Dice Hate Me Games cancelled New Bedford on Kickstarter the first time, but we're relaunching it next week. All new artwork, same great game.
I don't always post my personal thoughts about new games that we Kickstart, but I love this game so much that I wanted to quickly write something up.
I enjoy "euro-style" resource management games like Puerto Rico and Agricola, but I generally feel that the space is quite full of very similar games, and am always disappointed by how little the theme of the game comes across in the mechanics and gameplay.
New Bedford fixes this for me to the point where it is now definitely my favorite game of this style. The decisions that you make about whaling (how far to go out, how many resources to put into your ships), as well as the slowly diminishing returns of overfishing, feel very appropriate to the theme. The art also contributes a lot to the period-appropriate feel of the game, much more so than many other resource management and building games of this type.
The strategy aspects of the game are also very fun. As a player, there is a tension between the desire to expend resources whaling vs. expanding your section of town, and there is room for a number of wildly different strategies. I have seen people win with well-executed strategies involving almost no whaling, and I have also seen very successful whaling-intensive strategies. The optimal strategy shifts depending on the strategies selected by other players, which makes every game different.
Anyhow, I hope that you'll take a look at the overview and gameplay videos once we post them, and I hope that you enjoy New Bedford as much as I do!
Paul, in your opinion as a Euro game enthusiast, where would you put the weight of this game in relation to Agricola (on the heavier side) or Puerto Rico? I too love Euro games but I find it harder and harder to find time to play heavy Euro games.
I'm not Paul, but I play one on the internet.
This game is probably, weight-wise, closer to Puerto Rico than Agricola. A little more thinky than Lords of Waterdeep, but less so than Le Havre.
And how does it compare to Dungeon Lords, the most flavor heavy Euro game I know?
Definitely lighter than Dungeon Lords. The theme is a little drier, but it is very thematic.
It looks like the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I just can't get past the whaling theme.
Not that I'm going to be one of those people who claims it's glorifying or encouraging whaling (it obviously isn't, and besides, if a person can be motivated to perform real-world activities by playing a boardgame with that activity as a theme we'd likely all be mass murderers by now), and I would in no way say it shouldn't be made or that people shouldn't play it. I'm totally cool with its existence.
But I don't think I personally could play it. Not that I want to get into a discussion about the morality of whaling, but the idea of this game makes me uncomfortable. And that's valid feedback, right?
Valid and recognised. We won't think less of you for not backing. The theme will not be changing, though.
I wouldn't want it to.
I certainly will take a look when the campaign starts. I have not played Agricola but I have played Puerto Rico which was entertaining.
In the orginal launch, all the buildings were appropiately named from New Bedford. Which I thought was really a very nice addition. Based on the promo with the new artwork, it appears that was removed and now it just says "church" instead of "Seamen's Bethel". Is that the case? I hope not.
To quote Jennifer, the graphic designer for New Bedford, when I asked her about this:
I can never bring myself to play any of these types of games with themes so dry they make you choke. I'm sure the gameplay is great, but I can't bring myself to care who catches the most whales or who can get the most for their whale oil in port, or whatever. If the theme sounds no more interesting to me than a rousing episode of Downton Abbey, my interest remains sadly un-piqued.
I wonder if SotM would have been the success it was if each deck represented a different village in pre-Revolution America, and everyone played cards representing negotiating with Indians and increasing their stores of beaver pelts to eventually take down the villain, the brutal Pennsylvania winter. Ooh, gotta play that one. ;)
I keed, I keed. I'm sure the game is lots of fun for whaling enthusiasts everywhere.
I know you're making a joke here, but I would play the heck out of that.
That's my family history. Quakers in central PA in the 1600s.
We won that game.
Congrats! 
It is successfully funded. Let's see how far it gets into stretch goals with 23 days to go.