What did you add to or removed from your shelf last month? (May, 2021)

I owned the original Artipia/Drawlab version of Project Elite. One of the worst Kickstarter's I ever supported, but the first few plays were a delightful novelty. The idea, or system itself, is actually quite clever.

The real irony, is that the melted blobs that were supposed to be alien miniatures actually served a great tactile purpose. That two minute action phase is so fast and furious. Those things were getting tossed all over the place. I hear you about standees. I'll always take standees over miniatures. But the thing here is that you would simply crush them after several plays.

The second great irony, is that when the game did finally have the opportunity to be resurrected and finally polished it went to CMON, who somehow managed to make it worse across the board, mostly via their insufferable exclusivity strategy and needlessly crippling price tag, but also through a severe crippling of card and scenario options. They did make the board slightly easier to read, so I suppose there's that.

A real, missed opportunity. That's basically Project Elite.

All of that said, the novelty is kinda worth eating a little shoe, honestly. I wouldn't give two thoughts to all the fomo extras or stuff they ripped out of the original game and would consider a core only purchase if you can find it below $75. Or even a used copy on teh BGG marketplace if you can find a reasonable seller. Maybe get your game group to go in together, knowing that it's gonna be a thing you consume together for several nights and then move on from. 4 folks tossing in 20 bucks each is a pretty harmless thing to do to experience a game that, despite it's incredible collection of flaws, is pretty damn unique in it's execution.

/r/boardgames Thread Parent