As with most things, it started with a guy named "Foz" who said, "I think you'll dig this." That was even before the Enhanced Edition came out I believe.
I was visiting a buddy in Seattle to attend PAX and saw the original tiny SotM box in the window of a FLGS there. I checked it out on BGG to see what the internet thought (they loved it), so I bought it. I loved it too.
I played a demo at Pax East, I believe right after Rook City came out. I also met Christopher and Alexfrog that day, but I didn't realize who they were until at least a year later.
A friend of mine brought it to game night
Sometime after the EE edition had come out (but before the first expansion) I was over at a friend’s place for a games night. They pulled out Sentinels and I loved it immediately.
I didn’t actually buy the game myself until several years later. The reason was that another friend of mine picked up his own copy almost immediately after that game night. At the time, he stored all his games at my place, so I didn’t need to buy my own copy. But then 3 years ago he got married, and with both a bigger place and someone to play with, his game collection moved and I suddenly found myself Sentinels-less. I pretty much immediately purchased my own copy of everything released up to that point, sleeved it all (in penny sleeves!) and have been enjoying my own copy ever since. And with that same friend now living out of town, I even picked up the game on Steam so that we could more easily play together remotely!
I was hanging out with a friend of mine and her boyfriend brought the game over, I didn't really like him so I wasn't expecting the game to be great, but hindsight is 20/20. As for the game itself I played Argent Adept and we were against Voss.
The university I went to has a tabletop gaming club that meets roughly every other week (and runs a small convention every February that I've been a coordinator for since the 2013 edition). One week in October... it must have been 2013, because the villain was Miss Information... the club sponsor brought his copy of Sentinels and invited a few of us to play.
I proceeded to pick up the base set and what full expansions had been released (probably RC/IR and ST) at the next con.
I saw a copy in a game store. There was only one, so I thought, "Either this is a great game and they're almost sold out, or it's terrible and they have a ten-year-old unsold copy on the shelves." So I bought it on a lark.
I'm glad it was the former.
I went to play it at a club in london but the guy who had the game didn't show up that week. People there said they had played it and had enjoyed themselves. So ambled over to orks nest and picked up the Delux Edition core box. This would have been in 2013. I honestly can say I never looked back after that. My friends think I may have a bit of a problem. I laugh at them from my fort of sentinel cards.
Around the Shattered Timelines kickstarter I heard Christopher make rounds on a few podcasts. I knew my girlfriend (now wife) wouldn't like the art so I kept putting off serious consideration. When I finally decided to buy in I went to the kickstarter to discover it had ended the day before. Kicking myself I resolved to buy it when I could.
While waiting the three months until it came back in print I read the forums and any lore (which at the time was mostly the character bios,) each day so that by the time it arrived I was already in too deep. Three days after getting the core game I bought Rook City, the day after playing Rook City I bought Infernal Relics, and I haven't slowed down since.
If I hadn't said it before Sentinels was one of two games (the other being Chess,) that helped me considerably during two separate profesionally difficult times of my life: when I got the game I was working a seven-day twelve-hour-a-day job and a secret four hour per day job on top of that so that every day I was drained, irritable, and anxious. Sentinels let me focus on a small world I could engross myself in and allow the stresses of life to fall away for a half hour or so.
Was walking around at a local con 2013 and saw a comic book game in mid play. Hoped in as Chrono ranger (Someone had to go and left him on the table.) Played a card and a power before CC was KOed. Watch the game finish and had to leave.
The following year I hunted down for that game. Played a few game (Who knows what I played) and went to the world and bought it. Then preorder Wrath of the Cosmos. and been supporting ever since, even bought teh App game both on steam and my phone dispite all my complaining.
Summer 2015, I was bored and was searching a board game that I could play solo on Steam.
Never heard of it before, but it got me at 'Multiverse', I bought Season 1 without even playing the game once.
I was hooked ... not at first ... it was more a hate-hate relationship : The game villains played cards to make me lost, and I lose a lot. That was so unfair. But after a while, I discovered the Handelabra twitch, and learn to play better.
I though the game was great ... on a digital format. I couldn't imagine playing it with real cards because of all the bookkeeping. But a few monthes later, OblivAeon KS showed up and I decided to take the whole Multiverse. My way to thanks Christopher and Adam for their work with some money.
I received later the already published expansions, and since Vengeance wasn't on the video game yet, the only way I have to play it was the real cards.
So ... I played a first solo villain game : Miss Info vs the F5 Variants in the F5 Tower, then the Vengeful 5 vs F5 in celestial tribunal. And those games proved that I was wrong : Bookkeepings weren't that hard ... And so I played a lot of Vengeance game IRL before being able to do it on digital.
And now, I'm waiting for Obly and its pals to come to my house so I can feel the cards again. :)
I bought a lot of video games, they arrive, they went away, even AAA games ... SotM is the only one I kept playing regulary since I bought it.
Man, you we’re worried about bookkeeping and you jumped right into tabletop Vengeance? That’s definitely the deep end!
The year was 2011, either end of July or beginning of August. A few friends and i went to a table top store nearby, Table Top Game and Hobby for those curious. Sentinels of the Multiverse was the primary game that caught my eye, most other games that looked best were either way expensive or already owned by someone else. So if I was going to buy a game SotM would have been it.
I’m a very frugal person, so leaving without spending a fine would have been a perfectly valid option for me. So I did the most logical thing, flipped a coin.
It’s odd thinking that I probably would have never played it or even thought about the game again if the quarter would have landed on the other side.
A friend brought the got to play the game at Gencon, i think the year it came out. When the Rook City (and Enhanced Edition) kickstarter came out he got it and brought it to our game nights. I was hooked instantly. I missed the Infernal Relics Kickstarter and started a Wiki and a Statistics Project... all without having the game to own myself. When Shattered Timelines Kickstarter came about I got everything that was already available and haven't missed an edition since.
Wow. Given how involved you've been since the beginning, fate strikes me as capricious.
After I got done imagining how much it would have sucked to not have you involved, I started to think of all the people for whom the coin landed on the other side, whom we never got to know.
I saw it on the shelf at my parent's friend's house during a work party and was pulled in by the box art and superhero theme. 45 minutes later we had won with one hero standing at 1 hp. Soon after I aquired evrything availible for the game (pre-Wrath of the Cosmos) and continued to support and play since.
Christmas time 2014 I was looking for games I could play with my then 6 year old son, co-op was important, 2 player was important. Sentinels caught my eye but reports of the complexity discouraged me, and the fact it did not technically support 2 players, I decided to go with Castle Panic instead. Then I read some of the reveiews here: http://boardgaming.com/games/card-games/sentinels-of-the-multiverse?cpage=1#comments and got really excited and began to regret my decicion.
Christmas Day came and my parents bought us Castle Panic as well. That day I processed my return of the duplicate Castle Panic and purchased the Enhanced Edition. It arrived before new years and my son and I tried it out, I remember playing it on the floor in his room because the table was taken by others playing another game. We fought Baron Blade and then Omnitron and fell in love. I ordered Shattered Timelines on New Year's Eve 2014 (because Time Travelling Cowboy) and proceeded to get everything else since then. In fact I just picked up Wager Master, the final missing piece, it arrived 5 days ago.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I'm impressed your 6 year old could play it. My son just turned 10(today actually) and its only been in the last few months that his reading comprehension hit the level he needed to really play.
That’s probably the same TableTop that I frequent!
Overland Park, right?