All's Well That Ends: Discussion

0:09 Some viewers may find the following video disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

0:14 Hey everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked. And today I'm doing a discussion over All's Well That Ends. Couple of disclaimers. This was a review copy that was sent to me by the designer, uh Nick. And uh everything that you're seeing here or you saw on the two encounters and the one journey is prototype. Everything is subject to change. And again, these kinds of reviews are very kind of take with a grain of salt, tongue-in-cheek kind of thing because it's a prototype. And the Kickstarter isn't even uh set to go into isn't set to go live until October. So, I um So, I mean, I'm I'm going only off of what I have played. Which what I've personally played is two encounters and one journey phase. For those of you that watched the prologue encounter and journey, and then you I I had mentioned in the chapter one encounter, I was going to do a chapter one journey.

1:16 I ultimately decided not to do that for a couple reasons. One, I don't want to showcase a lot of the game. As far If I remember right, I think the game is Okay, 12 encounters and 10 journeys. Um the first act of the All's Wells All's Well That Ends campaign consisting of three combat encounters and two connecting journeys. So, the uh so if I had showed two full or three full encounters, that's a decent chunk of the game and I don't want to spoil anything for any for anyone. Um the second reason for that is because, again, a lot of things might change. So, it just it doesn't feel all that great to show all that much. And the journey phase is again still pretty much the exact same as the uh uh the first journey that you might have seen.

2:14 So, what do I think of All's Well That Ends? Well, first, I want to give a huge huge thank you to Nick for actually sending this to me. This was not even a game I was remotely aware of, and he reached out through email asking if I wanted to cover this based off of the fact that I cover a lot of campaign games on my channel. And he's like, "This is what the kind of uh the game is reminiscent of of Gloomhaven, Seventh Continent, Tainted Grail, things like that." Um so, obviously, I was extremely intrigued, but it was very nice of him to reach out to have have me cover this one. Unfortunately, I think fortunately, unfortunately, I do think that there's a lot to like in this game.

2:59 Um like I said, all those games that he told me this was similar to, I have played extensively. So, naturally, I'm going to be comparing it to those games and trying to figure out what sets it apart from them. Because if it's pretty much Gloomhaven with a different theme, uh I'm just going to play Gloomhaven. If it's like those other games, I'm just going to play them cuz they are well-established. You have to come in with campaign games nowadays cuz there's so many, you have to come in setting yourselves apart. And I think for the most part, he does. But, there you can definitely tell that this is coming from someone who, as far as I'm aware, is a first-time designer who is trying a little too hard to set himself uh apart from the others, and therefore putting in mechanisms that make the game more frustrating and more fiddly to play.

3:58 Um and there's no major well, there is a major I I do have a few major actual complaints with this one. If it came if this game came out right now and I was doing it as a series, I would not have continued. That's kind of how how big the issues I find this game to be. But the good news with that is I think that all of them can be uh they could be refined. Uh there's nothing here that is like, "Wow, this is unplayable. You need to basically scrap it and just make another game." None of that is here. So, if you're like me and you have played a ton of campaign games, even if you haven't played a ton of campaign games, I think there's a lot here that you would just kind of make you scratch your head or just outright find frustrating.

4:48 The rest of the game I think does a really cool job. All the characters are asymmetric. There's extra elements on on how you even deal damage to not how you deal damage, but how enemy health is managed. Um the fact that every like I mentioned every single character has their own unique uh kind of way to play and then the ways that they can level up, you kind of again do a similar aspect of of upgrading your tactics deck. The impulse deck is kind of interesting. The fact that your cards can be fast and slow, all of that stuff is different and and does set it apart. But I can't really go into any of that without talking about the major major major negative of this game.

5:40 And there's two ways you can actually look at this. The biggest issue is this game is wickedly unbalanced. I It is so un- It It's so unbalanced from a game that uh from all these other games that it virtually is unplayable if you do not have four players. And this was a and this was an issue that I had personally heard from other reviewers. Um so much so that they had to play their review copy with controlling four characters just to showcase, "Hey, this is the only way you can really play it." Um I being the contrarian wanted to set myself apart and just showcase the game at two.

6:30 Not because I was setting it up to fail. I didn't want to be sit here and go, "I'm playing it at two just to show that it's it's severely unbalanced." I wanted to play it at two. One, cuz if you want to watch a four-player game of the prologue, go watch Mike's video at the One Stop Co-op Shop and watch him succeed. Cuz he had played it multiple times with two and three and it just doesn't work. Um and I wanted to showcase it to be a little bit different. Maybe it's based off strategy or how it does the can- how does the scenario play out when you have less? Um So unlike other There are other games that just outright tell you you have to have this many players to play the game or you know, if you're playing Kingdom Death Monster or Aeon Trespass Odyssey, you're always controlling four um uh four whatever, four uh survivors in KDM or four uh Titans in ATO. But there's not that much.

7:30 They're not that asymmetric from one another, so you can do it. In fact, I prefer those games at two and you just control two two characters fighting one boss. Um this game does not tell you that. It does not say play with four characters. You have to play with all four. Uh, it just says it's solo to a four-player game. So, the biggest issue with this not working well at anything less than four fully [snorts] controlled characters is the fact that nothing about the the [snorts] scenario changes. And the only thing that changes is you have a little bit more potency. Which in this game potency is kind of the end-all, be-all for all your actions. So, it's your defense, it's your attack, it's your health. No, it's not your health. It's It's how much you heal. And luckily a lot of the game the cards will say do this equal to your potency.

8:26 So, it's not like you just have to remember all the stuff that potency means uh, or it contributes to. But, that's it. All you do your health is the same. The number of enemies is the same. Your objective is the same. So,

8:42 when you're in the in the first two scenarios when your first objective is to try and basically prevent the spawn points from from happening. And I knew exactly how you had to stop them. You just do not have the maneuverability. You don't get to do double actions if you're You know, some games are oh, you play with two seat in these other tokens or these other cards. So, everyone gets two actions. Uh, there's none of that. So, you don't have the You don't have the movement capability. Yeah, your attacks hit harder. So, you can kind of one shot some of the lower-level scrubs. But, even then the regular enemies, the hired uh, roadsman, those are the only ones that Groenak can kill.

9:29 Lambic can't one shot them. He goes from a two to a four. And Groenak goes from a three You only get two more potency. So, yeah, if they're not defending, I can run up and hit them, but I have to get to them first. If my [ __ ] cards, tactic cards don't come out and where I can move, or if they do come out where I can move, but I drew unfortunately my minus one movement, I can't even get to them to one shot them. And it's not like you have innate ways to heal yourself, so you can kind of just absorb, you know, take more damage, but you can kind of heal it back real real quick. So, the potency thing is absolute [ __ ] useless uh in in the lower player count game.

10:14 Because in a higher player count game, if you're playing a full four player counts, he has three potency. Okay, that means, you know, with some of my cards, I can do a four, that means I can go to a guard, and then anointed factor them and hit for three naturally, and that'll that'll rabble him, and then I can attack, someone else can come and attack him for cuz all you have to do is at least two to wound him. So, you just have more people who can do more. You can have someone kind of go and fight, you can have someone else run over and deal with an interactable. And even if the interactables were optional, even though with the prologue they are not, you were just basically going to get swarmed and killed. The biggest the other big issue is that like I said, you don't have the you just don't have the action economy to be able to manage how many enemies are just going to attack you. It is absurd. Literally, the prologue has everyone attack, and at the beginning, I mean, in a four player game, everyone would kind of get hit, which is kind of really shitty for an opening prologue, for your first introduction to a game campaign game, to punish you. That's not fun or fair to a lot of people. It's actually kind kind annoying of oh, the very first thing that happens is we get ambushed and attacked. Okay, cool. I'm already at I already lost health before I even got to do anything. I lost health. This is stupid. How do you heal?

11:42 Heal? What's that? No, that's not in this game. So, again, that's just a little "Hey, I'm trying to show them my world is brutal and harsh." Yeah, do that through descriptions and the storytelling, not through actual mechanisms. But then, you just get Oh, it's it's all of the Rangers turn. They're just all going to going to attack you. Yep, two damage each or one damage each. Uh and you have no How do you How do you defend? You need a card to tell you that you can defend. Again, if you're going to compare yourself to Gloomhaven, well, Gloomhaven, yeah, they can all attack you and there's a modifier deck that will potentially determine You could get hosed for all the archers attacking you, but you have the option in Gloomhaven to sit there and go Oh, okay, that's what five damage coming my way? [ __ ] All right, I'll lose this card. And I'm not saying take have this game and just make it Gloomhaven's mechanisms, but there has to be there has to be a rebalancing here. That alone, even with all the cool stuff I will get to, I had to stress all the negatives first because in my opinion, you can have all the great cool bells and whistles and new mechanisms, you can have all that be neat, but if your negatives are incredibly frustrating, I'm just not going to get to enjoy the rest of the stuff.

13:06 So, I mean, the biggest fix for if you don't want to have a an innate way to have damage I mean, potency again could have been some type of damage reduction. Have your resolve be some sort of damage reduction, just innate damage. If you're going to have anything like that. But if you don't want to modify any of that, then literally you have to take the Gloomhaven system cuz your board is already similar to it where it is based off number of players. Because if you're playing with four and you're seeing a picture on the Gloomhaven sheets that all the enemies are there. If it's three, then it's then some of these enemies are removed. If it's two, some of these more of these enemies are removed. So you just have the less enemies. That alone, I think would help significantly.

13:54 Um because as it is right now, it's it's unplayable unless you're yeah, outright controlling four characters. And with how these characters are so asymmetric, again, I I got to compare it mainly to Gloomhaven. I when I play Gloomhaven solo, I'm not [ __ ] controlling four characters. I'm controlling two. And even then, trying to sync up with actions and stuff is a lot to manage. And controlling four asymmetric characters is even more to manage. And not that ideal for, I would assume, a lot of people. And yes, there are ways you can make them kind of a a dummy character. But you miss out on a lot of what makes the characters really cool by doing that. It's not like you're doing the companion system from Oathsworn where they just kind of had an an action card and you would kind of have them roll dice where it was very simplified.

14:53 This game highlights its characters, but by just making it to where the scenarios are incredibly unfun. Um so that's the biggest one. The other one that I find a little frustrating is the fact of the matter with the plot points and the plot armors. So in the prologue, you obviously have no plot armors. You haven't done anything. But every plot point does something. And it's all bad. So, every single round, you're getting railed by some negative effect. And I find it to be incredibly overwhelming. The fact is that it's always something bad. Unless you know exactly how the scenario works, I'll take the prologue again for example.

15:44 If you know exactly, oh, in plot point two, this is going to spawn. I know how to prevent it from spawning, so I'm just going to rush to that. You know, you metagame it. I'm going to rush to this interaction point and and I'm going to stop it from that. So, unless you can meta and know exactly what the plot points do, then they're not that bad. But, if you are, of course, playing your campaign for the first time and you go to chapter six or whatever, oh, every single plot point does something bad for the most part. Um and a lot of it just feels cheap and hard for the sake of being hard. Oh, we're on plot point three, every anointed takes a damage. Why? Just cuz? Just because we didn't get the plot armor three token, who knows how? It It just Again, it feels designed to be against you, but not for any thematic or or uh or fair way.

16:46 And then, when you go through the journey phase and you get the plot armor tokens, those are just kind of as useless. They're extremely situational. Their only main benefit is the fact that, hey, you didn't have to deal with the negative consequence. But, the plot armor, in chapter one, one of my plot armors that I got was even more punishing. It was so incredibly unfun of a It's It's the equivalent of top decking a card that just says you lose. Um cuz in chapter one, spoilers I guess, your entire objective is to kill all enemies. And up until that point, you know, we were actually doing pretty well. I was thinking maybe the prologue was just kind of meant to kick your teeth in. And maybe it this I mean it's it's still pretty brutal and you have to have a lot of things go your way in chapter one. And then my plot armor in chapter one was Oh, spawn spawner an enemy at every single spawn location for them. Which is four. So, spawn four [ __ ] enemies at full health at eight damage, eight health.

17:59 Just just cuz. Round seven, spawn four enemies. Not that there was any way to stop that or you know, again, based off player count, it's still two of us. We've been fighting for an hour. Yeah, I had Gronax take down the the big bad of that chapter, the one who needed 14 total health. It was a cool self kind of self-sacrifice way cuz we only needed one enemy left to kill. And then oh, boom. Okay. Hey, we just spawned in. That is the most deflating [ __ ] event that you could have. It might as well have just said restart the scenario. You didn't you didn't you didn't win. And you might And again, the scenarios are fail forward, but that doesn't necessarily mean you always want to fail. It's just it means you don't have to redo it, but when you're so close to victory and you have you're halfway through it and it's just oh, no, four more enemies just kind of show up.

18:55 What? So, I don't like that the plot armors happen every single round. It'd be different if it was sporadic or uh or if you can kind of mitigate it in some way, but the fact is is you just know at the beginning of every round you're pretty much just going to get have something bad happen to you. And unless you find plot armors that aren't as bad, but still not really good, I don't find that to be a fun system either. Um the next thing that I kind of have an issue with is I think the death throws are a cool idea. And for the most part they are going to kill your enemy.

19:43 Okay, so I actually think there's only one card that doesn't. So Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so the death throws are a cool idea. Um but I do kind of think that they're a little bit just they're just a little bit more than what is naturally fun. Uh cuz every time you kill an enemy, you have to draw a death throw card. And nine times out of 10, it's going to kill the enemy and you're going to gain money. And in the prologue and stuff, I haven't really found a use for money. Uh or not the prologue, the prototype. Uh but money's there. It's similar to how Madara does it. You kill enemies, you just draw from a loot deck and sometimes it can be good, but literally it's just hey, get their money. It gives like it gives a fun description. This is what I like about it of you don't have to do theater of the mind. It kind of tells you how they're dying.

20:41 And sometimes it causes other enemies of their type to attack. The one card in that deck that I find the most annoying is they don't die. They're wounded and they run away. And while thematically that's neat, it's called a death throw card for a reason. So you know, putting in your one valuable attack to kill them and they're just like, oh, no, he's still wounded, Run away." Uh, it's like, "Oh, okay. Whatever." So, this could all be accentuated again because it's a two-player game or I'm playing it as a two-player game. So, well, we already win. Now, he's still around doing stuff. Uh, and then the death throws cannot be thematic because there are alien-type creatures.

21:28 And it doesn't make any sense whenever you're attacking a creature and it's talking about what a human reaction would do. So, assuming that there's going to be more types of enemies that aren't humanoid, I think there needs to be a separate death row deck for at least the animals or insects. Uh, and then the deck for the human ones if you're going to if they're going to keep that in. Uh, but overall, it's a cool idea. I just find it to be Sometimes, I just forget because you're trying to play the game and okay, finally, we got rid of him. Let's move on. Oh, no, wait. Got to stop and read the card. And eventually, you kind of get to a point where you no longer care about what it says and you care more about Did he die? At least that's how I was. I was drawing like, "Did he die? Thank god. Okay." So, neat idea. I haven't seen anything like that in a game, but maybe not something that ever really needed to be in one.

22:21 And then, the last thing on I've kind of merged more into things I I like mid things, positives and negatives. Uh, so far, the story is nonsense. It's a cool idea is that this is supposed to be Earth just, you know, thousands or like some catastrophic event sent everyone back to the medieval ages, but when you're reading the story, again, I was given the prologue. The prologue and the and the first few chapters. And when you're reading it, it is word diarrhea. Not not necessarily word diarrhea. It it doesn't just ramble on and on, but when it it does that unfortunate thing where you just you're you're given no context.

23:13 You have no idea where you're at, who you are, who these people are, and it's just it's just talking about stuff as if you've known your entire life. Um I made a comment while I was doing one of my one of the videos and I was thinking, is there a book? Am I It feels as if you had to have read a lore book. And I It almost feels as if that's going to be an add-on. So, while the world is intriguing and I want to know more, you're treating it as if I already know more and I find that to be where I just completely lose interest. I don't know who these characters are. I don't know what their reason is for being around. Um So, I can't I don't care about them. I I don't care about who they were, what their mission is, what their why they're in this situation, what the world is.

24:10 And it's not as if I can find that stuff out. You know, that era of Dark Souls type storytelling, that's gone. That [ __ ] sucked back then and it's it's only the sweaty nerds who really get into it. That's why Elden Ring and Sekiro are so beloved because people didn't have to scour item descriptions to figure out what the hell was happening. Not that you have to do that here, but what I'm saying is whenever you're walking around and they're treating things like the sky serpent and Maman Conda's eye as if that's the most common thing anyone has ever talked about. No. No, that's horrible. So, set the stage. Let us know like you need to ease us into what the [ __ ] is happening because otherwise this is going to be yet another fantasy setting with just nonsense being splattered around that is going to make just make the it's you're you're having characters shout things out that is nonsense. Like literally, um where at least all plot points.

25:20 Uh man, I could have could have sworn that there there was one from uh from America. Oh, yep, here it is. Yeah. Um America's blood scorches her veins at the Manhunters' words. Blood she will never again shed for the house. Hell home's tenure under your yoke is over, sworn man. I have seen the work you've wrought. It ends here. Tam on Shod. What? What do you What house? Who are you? And yeah, there could be elements later where we get more backstory, and it kind of all falls into place, but with the game not being that long with 12 12 encounters, you're going to it just feels as if it it just is incoherent. So, while the story can be very intriguing, I also I kind of would have liked it to be Oh, well, you're saying it's Earth, but yet it's pretty much it's not because you've talked about nothing that has any uh relation to our actual planet. So, it might as well not be Earth. It might as well just be another fantasy realm.

26:32 Uh so, yeah, it's the way the story and I I got to praise him because it's not AI. Uh it's not AI writing. There's no AI voiceover or anything. So, it is his writing. So, again, that could all be fixed. It could be just rewritten in a way or given something at the beginning to kind of ease us in to who these characters are and what the what what what the goal is. Um so yeah, that is that is that. The other thing is the calling these prac- praxis? Yeah, these praxis tiles. Uh I don't know how I feel about these yet. They are tied to Well, they're not necessarily tied to a character um as far as I can tell. Oh yeah, it is the starting one. So you can change these.

27:24 You do start with one. So Gronax starts with the Zeal Breaker. And it's kind of um it's not even really competitive cuz it doesn't make you do anything different. It's just hey, if you met this condition, you get a calling, but you are kind of competing on whoever got the most calling. It's like I got more calling than you, so I don't get a trauma, so but you do. And from my understanding, the calling and the trauma tokens are meant to just indicate what happens to your character at the end. I obviously don't know much about that. Uh I can take it or leave it on the calling. Again, it's not something that's making you choose to do something that can kind of dick over your uh your uh teammates. Um but they're just weird. And they're also tied to your level up. So whenever you level up, you will pick a column, and some of the columns will be hey, you get more health, you get a you get a more uh tactics card, you get more health, you get more uh uh input you get an impulse card. Or at once, you can get a tactic and a certain item.

28:29 Cuz it's all kind of tied to who your character is. And then eventually, you can change your praxis or whatever. So uh that's kind of obviously stuff I haven't messed with. I don't know how I feel about the calling and the the taint. It again feels like something that was thrown in to just differentiate itself. Okay, so those are all the negatives or potential, you know, mid things. Now, let's get to the positives. Okay, so like I said, the positives uh mainly rely around the characters, I think. Um but before I get to that cuz that's where a lot of the uh like the crux of the game is, let's go ahead and talk about the enemies when they're not actually swarming you and causing you to lose immediately.

29:18 I think that the way the enemies are ran are actually it it's pretty different because whenever you take a look at what the enemies are, they have three statuses that they can be in. They can be rattled, they could be wounded, and then they could be dead. And that's a pretty clean way to manage the all the enemies. I mean, it's a little fiddly uh in the prototype anyway because they're all in just standees. So, I'm hoping that in the final version, if you get if they do standees and miniatures, at least with the standees, I hope the stands have like a little uh clip in the back that all you have to do is take the uh you know, take the token that is applied to them and you slot it in. And for many of them, I hope their base has a similar thing, which is easily doable.

30:07 Um but I really like that. I think it's a nice thematic way to have the enemies be in a different state and a better way than to manage just a health pool, you know? Instead of saying that each hired roadsman has five health, they have different variations of what it takes to actually get them into a state. Hired roadsman, for example, you just need to do one damage to get them rattled. And it's an all or nothing kind of thing. So, which some people might like, some people might not. But for example, if you only do two damage to a hired roadsman, all you're going to do is rattle them because it takes uh three total damage to get them wounded uh cuz it's one damage to rattle them, two to wound them, and then two more to kill them.

30:54 But, the nice thing is is you don't have to do each step all at once, which is nice. So, if you can do three or four damage, you just outright wound them. And then if you do five damage, you just kill them. And I really like this. I think this is a cool way to differentiate what the enemies are going to do uh because sometimes you might not be able to kill them, but you can at least get them into a state where they might not be all healthy and and gun ho to try and attack you. Where it also gets kind of interesting, and this is again probably personal preference cuz I've heard people say that they like the one intent deck um versus the way Gloomhaven does it where every single enemy has their own deck.

31:42 Although, I've used the app the companion app for Gloomhaven for so long, I don't even remember what what it's like to manage their individual decks. I personally like the enemies to have a different deck. It sets them apart from everyone. It feels less random because it's not just oh, here's one card. Oh, it's the really bad one, so every enemy is going to be OP. Um but, I think for simplicity, it it works. So, with the intent deck, again, it's a lot simpler. You just draw one card, and it's oh, okay, it's the hired roadman. Let's see what they're doing, and then you look at the state of each one, and okay, well, that one's wounded, so all he's doing is uh well, actually, in this case, it's the worst card you could draw, but okay, he's going to move, he's going to attack, and then he's going to uh defend himself or run away.

32:37 Um and what I mean by the worst one is the intent deck is modified based off of numbers. So, there's 18 cards in this deck, uh I believe. Yeah. No, sorry. Yeah, 18. I just saw a nine, thought I saw 19. There's 18 cards in this deck and the weak it goes weakest to strongest. So, number one is like the weakest they could get and number 18. So, it is kind of swingy that even if they're wounded, let's say every single enemy is wounded, well, nope, they're actually still all moving and attacking. So, you actually gain nothing for wounding them. Uh I mean, again, it is simpler and you know, more often than not, they're not going to do much. Sometimes, if they're wounded, they're going to attack for less and then run away. Sometimes, they'll just do nothing.

33:28 Sometimes, if they're rattled, they will just do nothing. Uh sometimes, they'll just move. A lot of times, it's going to be them doing their green augment ability, which for a lot of them is mainly kind of healing themselves or running away. Uh but, they also have an affliction attack that is all very bad. And uh

33:48 [sighs and gasps]

33:48 I don't know. The more I talk about this this deck, the more again, I feel like it is overwhelming because if you have five, [snorts] or in this case, you have four unanointed factorums and you happen to draw the card that says, "Oh, if you're within range of them, then they're just going to do their belt daggers." And every single one of them is just going to do a two damage attack that you can do nothing about. And in a game where it could just be one person standing next to them, oh, great. All right, I have I mean, that's all they would be doing is their belt daggers if you're within range. But, it it does feel that the enemies are there's no way to kind of kite them.

34:34 There's no way to kind of put yourself in a better position cuz you just have no idea. I mean, you could look through the entire deck and because you know there's 18 cards, you could look at it and think, uh like look through the discard pile, sorry, and think, oh okay, well, they've already done their 18 and they've done this and so it might reward you with more frequent play, but there's no way to ever say, oh good, all the enemies are wounded. They're not going to do much. They're so close to death. So again, I like the way that you manage their health. It is thematic where if you grapple them, they might just kind of be shook shook up or they might get scared. They might run away. It It is different and I do I do think that that's cool. I really would have probably much preferred not a single deck. I think this this system would have been way cooler if you had still the rattle, wounded, and dead, but each type of enemy still reacted differently. Let's say it's a animal type creature. I'll just say a bear.

35:42 Let's say you you know that saying of a trapped animal or wounded animal in the corner is is more dangerous. Let's say that you're fighting a bear and you have it wounded, but now it's actually more aggressive because because of that. You're now you're cornering it. It's fighting for its life. It has that animalistic instinct. That's what it's going to do versus a ranger, an archer that is not used to getting rocked. So if you're wounding it, then yeah, it's mainly going to try and run away and heal itself. Which again is what their augment abilities kind of do, but the fact of the matter is you just have no control over what all of the enemies virtually feel as if they're the same ones. Yeah, they have different stats and different health pools, but because of the shared deck, well, because of the shared intent deck, they're all still just going to feel as if oh, okay, they're all attacking or they're all running away.

36:44 It It doesn't feel as if they're that different from one another. Uh the game does have bosses. Obviously, I didn't show any of that, but in the rules, the bosses kind of work very similar. It's just they have a larger health pool and they ebb and flow between different states and they get buffs to their stats. I think one of I think there is a boss card in here. Um so, let's say it has 20 health. It's okay, three damage to rattle them, then whatever it might be and then they'll go down uh a list of stuff, but then when it hits a certain threshold, its um potency might go up. Its movement might start going up. So, their stats will uh slightly change. Uh so, yeah, I mean, I guess not necessary I mean, it's more it leans more positive than negative. I just kind of wish that as I as the more I talk about that the intent deck wasn't as swingy and that the enemies really did feel more different from from one another.

37:45 And who knows, I don't know how many uh enemies there are going to be in this game. I don't know if it's all going to just be humanoids or cuz all all I have are, you know, the anointed factotums, the hired roadsmen, the Norodin man hunters, and the little creature things. I already forgot what they're called, but But yeah, so, kind of tied in with the death throws, it's sometimes it's just kind of weird when you kill them and then the intent deck, they it's a sporadic on what they do. Um so, more positive cuz it's different, but I feel as if I was as the longer I was going through the campaign, the more annoyed I think I would get with the intent deck. Um but again, managing the the how that health works is is done very well.

38:36 So, then we go to the characters, and this is again the coolest aspect of the game. So, whenever it comes to a character, they all do play radically different from one another. Every character has their own ability sheet, and it shows you what starting abilities they have and what they can learn. Um I think the biggest difference for your character is the impulse deck. The impulse deck is something kind of interesting is it's actually done before anyone gets to take a turn, and I like the impulse deck more if I was playing with other people. So, whenever you're drawing your two impulse cards, you get two of them, and you have to decide, I mean, these two suck. Um but you have to decide, okay, am I going to try to attack really heavily this turn? Let me look at my tactics cards and see what my options are. Um it's like, okay, I'm going to I'm playing Lambic. I'm actually going to do a lot of uh horror and insight um abilities.

39:40 [snorts] So, I'm not going to attack. I'm going to take this one that lowers my potency by two, and then you hold on to one. So, the discard ones are going to be gone for the entire encounter, but the held ones you will get to they'll cycle. So, there might be some that you draw that are really good, just not good for the position you're in, so you can save it for later. I like the impulse deck. I think it's neat. I mean, and that can be upgraded as well. So, when you level up, like the Zeal Breaker, for example, is oh, okay, I'm going to choose this first column that gives me plus one health, a tactics card, and an impulse card. So, eventually you're going to get to the point where you have a lot of good impulse cards that can go towards a build. I don't know how many. I hope that there's a big variety in ways you can build. Again, similar to Gloomhaven, how the characters can go down different build paths. I don't want the Oh, Gronax is the the shoulder charge guy, and that's all he can do. You want some variety within your your asymmetric powers.

40:43 Um But, I think it's neat. I think that you start off kind of weaker. There's There's good uh impulse cards in here. And some of them are obviously they lean actually towards your uh praxis praxis tile. And from [snorts] what I remember reading, I think these can change. So, over the over the course of the game, you can actually change out your praxis tile and give yourself um a different type of impulse deck. But, that's also kind of cool cuz you get to seed what the impulse uh card is before you get to see what the round is. And And that's pretty neat. It is different. I haven't seen anything like that. But, then you go to the tactics cards.

41:29 And I really like the tactics cards. I think this is a very uh very efficient way. Again, it's Sometimes it's weird. Sometimes you'll draw a card that says, "Oh, I have two two uh actions on here that are three movement. Why would I pick both of those?" Well, obviously you'd pick it so you can move six, but that's all you would be doing on your turn. Um But, the fact is that you will be drawing cards equal to your resolve. Your resolve is essentially your hand size. There are There is a part of me that doesn't really like the uh category um like the naming conventions, how potency is really your damage, your your healing capability.

42:17 Um but then you also have your your influence does kind of make sense, how far out you can interact with certain things. Your health obviously is your health, your range is your range. Um and oh god, Lympics range is two. I just kept treating it as if it was one. I don't think it would have mattered at all. Um but then your resolve is essentially your health but not your health, sorry, it's your hand size. Uh I don't know if there's ways to increase that. If there are ways to increase your resolve to where your hand size can be four or five just to give you more options, then that would be neat. But as such, it is typically reserved to three and it can go down. Um but I like having that hand of three and you being able to look at your hand and decide which one do you want to do a focus turn, which one do you want to do?

43:08 Uh and they're all tied into your abilities. I think the wording could be a little bit cleaner cuz for a while there I was thinking Groenak could only do certain actions if he could lose a defend token cuz his uh his plow ability says lose your defend token, move to and then it tells you, you know, what it does. And I did kept thinking, "Oh, I can only do that if I lose my defend token." But then it clicked all of a sudden that "Oh, if I have a defend token, I'd have to lose it cuz this is considered an attack. I can't have a defend token and plow through a bunch of people and still keep my defense." Oh, that's the other thing. Your your potency is based off of how strong your defense is. But I think it's cool. I I mean, and this also is something that would be modified based off of your when you're leveling.

43:55 Um again, similar to Gloomhaven, whenever you level and you choose a tactics card, you would go up to level two in this case. But what the The difference is is you don't have to keep a uh you don't have to keep the same number of cards. So, Lambic has 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 has 10 cards. That's not his deck size. It's not Oh, it's level I have to pick a level two and I put in here and I have to get rid of a level one. There are ways for you to call your deck, but that's another that's a different type of upgrade that you would have to choose. In fact, if I'm looking at the Occulted, does he have it? He does He does actually. If he chooses his second column, he would increase his health, gain an impulse, and then get to purge a card. He wouldn't get a new one, but you can eventually try and do some deck building.

44:48 And these are really cool. Originally, whenever I was reading the rules, I wasn't sure how I felt about the blood splatters on here. I think those could be a little clearer. Not necessarily the rampage, those are pretty deep and dark red, but whenever it comes to kind of a surge ability where in this case, if I want to do fit vicious slash and then do crush the will, then I get this modifier. The the line is not super clear. Again, all prototype could be could be cleaner. But that's the cool part about the characters is not only if you do a basic a basic focus action, I'm just going to move six. All right, whatever. But on a later turn, oh, I could do a vicious slash with an attack plus one and then I if I do crush the will next, that means my crush the will, my horror, or what was it called? My smother ability is my potency plus one. So, if my potency is six, I can look at someone who has seven health that would just outright kill him and he's just dead.

45:52 That's that's really cool. And that's where a lot of the asymmetry comes in is with these abilities. So, Lambic, for example he has insight where he can give someone an augment token equal to his potency that they can now spend to increase their potency by that amount. That's really neat. The horror, [snorts] you choose a combatant within your influence and cause them to flee. So, that means they can run away and potentially get in a position where someone who couldn't move uh the enemy's right next to them. Or maybe they couldn't move all that far. So, these abilities do allow for some really cool uh cooperation between players, where if I choose my zeal breaker uh where my movement's minus one, and the only movement I have in my hand is a move two, well, now I can only move one. It's like, I can't get to anyone. Oh, well, wait a minute. I can do this ability that can cause them to flee, and they're going to move seven. So, now they're just running and we'll just have them run away from me right next to you. You know, things like that. That could be really, really neat. And then the other really cool thing that I have never seen is the rampage stuff.

47:05 It doesn't happen all the time, but I think this is one of the coolest things where if you have an opening, a sustain, and a closing uh set in your hand, you can just do a rampage turn, and now play all three of your cards for this attack. So, it could be, "Okay, he's going to move three, and then I can do a crush the will at a plus one, and then do a uh shimmering form, which would let me defend at a plus one, and then my closing is somewhere. Oh, it might be in my hand. Yep. And then I can end it on a creeping fear. So, you know, that's just something that one character that Lambic is able to do. Gornak could do a move and let's let's see uh I can do this, I can do this, and then sure I can just end it on this. Let's say we were able to draw. I play up I use a item that lets me draw a card. He can move two he can move two plus one cuz you only get the extra one if you actually are using it in a rampage. So normally if I'm not using it in a rampage it's just a move two. But I can move three, then I can do a backhand of an attack minus it would be minus one but it's actually at a plus one.

48:25 Um with the with an order. So he can move and then get closer to the people in his influence to cause them to attack. And then I can do another attack with a draw and oh man so I'm doing moving doing an attack ordering someone else to attack do another attack and then oh man I drew into another uh sustain and you can slot these in yourself you can actually interrupt your rampage by using items and your weapons and stuff. Uh oh man I drew into another sustain let me slot this in and now I can do another move two that lets me draw which might not matter for him right now but later on you could do it. And then I can close it on a plow at a plus one um damage. So now my potency is five in the two player game now I can move around and you know land next to someone and use my ranch matic to deal damage to someone who I'm adjacent to instead.

49:21 The rampage is a very oh here are more cards I have a different closing. I did actually where I could have done a shoulder barge where I you basically pick someone up and throw them and they deal they get take damage that way.

49:33 [snorts]

49:34 It it is a very very cool system again something I have never seen before that isn't going to happen all the time but you could actually over the course of the campaign build it to where you can kind of get some really badass or overpowered uh rampage if you can get the the card draw. But sometimes you might not have to if you or you might not be able to if your resolve is too low. As of right now, the rules are kind of contradictory cuz it says to do a rampage, you need an opening, a sustain, and a closing. But then later on it says that you can have any number of sustain including zero. So, I don't know if you're supposed to have all three but or if you can have a rampage where it's an opening and a closing. I don't know yet.

50:24 But if your resolve is essentially not three, you're not going to be able to rampage. Um but I like the idea that you can just keep continuing to sustain that rampage that make you really, really powerful. I don't know if there's ever a situation where you really wouldn't want to do a rampage if you're able to. But that's uh it's still a really cool a really cool um system that's put into this game. And then the other thing that I think is really neat cuz I love it in um Spirit Island is that your cards are either fast or slow. So, the one that you choose to play is going to determine whether or not you're going before everyone or going after everyone. And this is a little bit of a double-edged sword because if you're going faster than everyone, so let's say it's like I'm going first in turn order and my first card is a fast card. But then everyone else does a fast card, it's almost like the the stack ability in Magic where it's first in, last out. So, hey, I did a fast card. Okay, cool. I'm going fast next turn. Oh, wait. All the enemies also went fast, so they're all going before me. Great. I guess I didn't go fast or they went faster. So, it doesn't really matter sometimes, but there are times where you almost kind of want to alternate, where you go slow, then you go fast, then you

51:56 go slow, and then you go fast, so that whenever you do go slow, all the fast people are going before you, so that when you go fast, you'll be before them. It, again, I feel like there could be some tweaking there. Um it is it is somewhat cleaner than just a flat-out initiative, again, how Gloomhaven does it, where you pick two cards, and then you pick one of them to be your initiative, and then it's just, you know, highest number, or lowest number to highest. So, if I have a four, that means I'm going to guarantee go before everyone. I see why he was not trying to copy that, cuz again, I don't want this game to be, you know, Gloomhaven just with, you know, a different setting.

52:43 [snorts]

52:44 So, I think the slow and fast abilities are also kind of more tailored to certain characters. Grognak, for example, has one, two, three. He has three cards that are fast. Everything else is slow. And, you know, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So, he has nine cards that are that are again, that are that are slow. And if we take a look at Lambic, he has one, two, three, four, five. He has five cards that are fast. And so, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. He has seven cards that are slow. When we look at the enemies' intent deck, I believe I counted it it's it's nine and nine.

53:30 There are nine slow and nine fast. So, again, it's just kind of a crap shoot on when the enemies are going where. Again, I think an intent deck for every single enemy would just make it better, because you would just know, "Oh, the hired roadsmen are archers. They're going to probably be a little bit quicker. They might have some slow cards in there, but you could easily just make an intent deck for every single enemy. And instead of having 18 cards for the entire deck, you could do 10 cards for each enemy, differentiating them even more. You when you go to fight them, let's say it's wolves for example. Oh, wolves are pretty fast. So, out of their 10 cards, they might have eight that are fast and two that are slow. Again, giving you some kind of knowledge on what you're actually fighting versus I don't really know what they're going to do. Every single time I fought or fight something in here, it's just been I Who cares what what's happening with them? I'm just going to draw and hope.

54:29 But, the still you can still look at the round tracker and think, "Oh, okay, cool. Yes, the uh anointed fact totems and the hired roadsmen have all done fast abilities. Well, now it's our turn. Okay. Well, then we should hope Again, you have to hope you drew into it, but yay, I did draw a fast one. So, let's go ahead and just do this one. I'm going to play my fast so that I move down before them and I can, you know, maybe move to and attack them. So, that next round, uh I can save up and do my really my my repeated pummel that lets me do an attack at plus two or something. You'll get to go before them. Um and you can kind of coordinate potentially with all the enemies and your other players.

55:19 Very neat. Uh very neat idea. I think it's again a more simplified version of just taking an initiative card. Cuz he could have easily just taken this instead of slow and fast and just give you an arbitrary number that Okay, whichever card And it I I to be fair, if they did an initiative and he was still trying to keep the fast and slow system, it would be kind of annoying that you'd have to All right, my card was a 17 initiative. And the hired roads men, what were they again? Okay, so I played 17, their card is a 23. Okay, so that means they're going after me. It it would muddy up the the initiative track. So, I kind of get it. You're either fast or you're slow. And if you go fast first, then you're going to go fast last, which I don't really like, but I don't and I can't even really thematically tie it in. It's just I guess they went more recent.

56:17 Um and I guess if you were always going fast and they kept it the other way where hey, I went fast before everyone, therefore I'm going to be going fast before everyone again, it does kind of seed it differently. Um and I don't even mind the initiative track being random at the beginning cuz at least it's not random every single time and it's not random uh you know, and it's not uh sorry, static every single time where this is it's random, now it's just doing the same thing every turn. So, yeah, the fact that the characters have their own uh um like innate passive ability uh like Lambic's is you do not discard unspent brace tokens. And the brace tokens are nice uh to have. They can sometimes they can be spent in Lambic's case with his weapon, he can spend it to increase the range. And there's ways to actually get the items back.

57:14 Um and then if you do kind of get hosed on initiative you and you have ways to get brace tokens, then you can just spend them to kind of hop initiative. Either you could go slower if you actually kind of need to see what someone's going to do, then okay, well, great. Then I'll just spend a brace token to move one back. But then my in my experience in games like Gloomhaven where you get an initiative track, I don't think I've ever really modified it to where I was going after someone. But it could just be at the characters I've played. Uh but yeah, I really like the rampage system. I like the the combo abilities of I'm going to do shocking strike then unshakable dread where I get a brace token for doing this. Everyone's cards do feel different. Uh the abilities are cool. The leveling up of course I haven't interacted with but I know how it works of being able to only take one thing. You can choose three columns but really [snorts] like you have something you can only choose once in this case for him it would be increase his health and he would get item number 26. The practice can change the way you level up where you can potentially increase your stats.

58:25 And then of course you have different ways of uh or different slots to hold cards. You can hold either a one or two-handed item, an armor, and then up to two items. And the items are all pretty good. Oh look, serenate bile regain health equal to your potency. Um the other thing I the other thing that's kind of weird about this game is when your character goes down to zero health and you're dazed. Uh The the fact that you can still move around. I don't know which I prefer. If I prefer you to just be removed from combat or if the fact that you can move around and go the loot.

59:12 I'd probably prefer the moving around to go the loot cuz you're not a target and I remember something in the rules of you could be targeted cuz they're actually just trying to outright kill you. Um but I think that's if everyone's dazed then they just look around and see you doing the the Gears of War or whatever the the AI dragging yourself. Uh they just will eventually go to finish you off, but you could, if you're dazed, eventually move over to a chest and you open it up and then uh you draw two loot things and then one of them's a one ally within your influence range health equal to your potency. So, it's okay, that's kind of nice. So, we can try and move up and I can heal you and get you back in the fray. But again, in a two-player game, four health is not really going to do anything. All the enemies are just going to swarm you.

1:00:02 But at least you're still able to kind of do something and there's nothing really in in around that you're not timed. I guess you are kind of if you last uh in the in the chapter one objective, it was essentially, if you don't kill everyone by round 12, you just lose. Whereas in the prologue one, it was uh you you could win by surviving six rounds even though that wasn't happening in the two-player game. But yeah, I I think the characters are probably the best part of this game. Everything else uh this game does, in my opinion, have some major issues, some major issues that need to be worked out, but they all can be worked out.

1:00:50 And I will say, if none of that is fixed, I will be hard passing on this game. But I think if they're worked out, if the game is rebalanced, uh then I think this could be a pretty a pretty unique one. But as of right now, I'm not 100% sold on it. It's it's it's some some decisions were made that I think are weird and interesting decisions. But the things that work, I think are really cool. I think that the the And I again, I don't really know what Obviously, money is used to buy items, but Um so, yeah, the characters are easily the best part. And then, we go to the journey phase.

1:01:37 Again, it's a double-edged sword. I think the journey phase is unbalanced for number of players, again, because some of the numbers are that you have to get are insanely high. And some, based off what I understand on the rules, you have to have certain characters to be able to even complete on a quest. When you can look at it and think, "Oh, we need that icon and that ability. None of the characters here have that. So, guess we can't do it. So, you need four people again." But then, your potency isn't as high. So, if you need an eight potency, that means you kind of need to draw well and then have other people also support you. Unless it's just a misunderstanding of the rules and you don't need those icons and they're just there to help you in if you don't draw well. Like, if you need an eight to succeed on the quest and you drew six, but the other icons are there so that someone else can support you and hey, I drew my I drew my insight icon and the gnome's there and he uh draws his, whatever that icon is called, then yeah, they both can add one, there's your eight and it's done.

1:02:54 Or, if you just have a potency of five and I drew two attack cards and that's there's my 10. Okay, well then great, I was able to do it myself. So then, it might benefit having less people, but again, that's not balanced, that's not fun if you're playing with four and you just can't succeed. Um the journeying is fine. Again, that kind of ties a lot into the story where it feels like I should have the story feels as if you're in season two of a show and oh, I I've been watching season one this whole time. So, it's just saying random stuff that makes no sense. Um so far the journeying is kind of lackluster. When you go to do a check and hey, I succeeded and oh, okay, I got to increase my resolve.

1:03:44 It's at max. Yay! And then you if you failed, nothing it there's no punishment. It's just oh, continue your journey. You want to give your journey phase a reason to actually go out and explore or put a bunch of effort into trying to hit those high check numbers. And if you do it, but yet the reward feels as if it was a low check, it's like why was this an eight? I got nothing for it even though I succeeded. This should have been a two or it should just be a question mark. Why that with all this effort into getting nothing for it. It's no different than whenever I just had no interest in exploring in Madara because it was always oh, let's go over here to the to the the non-beaten path and oh, more enemies. That was our reward for doing that. Never doing this again.

1:04:34 So, it's simple, it's fast uh and I mean, I guess you a lot of your rewards are are the uh plot armor tokens, but as we saw in chapter one, [ __ ] you for getting the plot armor tokens. I don't know. The journey phase I'm not 100% sold on. It it feels again as if it was like Seventh Continent stuff, which I'm not a fan of that. Stars of Akarios also does that similar stuff, but there was no real Well, I haven't played Stars of Akarios since the it was re- redone. But, I do like the sense of the exploration of moving from from tile to or token to token. I guess it's not really token, from card to card. And the backs of the cards are your storytelling.

1:05:24 But yeah, it's just so far I'm not captivated by it. I I don't know if it has a lot to do with the narrative and how it's just like, what is happening? Um And whenever you have something like this where there there is an initiative track, but yet you have a single party marker. So, you still have turns that you have to take. But yet you can't diverge from the path. It's either, "Hey, let's go left." You know, if the options are left or right. "Okay, let's go left." And we all have to agree to go left, even though it's my turn. So, I guess you could easily have it to where it's my turn, and I'm going to choose to go right, and then I'm going to move us right.

1:06:14 I don't know if I would have just done without the round track. Just have everyone decide what they want to do, and then do the free form seventh continent [ __ ] of, "Okay, well, who wants to go look at that? Who wants to do this?" And then everyone can decide when they want to move on, instead of it being kind of my turn, here's what we're doing kind of situation. And then interacting with stuff, completing quests, succeeding or failing, tied around again to your calling. I know this kind and especially in the two-player game is, "Oh, I went fast, and you went slow because it's Lambic and Gronak's, and I have more fast cards." "Okay, well, I guess my fast turn is going to kind of be to scout."

1:07:00 Cuz that's all I can really do. We've done everything here, so it's my turn to scout, so I'll scout. And then, "Oh, look, Gronak's gets to do it a quest cuz we're on the new tile." It doesn't lend itself to being very fun for some people in a short with the round track the way it is. Unless you just decide, "Well, I'm not going to scout. I don't want to scout. I I'll rest so that you're forced to scout on your turn. We'll just waste a round to actually do any of this." It It just feels weird, and then you have this competition again of trying to succeed on quests so that I don't get another taint so I can try and do my positive character's ending. It's Yeah, the journey phase I I just wasn't a huge fan of overall.

1:07:49 And I don't know. It I almost would have much rather had it be just the encounters and not have to really deal with the the journey phase, but I know a lot of these games taught like to have that that separate element of here's story mode, and now here's fight mode. Um Yeah, and then also sometimes, based off how you know, it feels based off the way what I've played, that you just kind of keep failing because the the positive the subsequent goal in chapter one relied on you winning the prologue. So, because you don't win the prologue at all if you don't have the right player counts, well, then you're kind of punished for the second one because well, we didn't win scenario one, therefore we can't even do better in scenario two or get rewarded or try to do better for scenario Well, I guess Yeah, for chapter two.

1:08:49 Um So, yeah, I'm not I'm not the biggest fan of that, and it it just again doesn't come together as a nice cohesive element where I'm both enjoying the combat and I'm enjoying the journey phase. So, yeah. I mean, again, the journey phase isn't bad. It's and I can't even really think of anything to make it better besides not having the round track, just having players decide, you know, who wants to do what so that you can feel like a group. And yeah, okay. Yeah, the guy playing Noman, go ahead. Go ahead and just do that instead of, "Oh, well, it's not your turn yet and I'm going to choose the quest."

1:09:35 Um yeah, and it's just it it remove the round track uh from it or the initiative. Just have a round track. Have I get it, that's the way that they determine when the round's over, but just don't make it a pace the thing. Let people kind of enjoy living in the world that you've created and investigate. Have the freedom to investigate instead of being rushed along like, "Nope, nope, I need you to get I need to get you over here. Like, don't look at everything. You can't look at everything. I need to get you to this [ __ ] city." Just let people enjoy the world and and and choose to go at their own pace in the journey phase and have the freedom to kind of have someone interact and then if they need assistance on a check that we can assist on the check instead of, "Well, not your turn, so I'm going to do this and I'm going to make you scout because I we've already done all the quests here."

1:10:34 And I guess remove the stupid calling part. May- like, that's such a weird competitive nature of like, "Well, I don't want a bad ending for my character, so I'm going to try and succeed on every single quest I can do and not even give you a chance." It's just this weird competitive element that I don't think needs to be in here. But, that's just that's It's me. Um that's pretty much it on my thoughts on All's Well That Ends. And again, I know this is all a prototype. I know everything here is subject to change. Although in my experience most things don't change, especially cuz by the time review copies are coming out the Kickstarter is about to go live. And to be fair uh the game's, you know, even after the Kickstarter if it's if it's successful or not then you still have about a year and a half or something before it's even fulfilled.

1:11:34 So it could easily be changed throughout the design process. I don't know if any of my complaints or suggestions are going to be taken into consideration at all cuz I'm just one guy. I could everything I'm bitching about here could easily just be like everyone else could love it. So uh this could easily just become a campaign game that is not for me. And that's perfectly fine. Uh it could be for someone else. But yeah, that is my thoughts on All's Well That Ends. Overall the bones here I think are good. I think it needs a decent amount of reworking. I both just to summarize, the balance 100% needs to be reworked.

1:12:24 Um I think it'd be the story while not needing to be reworked needs to be fleshed out so people know who the [ __ ] their characters are, what the world is, what is happening, what our goals are. Um and then the scenarios probably need to be more balanced out, maybe a reworking of the journey phase. Things I would like to see are I think the death throws deck should be separated between humans and creatures, so they're more thematic. And I really think the intent deck could be cool if it's divided in between characters or enemies. Ever have instead of an 18-card intent deck, have 10 cards for each enemy so that they're more distinguished between one another.

1:13:12 Um and then as for the characters, in terms of how the characters play, I do really like it. I like the impulse deck a lot. I like the tactics deck. I love the combo effects and the rampage you can do. That's really neat. I think there needs to be more ways for characters to heal um or avoid damage because it's not as if you have a [ __ ] ton of health to go around. And when you can start a scenario and be half health with no way to get it back except top decking a loot card that you can't even move to, that's not good. That's not good uh a good game design. So I think there needs to be something reworked with that, but that goes kind of into the the balancing. And if your balance is literally have four people to absorb damage, that's not balancing.

1:14:04 Um because even then, you could still get hosed on oh, we have four people, but yet all these enemies are just attacking for two damage each. And Gronax has the most health at 12. Oh, cool. That was uh eight damage I just took. Okay, I guess I'm down to four and I'm I'm always down to four, you know? So So yeah, there's there could be a lot of a lot of stuff here. I don't know if I would say this game is 100% ready, but I think from what I've played, I think this game could be really cool. There are enough differences here that if the game was more fine-tuned, it could be uh it could be a really cool short campaign.

1:14:51 Um on an arbitrary scale of 1 to 10, again, take this with a grain of salt cuz the game's not even done. It's not even live. It's not even You know, the game's not being delivered anytime soon. But if this was the game that I was that I paid for and I was delivered, I would probably lean five. And that's me being generous, honestly. I would I would not Yeah. I I don't know if a lot of systems here I can see them just being more frustrating for me personally that I probably as is, unless I wanted to two-hand two characters and have another player two-hand the other two characters.

1:15:44 I could see myself trying to push through it and then I'd probably call it halfway. If I even made it that far, you know. Uh so again, there's a lot of stuff here. Nothing here can be, you know, can't be fixed. And if it does all get fixed and addressed, then it could be really neat. So yeah, that's that's kind of my my thoughts on on the game. Uh let me know what you think of this game in the comments below and uh like, comment, share, and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day this is for you.