Armor instead of Plate) and it'll be in a really sweet spot.

Flower Knight

The Flower Knight got slapped down hard last year with the (deserved) nerf to the Vespertine Bow, but this year it got four new pieces of gear in the Summer Cyrus and Halloween Flower Knight Survivor box sets. The Summer Cyrus Sighing gear in particular is really good and creates its own builds. This has moved the Flower Knight back up to something worth hunting outside of just using it to get Otherworldly Luck/Acanthus Doctors/True Blade Survivors or a BIG PILE™ of flowers to Harvest Ritual into Perfect resources/hide or pee on to make Leather.

The Flower Knight is still in a bad place overall in respect to its difficulty curve, but having more options to craft helped it a great deal (especially as the Vespertine Cello got a new life when the Grim Muffler gear from Winter Lucy came out a few years ago).

Scythes

For a while it looked like we were not going to see another Scythe, but that changed with the release of Erza of Dedheim, and while the Scythe in her boxed set isn't super easy to use – it does mark a change from a past sentiment that scythes were not going to get released often because the Specialization/Mastery comes in the Dragon King expansion. Good news all round.

Spears

Spears lowkey made out very well in 2022; while there was few direct releases, the advent of the Doomed mechanic from Erza of Dedheim and the reroll token for hitting the trap Acanthus/Flower Knight gear options gave them space to take advantage of hitting the trap as often as possible while growing stronger when doing that. In addition the Survival Spear allows fortunate settlements to potentially get access to a strong spear that can generate a lot of resources early on.

Honourable mention here to Swords, who have always been a somewhat decent weapon type without blowing it out the gates (due to their combination of rather average stats and rather average weapon proficiency abilities. The new Novel mastery for them really leans into their alternative strength of Block/Deflect built into the weapon and that gives more options. Slots are always tight in builds, having something that can block/deflect while not holding a shield is a good option.

Second honourable mention goes to the Leather Crafter/Slender Man – who made out with massive gains from their new armor set. Gloomleather Armor is that darn good.

Digital Players – Kingdom Death Simulator

I'm so excited about this release and I've already been talking to other content creators about how this provides an accessible way for them to play the game on YouTube and increase the audience. An affordable, digital, official version of this being out there for people who want to play remotely with friends or just can't afford the physical version is huge. Also because the development of the  TTS simulator is in the hands of people with some questionable morals; having an official version and therefore putting the digital version back in the hands of the creator is huge and it will enable me to eventually produce gameplay content alongside this patreon written content without feeling icky about it.

Biggest Losers

Whips

There are still just five whips in the entire game, the Rawhide Whip and Hunter's Whip basically exist in the same portion of the timeline – typically once you have ammonia you'll have leather within a year or two, meaning that the Rawhide Whip isn't worth investing into. The Spidicules Silk Whip is essentially Hunter's Whip but better; resulting in trio of whips who all compete for the same portion of the game (early/pre-blacksmith). The last two whips are the Ring Whip and its Lantern specific upgrade and while the Ring Whip has become more effective since the Polishing Lantern turned up in 1.6's upgrade pack there is still a real lack of variation and depth in this weapon type.

Thrown Weapons

No mastery, very few good options outside of the excellent Bone Darts. Thrown Weapons are the one thing that stops Whips being completely bottom of the weapon pile is the fact that Thrown Weapons exist. As someone who throws knives and axes as a recreational hobby I really do hope we'll see this design space expanded upon. Because having the range options being Bow, Shield or Spear is a bit thematically sad.

People of the Stars

Still cut out of access to patterns Stars has received no specific content in the way that Sun and Lantern both have. It remains the most engaging and interesting of the three campaigns, but it is a shame that it is cut out of access to Patterns (unless you house rule to allow them in). At this rate it seems that Stars, despite how much it is beloved by the community, is destined to be the campaign that the design team want to ignore. Hopefully either 2023 or Campaigns of Death addresses this.

Kickstarter Backers

I am not going to get into the weeds with this continuing disaster; but to not at least acknowledge that the Kickstarter has been a toxic experience for the overall health of the community would be very dishonest. No matter how good the content turns out to be; this level of delays taints so much of that. I've heard an increasing amount from two groups of people in particular; the first of which are considering or have already requested a refund for various reasons [linked to the delays] and the second are backers who have been harassed by the white knights crusading around the forums and comment pages. Those individuals just cannot let people rightfully criticize the delays without springing to the defence of their chosen "corporate" overlord (note: this is about the behaviour of the few aggressive backers, not APG who I wouldn't call corporate) and it is further hurting a community that is already fractured. I don't know what the answer is with them, I've tried reasoning and straight up asking some of them to stop with no joy.

Sadly that means there is absolutely no solution to this at all; certain community members have had their reputations tainted forever for their behaviour and the company's reputation has taken so many hits over the years that it's clever usage of FOMO and Collector's Drive that is still driving the franchise forward – stuff like that works for a while, but it eventually exhausts consumers and you need to either bring in fresh blood (the way GW used to do it before they realised their older customer base was worth catering to); that's hard to do with how scarce KD:M's content is.

This monthly shop FOMO is something which I for one am close to tapped out from; it's fast approaching the period where I can't afford to keep up with these shop releases because of the frequency they come out at compounding onto the devastating energy prices here and the staggering price increases that the board game industry are putting forward means something has to give. Overall; 2023 is looking like a make or break situation on this front, I'm just very emotionally and financially exhausted from trying to keep up with making content for a game that's currently on life support – we all need the Gamblers Chest to turn up in 2023.

Other Games

It is not all doom and gloom however; 2022 has been an wonderful year for board games in general. I've had a chance to play some really exceptional games this year and I'm going to give you a line or two each for a few selected ones which were either really good and keep getting back to the table or very interesting despite flaws.

Obsession; one of the most thematic and engaging worker placement tableau builder  I've played in a long time. Obsession has you take the role of a Brontë sister novel's family seeking the best match for status in Derbyshire. It's an interesting in particular due to how engaging it is for fans of the genre while also remaining a delight for those just there for the mechanics.

Sentinels of the Multiverse (Essential Edition); this modern update of the original boss battler was innovative and trailblazing for its time. These days it shows its age and the Essential Edition might have updated the game somewhat it is still clunky at times. It is however one of the best team based card boss battlers and doesn't require deck building with its pre-built character decks. Marvel Champions is the better game overall, but something about Sentinels still charms me.

Darkest Dungeon; I am almost certainly going to talk about this game on the podcast at some point in 2023, it's an engaging as heck solo game with some very crunchy position based combat. The requirement to move to certain distances for specific attacks is really fun, as are the synergies between classes. However, it has a terrible user interface design with components that have bad contrast and/or are too reflective. Miniatures are super sweet and it is a wonderful short form campaign dungeon crawler. A little more time in the oven and a few less fiddly token based mechanics and we would have had a real classic here.

Ark Nova; This game so nearly got it all right, what it needed more than anything was multiple different curated draw decks instead of one giant pile of cards that just turn up. That game mode is fine but alternative modes with curated draw decks would have really worked well. It's an interesting alternative experience to Terraforming Mars, but it failed to really iterate and improve on TM's deficits. It is still however the second best zoo based game I've played in a while (Dinosaur Island RAWR & Write is the best, but Pandasaurus games are NOT a company I want to support at the moment due to the way they treat their staff).

My Father's Work; As someone who really loves Gothic fantasy style settings (I, like Trey Parker, have a fondness for Abomination); I really wanted to love My Father's Work. But it has fallen flat most times it has been played and it remains a really inconsistent piece of work. There's an interesting concept at the heart of it all, but the mechanisms surrounding the game just feel awkward and very frustrating for the average gamer. This is one of the only games we've played in a while where a player has just walked off and gone to bed rather than finish the game.

Orléans; A really sweet bag builder/worker placement game that I got to play late in the year, this game is immense fun, though it really does require the expansions if you are going to get into playing the game in a regular fashion. I'm a bit disappointed that you have to purchase the fifth player components separately.

Final Girl; Hostage Negotiator was one of the most fun games I played in 2021 with its unique spin on boss battling mechanics; it still had that player vs. complex/behaviour based AI that I really enjoy but Final Girl has managed to iterate and improve on so many of the mechanics. It has a decent amount of customisable difficulty sliders and really sells the experience of being in a horror movie wonderfully. I do not support Van Ryder Games dabbling in the world of *gag* NFTs but they do excel at making pulpy nonsense that closely mirrors the experience of watching a film of the genre. Detective: City of Angels also remains a solid recommendation from me; the ability to play the cases solo and then “Games Master” them for your friends is super sweet when compared to many detective games which are quite 'one and done'.

Both Marvel Championsand Arkham Horror LCGs continue to be games I play on a weekly basis, Marvel Champions is one of the best 'quick 30 min' games I have and Arkham Horror continues to innovate on its a wide range of exciting fashions.

The Future of 2023

Which brings us to 2023 itself; I've still not been able to finish my gaming/recording studio because of budget; but the Kingdom Death simulator represents an opportunity for me to record some gameplay videos once it's had a few more updates. As mentioned above I am going to record a fresh impressions video sort of just wandering around and playing with the bits of it – maybe a quick prologue fight to see how it plays.

Kingdom Death content will continue; there are still deep dives on various monsters to sort out; the small reference cards need an update to include the other strain fighting arts; new fighting arts, weapon masteries and so on; plus the beta content gives things to discuss there – especially because APG seem to be expanding their design space in interesting manners that can fix flaws in the original game (Poor weapon masteries, limitations of armor set bonuses, more options for limited weapon types and similar). However; Aeon Trespass Odyssey is out and has arrived on my doorstep. That is something I will be doing content on; at most it will be one article in the month and it'll be a while away because I need to play through all the content under my own steam before I start forming thoughts and abusing mechanics. Likewise Sankokushin will be kickstarting at some point in 2023 and as I am lightly involved with that project I will be covering it a smidge over here. I'm not involved in the design of the main mechanics, lore, setting or similar – I'll be doing an expansion. Beyond that which has already been confirmed I'm not going to get into things until it is time to do so.

Recording video content on YT is something I do really want to get into; as those of you who hang around on the discord know I play a lot of Aeon's End, Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions LCG; I also play many other boss battling games including the afformentioned Sentinels of the Multiverse, Final Girl and Hostage Negotiator; the issue is I am not a huge proponent of doing it all electronically and while I have the space to record I'm still missing furniture and equipment – otherwise I would absolutely record my first play through of Aeon Trespass: Odyssey.

In addition The Last Standee is well into its second year of recording now and if you want to hear opinions on a wide variety of other board games you can check it over at: https://soundcloud.com/the-last-standee-podcastIt has been a huge support for my own mental health as I've been able to focus on other board games and enjoy some really innovative designs (plus some real stinkers too!) I greatly appreciate any of you who are already listening in addition to supporting me here; you guys rock, you're keeping me around so I can eventually write about the GCE and Wave 4/5 content.

On a more personal front; you have not seen much painting over on my Instagram because my health has continued to deteriorate due to my digestive issues; at this point because I cannot eat sufficiently my hands often shake too much to be able to paint. What I need is an FMT; but I have made zero progress with Swedish healthcare and until I'm in such a state that I have to be hospitalized I doubt I'm going to get anywhere. I did find a place in the United Kingdom that does a 10 day FMT treatment which might help, but including accommodation and treatment the total amount is between £9,000 and £10,000. Not something I can afford without a windfall inheritance, so instead I have to just keep restricting my diet/skipping meals to fast and waiting until the doctors feel that I've reached a stage that requires more intervention than just painkillers. I mention this here simply because if the Patreon goes suddenly silent; sudden hospitalisation is the probable reason (unless you hear on the news that the Russians have attacked Gotland; which is also unlikely, but all of us here on the island are aware it's a possibility – we really do live in “fun” times).

Outside of that; it all depends when/if we get told that the Gambler's Chest Expansion is going to the printers. I remain ever hopeful that it happens in the early half of this year so we have fresh new content arriving in the summer; but I've been hopeful that every year previous is the year that it arrives!

If it does, then 2023 is going to be a wild time for all of us!