Quote from: Zak S;631060Dull game.

Amazing rorschach test.

Having played it more than once, in public in an FLGS of course, this is perfectly on the money.

Mechanics are hopelessly scewed, possibly broken; the game thus results in an excruciatingly one-sided version of gin rummy. But the point is the double entendre art and flavor text, which is supposed to elicit a counter-culture cache. Place everything in excellent packaging, with sparse rule leaflet, and you got yourself an entertaining Rorschach test -- that plays like bad gin rummy on the side.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;631271That may be true, but the satire looks a little too real...

There's parody and there's parody...and then there's Ricky Gervais.

"...but it's too late; I've already seen everything."

Quote from: everloss;631127I went to Soda Pop's site yesterday because apparently they're involved in the Robotech/Macross tactical game and I wanted to see if they had more info about it.

There doesn't seem to be much information out yet about that, although apparently the Kickstarter project will launch next month. "Ninja Division brings together the design talents of Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios, makers of Super Dungeon Explore(tm), Relic Knights(tm), Helldorado(tm) and Anima Tactics(tm), to bring you the best quality game pieces, design and rules for Robotech® RPG Tactics(tm) and all of your Robotech® adventures." That's an awful lot of tm's.

What I did learn just now while checking up on the Robotech thing is that the original update section for Soda Pop's Relic Knights Kickstarter has been receiving new entries. This is the current state of the game. (In the cheesecake department, note the card for Cordelia Clean, the robot maid introduced near the end of the funding project.)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;631261The Zucker Brothers would be charmed...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvWfbIe4X_4

Which possibly leads us to another TheRPGSite Top Tip... if you want some funny and you want to play a card game, buy the Police Squad! DVD and a deck of poker cards.

Quote from: Ladybird;631357Which possibly leads us to another TheRPGSite Top Tip... if you want some funny and you want to play a card game, buy the Police Squad! DVD and a deck of poker cards.

There is everything right with that idea.

Quote from: GrimGent;631349(In the cheesecake department, note the card for Cordelia Clean, the robot maid introduced near the end of the funding project.)

whose ass is twice the size of her head.

Maybe it's just unfair, or maybe it's the porridge talking, but the fact the game is shit makes the whole thing seem even more seedy.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;631433Maybe it's just unfair, or maybe it's the porridge talking, but the fact the game is shit makes the whole thing seem even more seedy.

With Tentacle Bento, you mean? It just goes to show that the planned chief attraction for the game was never the mechanical side of things, which shouldn't be all that surprising. Granted, leaving the part about refreshing your hand out of the published instructions didn't exactly help: Soda Pop has a somewhat poor track record with explaining rules as clearly as they could be. I underestimated at first how much the gameplay is intended to revolve around watching the field pile like a hawk.

To clarify, officially the game plays out like this:

1. If you hold no cards at the beginning of your turn, draw seven of them to refresh your hand. Otherwise, draw one card from the top of either the face-down school pile or the face-up field pile, or take any card from the field pile, along with all the cards on top of it, on the condition that you must immediately afterwards include that selected card in a noble capture. If you draw any event card except the last, it instantly affects each player, one after another according to the direction of play. If you draw the last event card, its printed effect doesn't take place and the game ends: everyone scores one point for each regular girl in their capture piles and five for each all-star student, and loses points for any girls or all-stars left in their hands.

2. If the game didn't end, you may then use the cards in your hand to set aside sloppy captures (combinations of one girl, one location, and one capture, regardless of their suits) or noble captures (combinations of up to three girls, one location, and one capture, all from a single suit), or to add girls of the appropriate suit to previous noble captures which don't yet include three of them, or to play special characters. A noble capture may also include a single all-star student instead of the variable number of regular girls. Making a noble capture triggers a special effect based on either the suit in question or the specific all-star, while adding girls to them later doesn't.

3. If you have any unplayed cards left in your hand at the end of the turn, discard one of them on top of the field pile.

Ha, ha, ha!

When we played there was a lengthy discussion and scouring the rule leaflet for how to refresh one's hand. We even bust out the smart phones looking for errata, but after awhile gave up. To think they exist and were just forgotten in rule leaflet inclusion is just hilarious!

Well, not that hilarious... I have no real intentions of playing the game again. But some of the cheesy double entendre was entertaining with the right light-hearted crew who got the anime references.

Quote from: Opaopajr;631564When we played there was a lengthy discussion and scouring the rule leaflet for how to refresh one's hand. We even bust out the smart phones looking for errata, but after awhile gave up. To think they exist and were just forgotten in rule leaflet inclusion is just hilarious!

Yeah, that's one heck of a botch, because without the refresh the players are really left with no choice but to hog as much of the field pile as they possibly can in an effort to prevent their hands from bleeding dry through discards. Since gaining even one extra card from other sources than the field is supposed to be a big deal, it becomes ridiculously easy to end up stuck with an empty hand, spending your turns doing nothing more than first drawing one card that you can't play and then discarding it, again and again.

That refresh rule may not be the ideal solution, but at least it makes the game playable.