suspended Overturn Rising Sands

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

first "game overview" video posted in the review section

[Maledrakh]

about drake:

Benji was on the Canadian version of  Dragons Den / Shark Tank with Drake in a last ditch attempt to get some backing for it, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

He talked his way into getting one of the dragons to be interested and make an offer, but then he asked for more money and was promptly turned down. He blamed everyone else for his failures ...and he gave away the professionally painted dragon prototypes he had in the process.

 

Well, even if he had gotten one or more of the dragons to back him, I am sure he would be dropped like a hot potato as soon as they entered the dilligence phase after the program to look beyond his blather. The first KS was well intentioned enthusiastic incompetence coupled with delusions of grandeur, and after that funded he set up an entire production studio in  expensive Vancouver, with no one actually knowing what they were doing, leading to less than stellar results, and delivering a first wave of minis with incomplete rules and lots of misprints in haste so the second KS could be justified...and the second drake KS was a criminal scam from top to bottom, it turns out there is no way it could have been fulfilled as he was already too far into debt, and he did it just to get cash in to clear as much of the debts he had racked up  as he could. He went silent not long after KS paid him the drake II funds, and nothing more was ever delivered.

 

Sorry, I am not bitter about this at all. *drake rant ends*

 

at any rate, the more I think about this campaign, the more of a drake vibe i get off this. I would not be very surprised if it turns out to be the same guy behind it under an assumed name or using a strawperson. But I might also be entirely wrong, so I am not making any accusations.

 

What I can say is that the campaign as it stands is in my eyes a "too good to be true" proposition, and it seems the creators (like Benji of Drake) might not have done their due dilligence properly before enthusiastically rushing ahead to launch the campaign with stars in their eyes. And that I believe this will end badly, whomever it might turn out is behind it.

[cmorse]

While it's pretty uncertain who exactly Foxtales studios is, I very much doubt it has anything to with the people from Drake. 

[Smokestack]

Yeah, I looked at the Drake projects and this one and don't see any real similarity in writing style or miniature renders. Take that for what you will. I have serious concerns here. The Creator seems to actively avoid questions. They stated its because they don't want to keep repeating answers... but someone created a spread sheet on google drive to consolidate questions so they would only have to answer once. But they have not answered any questions there. They do pop in the comments every couple hours but the comments they make are more like "give me a hug" or we will answer later we are just geeks and hav ebeen eating a ton of pizza and drinking sooo much coffee!!!!" I will give them til Monday then probably drop out.

[Darsc Zacal]

27 minutes ago, Smokestack said:

The Creator seems to actively avoid questions.

I had a peek through the creators comments. I now suspect they/he/she must be politicians because of their skill in answering questions while not providing any real info.

 

I've copy and pasted a few examples below. I had to edit one quote, and that was due to profanity.

 

 

"We use the term international because our operations or activities (as individuals of course) span over 4 countries. Our nationalities shouldn't matter. Or should they?"

 

"For financial overview, our estimates are kinda rough since we have a pretty good idea how much is it gonna cost us to deliver you high quality products but thats just about it for now. At this point that's all we can share with you. 

2. Cant tell you who but both our manufactures are from China. 

3. We do have samples; Some 3d printed and perfected by hand or some plastic ones made. you will get to see them in action very soon 

4. As mentioned earlier; we are just a bunch of nerds and geeks who love board games and video games. We love mass effect and Witcher universe and can quote Lord of the Rings like anything. We havent done anything in the industry as of now and this is our first venture where we took a few loans to get this thing developed which we really really are passionate about. All we need is your support. We will make mistakes but with your help will correct them. 

5. Rulebook will be shared before the end of the campaign, dont worry. 

6. The only Drake we care about is Nathan Drake from Uncharted universe and no connected to the drake projects on KS whatsoever. Hope that helped."

 

"To be honest, we really havent done much work in this industry except play **** ton of video games and board games. We really are a bunch of uber nerds and geeks obsessed with folk lore and mythological stuff and really wanted to create something. What you are seeing is the labor of our love."

[Kro]

I don't have an issue with giving them the benefit of the doubt for now.. we have 27 days before the campaign ends. If they haven't answered questions satisfactorily by late in the campaign I'll pull out.

[CorallineAlgae]

They sounds like passionate gamers. They don't sound like professional businessmen. That may not be a bad thing. Just makes the project risky. If the game was smaller scale I wouldn't worry too much. I'll hold on to my Rebellion pledge for a while, but if we don't find out more about the creators and get a good look at the rules I'll bow out.

[Talae]

I don't get a slimy used car salesmen vibe from those comments. I do get a sense of uninformed novices.

[Doug Sundseth]

15 minutes ago, Talae said:

I don't get a slimy used car salesmen vibe from those comments. I do get a sense of uninformed novices.

 

Sometimes slimy used car salesmen are easier to deal with. They will often do mostly what they say they were going to do ... eventually. (Which might not what you thought they said they were going to do, to be fair.)

The well-meaning amateur, though, with the best will in the world, can be incapable of doing what he promised in good faith. At which point there's little practical difference for the consumer between that well-meaning bungler and an actual thief.

 

None of which should be taken to say that I have a firm opinion about the creators of this particular project. They might produce great products on time at an absurdly low price. But the risk:reward calculation that I've made means that I won't be backing. YMMV.

[MonkeySloth]

So this one got me curious so I decided to swing by here as no one is quite as skeptical of a good KSer deal these days as the Reaper forums.

 

I think what they're doing is offering the core box near cost and then making their money on full priced add-ons.  outside of the Architecture Set everything else they have in that list is about what I'd expect to pay for retail, if not a bit more.  Compare the expansion pack add ons (the first two) what you get for $45-50 and then look at what Monolith, mythic and CMoN give you for the same price as an addon.

 

So basically bait people in with a really good core box, and it is a price that reminds you of KSer stuff from 3-4+ years ago, at/near cost and then hope you reel in lots of higher priced addon purchases.

 

The buildings are probably near cost as well.

 

Now the making big figures this is a concern but lots of companies have been making things that size in PVC for quite some time and now days is more on the manufacturer then the other side of things so that's less of a concern.

 

I'll be watching as if they've actually got PVC samples already that shows they've already invested in production, have more then just quotes and actually kind of know what they're doing.

 

Just looked at the bottom of the KS page and it looks like they have the whole core already done in PVC and cardboard.  Crazy, you just don't see that these days.  They've already dropped what? 200-300k on this just for molds?

Edited June 22, 2018 by MonkeySloth

[Doug Sundseth]

I hope they're both legit and very successful. I'd love to have another reliable manufacturer in the industry. And I'd love to see friends get a great deal, too.

 

I'm not willing to bet my money that will happen, but I'll be watching and rooting for people who are more optimistic than I am.

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

I give myself 20 days to decide how optimistic I am ...

[ced1106]

Big Daddio on BGG did some googling and...

 

"I was reviewing the project's KS page more thoroughly, and I don't know why but the shipping section sounded familiar.  So I googled the first paragraph of it.  It is word-for-word copied from another project (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1996974421/wander-the-cult-of-barnacle-bay)."

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2012493/sell-me

[Smokestack]

1 hour ago, ced1106 said:

Big Daddio on BGG did some googling and...

 

"I was reviewing the project's KS page more thoroughly, and I don't know why but the shipping section sounded familiar.  So I googled the first paragraph of it.  It is word-for-word copied from another project (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1996974421/wander-the-cult-of-barnacle-bay)."

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2012493/sell-me

That's pretty bad... I saw someone commented about this in the KS comments... the creator did not respond to that at all...

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

The more I look at it, the harder I find it to believe that they can produce everything they offer with the money they are getting. I looked at other games I backed and Overturn is the most "generous" of them concerning the basic pledge before stretch goals.

A project that (I think) was very similar in that it was two or three guys and their first project is Darklight Memento Mori. Early Bird base pledge was about $100 (two years ago!). They offered around 77 minis with the base pledge and had 16 different sculpts - but no (cardboard) terrain. There were 300 cards.

The creators (I think) put a lot of their own funds into it (just like I expect Foxtale did) and definitely did not go for a huge profit margin.

The basic pledge for Overturn is around $89 and has 70 miniatures but 34 (I might have made a counting mistake, so it's give or take one or two) different sculpts and cardboard terrain! Overturn has 500 cards.

I cannot gauge how Darklight's 24 dungeon tiles (which are of different sizes and sometimes quite small) compare to the six double sided game boards of Overture.