Aeon Trespass Odyssey vs Kingdoms Forlorn

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 Devon and I are doing a another comparison together for Aon Trespass Odyssey and Kingdoms Flororn Dragons Devils and Kings. Uh both of these games are done by the company Into the Unknown. Uh two super expansive like massive narrative driven campaign games. uh both very similar to one another um in the sense of the way that their combat is, but uh we wanted to do a fun comparison because because

0:54 we want to shake out, you know, really uh talk about the little, you know, this the same company. They use a lot of reference from the previous game,

1:03 right?

1:03 So, see how they differ a little bit.

1:05 Yeah. Especially because in terms of like cost and stuff, if you're if you can only afford one, like the these are kind of talking points that we've come up with that might help dictate uh which one you want to get. Um so, and we both Devon and I have both done a we have an active series of Kingdoms Forlorn and then we have two completed cycles for Aon Trespass Odyssey. Um, so,

1:34 so we know a thing or two. So, you know, you know what we're talking about. Okay.

1:38 We're in the know.

1:39 Chill out. We're experts.

1:41 Yeah. I've spent a lot of money on these. So, I say that qualifies me. Um, yeah. So, uh, and Devon and I have actually done another video, funny enough, with Aon Trespass Odyssey, a comparison video between that one and Kingdom Death Monster. Um because Aon Tresid took a lot of inspiration from that one and then they've kind of kept that that system in in all their other games. And hell, I could even do another one between these two and their third game, Enormity, which is sci-fi,

2:18 but that one's not out yet.

2:20 I've only done the the beta. Uh anyway, with that being said, we have five different um categories uh to kind of compare between the two uh going in. I mean, it's obviously on uh like we're on our computers, so I'll be able to pull up uh various things while we were talking. But the five categories are price and content. So, how much like the game is if you were to get like everything or the core game and what you get for that. Uh, then the second category is the story and theme, what ATO is about and what its overall theme is. And then Kingdoms Flororn. Then third is what we've called the framework, like the overall uh structure of the way a a generic uh uh game typical like what would you say like the cycle in atto and like uh

3:29 and stories.

3:30 Yeah, it's kind of

3:31 and the yeah

3:33 that's kind of how I what I have in parenthesis is is the cycles in atto and the knights in kingdoms forlororn. Then uh the fourth one is the battles which is for atto it's like the boss/adversary and how those battles kind of come about versus the mob and boss and how those battles come about. And then the last one is what we've put as character progression which is kind of like the loot and the different items and the builds you can do and and we tried to do a catchall for that one. Uh, so those are the five categories that we felt were worth comparing. Devon, do you have anything else before we hop on in?

4:18 Oh, man. I mean, let's get to it.

4:22 All right, cool. Do we want to do like what we did with uh the KDM and the uh

4:27 ATO? Win categories. Whoever has the most categories wins. Well, I feel like it atto's just going to smear. But we'll find out. Uh,

4:39 all right. Well,

4:40 spoiler alert.

4:41 Yes, spoiler. Uh, so let's go ahead and hop in and we'll start over here on the left with Aon Trespass Odyssey. I have their game found um pledge pulled up. And with atto, it's a little bit interesting because technically this is their second printing with the 12 cents of Heracles, which is like we're not counting the 12 cents of Heracles. It's a whole another box and ordeal.

5:09 So with atto the core game that you get is $353 and then you get three cycles. Uh you get the truth of the labyrinth, abyss watchers and then the pitilus of the sun. um all in this box. So Devon and I have both actually finished two out of these three cycles which is already

5:41 almost done with the core game. Well almost done with the core game. Yeah.

5:45 Yeah. Um and then I mean just by those two alone like I think feels like that almost took us two years. It really did

5:56 to get us to get us through both those cycles and the amount of content you get. I mean, it's not like an insanely expansive amount. I mean, this this is a lot, but if you're talking about like miniatures, it's like each cycle kind of comes with three bosses more or less and an adversary, I guess. So,

6:19 right. Then you have an adversary possibly stretch between cycles.

6:24 Yeah. Um, so you don't have like a bunch of of plastic. You have a good amount of cards, especially with the different types of titans that you have and then all the different items and enemies um that way. But

6:42 Mhm.

6:43 But yeah, so three full cycles that if you are playing pretty casually probably will take you a a very long time just to get through the core box. But there is also,

7:01 where is it? There it is. Right here. The expansion box that is $36. That adds in there it is that adds in cycles four and five.

7:19 So to have a complete experience of a trespass odyssey you would have five cycles and they just get thicker and thicker as you go on. So they essentially get longer and longer and more and more complex uh the further you go. But yeah, it's actually kind of interesting. Like the gardens of uh infinite growth is nine plus minis, but then it's like 140 plus pages of a story book. Uh same thing for the truth sayer and then eight plus minis. Um so it's actually kind of interesting whenever we're taking a look at the cont like the physical content. It's it's actually not a lot of plastic.

8:04 Yeah. Yeah. Not too many. Let's see.

8:09 And [clears throat] then I'm not counting any of this like this extra stuff even though I would say this is almost like a must required.

8:18 It's so it's so awesome. Uh but if you're actually just if you were to go in and do like a game like a a gameplay all-in pledge, you're looking at what? $650.

8:33 Okay. So that's and this is for all five cycles.

8:37 Yes.

8:38 Gotcha.

8:40 Uh which actually when you take a look at it, it bums me out because I I think this box is awesome like with the the white and black and then it's like you look at the core game box and it's like this is stupid where it's like

8:55 No, that was all just a shade on KDM

8:58 pretty much like the

8:59 like let's do the white version.

9:02 Yeah. where has it kind of has like

9:04 and they make the box just a little bit bigger,

9:06 right?

9:09 Yeah. So, in terms of Yeah. pricing content, I mean, this is always kind of a finicky discussion because it's like I'm assuming that people who are watching this video have the money to burn.

9:23 Otherwise, no one in their right mind would pay almost 700 bucks uh for it. Hey, you know how we went hungry last month? I bought a $700 board if you don't mind.

9:35 Yeah, exactly. Um, and then I mean if you really want to go wholehog, they have all these uh expansion characters that you can throw in. And then actually this is kind of content right here. It's a mini expansion called the Skyward Odyssey. This is what's supposed It's three mini campaigns that you play after cycles three, four, and five. Oh my god. So, assuming you play through everything we have,

10:03 here's some here's a little extra.

10:05 Yeah, it's Yeah, it's kind of like supposed to bridge the gap between those m those cycles from what I understand,

10:13 which is which is pretty cool.

10:16 Um, so yeah. So, that is where you're looking at for a on trespass odyssey. Then we hop over to Kingdoms Forlorn. So Kingdoms Forlorn for its core game and I I might have to go between two different uh gamefound pledges because this is like the new pledge manager. Um, so for $370 you get the core box which comes with I don't know. I mean it could be roughly the same amount of of minis.

11:04 Um, a lot more mob type enemies. And then you have the knights themselves. uh which would be equivalent to the Titans of Aon Trespass,

11:15 right?

11:16 And then your various bosses which are up here. Um but it comes with two kingdoms and so you got the two kingdoms, all the content that goes towards those kingdoms themselves. Um the location cards, these are all the uh cards like the knight knight hand cards. These are the two, the principality of stone and the sunken kingdom of Udraband. These are the two kingdom.

11:47 I have these pulled up. I'm not seeing them on my screen.

11:49 Did I not share it? Damn it. Here. Hold on. There we go.

11:55 Okay, that's better.

11:56 Okay. Well,

11:57 I'm like,

11:59 here we are.

12:00 Hey, here we are. I see it now.

12:02 Okay, so here is the Kingdoms for

12:06 There we go.

12:06 Um core game. I realized I I was sharing my screen and uh well, okay, I guess luckily I was recording it uh correctly. Um but you just weren't seeing it because I was sharing the split split level.

12:20 Okay.

12:21 Um but anyway, yeah, so you have the two kingdoms. Here's all the minis that you get in the core box uh versus all the minis that you would get in the core game. uh over here. This might not be every single uh every single mini. These are all the bosses actually. But yeah, your two kingdoms, Prince Bell stone, sunken kingdom, and then your night minis, the Saint miniatures, 34 mob miniatures, which include uh these all these mob minis, and then these are the the bosses. And you get all of this, all these cards and stuff which store actually very nicely in in the core box. A lot easier to store and organize uh for 371.

13:23 Now, I don't know if this price changed because it's their final stock uh or or what, but for looking core game to core game, ATO's core game is a little bit cheaper.

13:40 By $20.

13:43 Yeah. So, the [clears throat] category was what? Price and content.

13:46 Yep.

13:48 Yep. So, that's for c that's core game to core game. Then a uh kingdom's fourlororn has uh the 10,000 succulent fears which adds in uh two new two knights, a few more bosses, and a few mobs. Um it is not a new kingdom to visit. It's kind of like a deeper dive into the other already existing kingdoms. Um.

14:17 Mhm.

14:19 But but yeah, so this is the ex. So this is all the content that actually I currently have because the other content isn't out yet. But this right here is 178.

14:36 Yeah. And ATO was around the same. It was like a $300 for its additional two

14:42 Yeah.

14:43 tacky. Um, but then the for the wave two stuff, you get the Red Kingdom of Essen and then the Barony of Bountiful Harvest. Um, each for 171, but they these guys actually add to my understanding a new kingdom to visit and a new knight.

15:05 Oh, cool. Oh, badass. Yeah. So,

15:13 it's gonna have a [ __ ] ton of monsters by the time they're all out.

15:17 Uh, yeah. No, I mean that's actually true. So, you do with Kingdoms Forlorn. I definitely think you get more physical content.

15:27 Uh, and then yeah, the Red Kingdom of Essen, which also comes with its own own night. And then, yep, more more uh mobs, more which some more bunnies,

15:42 more more bosses, and then a whole new kingdom.

15:47 Okay,

15:48 the reason why I'm bringing all this up is because of what we'll talk about later of why I'm mentioning this stuff because this is these are essentially the equivalent of a cycle,

15:56 right? Um, but unlike whenever I was talking about with ATO and I didn't go into their add-ons, this is one that I probably would uh throw in because these are very important.

16:10 So, these these four knights um well, not this one, sorry. These these three knights, Tale of the Knight with Noame, Tale of Sir Gallant, and Tale of Sir Cockatris. um that that is all content that I would take into consideration. So if we're looking at atto it was what 350 for the core game and then for 300. So about 650

16:41 Mhm.

16:41 for all five cycles of Aon Trespass. And then for for kingdoms 4, Lauren, it would be 371 + 350. Nope. Plus 178 plus 171 plus 171 already. We're going to be in the what? 8 900s.

17:07 Yeah. Plus 34 plus 34 plus 34. Yeah, they definitely designed for more uh uh what was the word? Modular.

17:17 Yes.

17:18 Yeah.

17:20 So, it's I don't know which one which one are you leaning. Like I think you get more content with Kingdoms for Lauren.

17:29 Mhm.

17:30 Oh, I mean, [clears throat]

17:33 yeah.

17:33 At a $300 price difference, more or less. I mean, from what we've experienced so far, um, between ATO and Kingdoms 4, with ATO, I mean, sure, you're getting a little less physical content. They're both heavily based off of each other. Well, uh, for heavily based off of ATO, obviously it's their, you know, their original IP.

18:01 Yeah.

18:02 And they use a lot of reference ins material. So, you know, you're getting the same like kind of injury system. Um, you know, the gear mechanics are fairly similar. Same keywords, that kind of stuff.

18:12 Yeah.

18:13 Um, but like for just like length of play and inner

18:21 I think funny enough

18:23 I I I mean it makes me kind of bridge into like another category.

18:26 Yeah, I know. I know. They all

18:28 judgment. I'm already like laying. Um, so

18:31 let's say hypothetically money is not an issue. like you have $1,000 you don't know what the [ __ ] to do with

18:39 and you see both of these games.

18:43 Which one based off the physical content that you are seeing?

18:48 Which one would you drop your money on knowing nothing else about the game? You're just like, "Oh, these are, you know, roughly similar in price."

18:58 Mhm. Because surprisingly, if if I I mean, if if money is an issue, then click away.

19:10 It's $700 versus $1,000.

19:14 Um I actually I lane kingdoms forlororn.

19:20 I'm a little bit in that camp, too, just in material. I mean, the modularity is very helpful. It's more

19:28 It's like adding additional content to it is going to be smoother.

19:32 Yeah.

19:33 Uh in the future. So, uh

19:36 Yeah. No, that's actually a very good point. Like if they wanted to actually make more content, which um one of the guys that I talked to on Discord, he he has said because I think he keeps up with this with this company way more than I do. Um

19:51 he says that they've alluded to future content. Um, and hell, we've even seen it in in their story book, uh, where they're kind of like, "Oh, this does nothing now, but future content will."

20:03 So, it's like they for atto had to make a whole new game essentially

20:11 with 12 cents of Heracles to keep the atto system going. Kingdoms for I think you're right. I think with the with how they've designed it contentwise, they just release a Kingdom box and they're like, "There you go." They just released a knight. Oh, here's here's a knight in a in his book.

20:28 Yeah, I am excited. I I do want to see it when you have a bunch of kingdoms and you have a bunch of knights to pick from. So, I am excited for those new kingdoms.

20:38 Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely agree. So, so yeah. Um, so not a queen sweep from ATO right off rip. Uh because if money's I mean yeah if you if you gawk at a $300 price difference then then yeah like atto atto you probably actually get the better bang for your buck because it is cheaper and you still get a lot of [ __ ]

21:03 but I also because I've set up and tear and tore down both of these games forlororn is significantly easier to set up.

21:16 Yeah.

21:17 Like after we're done with a session of atto, I leave that thing set, you know, set up for like a day.

21:24 Got to build yourself back up.

21:25 You really Yeah, you really do. In Kingdom Flor, Lauren, I'm just like, "Oh, okay. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, done. Cool." All in one box.

21:32 Nice. Nice.

21:33 Um, so yeah, so that is the first category uh where Kingdoms Forlorn will get the edge. And I'mma I'm gonna go ahead and Kingdoms forlororn. Okay, Devin. Next up, story and theme.

21:57 Story and theme.

22:00 You know what I found out though? If we're talk, we can start with kingdom forlor because I'm on it. Do you know what forloren means? um like a specific dictionary entry. Um I would say more

22:19 was it like lost uh almost like a woeful loss.

22:23 See that's what I thought. I thought it was like because we because the the game is centered around these kingdoms that are like in a in an age gone by,

22:33 right?

22:33 And I thought that's what it meant too. But apparently, because this came up in another uh game I was playing, forlororn just means pitifully sad and abandoned. So technically this is this game is called Kingdom Sad.

22:51 Kingdom sad.

22:54 And I'm like

22:55 kingdoms pitifully sad. These are what sad kingdoms these are.

23:00 Sad kingdom. Every time we walk into a to a you know through the fog, we're just like pitiful. Um so Dev, you want to take a crack at uh the the [snorts] story and theme for Kingdoms 4?

23:14 Theme? Well, let's see. So you're uh they don't give you too much intro text.

23:21 They rip.

23:22 They do give us

23:23 they give us our tutorial that kind of describes that there. I don't you know it doesn't give it does not frontload you with exposition

23:34 in this game.

23:35 No, it actually doesn't. Uh the best you get is each kingdom kind of has a little paragraph.

23:45 Mhm.

23:46 Um within like within each one. though like essentially from my understanding is that these kingdoms have been covered by some kind of uh cataclysmic event.

24:01 Yes.

24:02 Exactly. Yeah. Like the the principality of stone, some kind of plague that turned everyone to to rocks. Y

24:09 statues

24:10 and then what we had the sunken kingdom where uh

24:13 it was like a

24:14 tsunami of mud and muck and a swamp has taken over.

24:18 Yep. um both causing their respective populations to uh seek um more favor territory.

24:28 Yeah. And then there's this fog. So Dark Souls thing or or the um encroaching uh weirdness that's in like Tainted Grail is something that people can live in, but it's also rampaged by monsters. And there are people who are trying to make make do out in that kind of wilderness. Um, but there's like these settlements that you can live in. And that's kind of it. Like there's not really a whole whole sense of overall theme into why this happened yet.

25:10 Yeah. Into the world. But it's it's I mean its focus is I mean the gold shining star of this of this game is the knights and their stories.

25:22 Yeah. Exactly. And and how these knights play a role into the overarching story is not yet clear and it might not be. This this the theming of this could just be that each each knight has their own individualistic story that has nothing to do with the like the the overall, you know, quote unquote big bad. Um,

25:48 yeah,

25:48 but it's definitely Gothic, medieval Gothic,

25:52 uh, dark fantasy,

25:55 uh, for the game that has you venturing into, yeah, just various kingdoms. And the kingdoms have their own history. Uh like whenever you come across various ciphers, depending on which knight you have, you can learn a little bit of lore onto onto what may have happened here or what is currently happening. But but yeah, very vague like this. The Kingdoms Flororn definitely almost went the the vague Dark Souls route in terms of narrative storytelling. Um but then if you go to atto um see this one again even just like their BGG description. Now, to be fair, ATO came out uh three years ago and Keem's Forlororn came out this year, but uh in ATO there was this thing called the Oh god, now I'm going to completely blank. The Echeton.

27:04 Yeah. Yeah. that this is so it's so you have your dark fantasy in kingdoms forlororn but then on trespass odyssey is Greek mythology kind of like pseudo sci-fi Greek mythology where there was a cataclysmic event called the echeton where these primordial beings crash through killing the Greek gods and have been basically rampaging throughout uh Greece and you are Argonauts that have mysteriously woken upon this mass massive city ship uh that has this Evangelion ability to sync up with titans uh because titans are the only things that can actually damage the primordials.

27:51 And but even where we're at in ATO, we we don't even know what caused the the echeton or where they came from.

28:04 No. No. Not at all.

28:05 Um, we got we seem to have gotten hints in cycle two because we came like the main boss of cycle 2 had like seemed to have came from a place where he just got his ass whooped

28:20 and he was trying to absorb as much power as possible.

28:26 But we as characters don't don't know that. Mhm.

28:32 Um, and so this the

28:35 Go ahead.

28:37 Oh, I was just gonna talk on the uh structure of the story, but go ahead if you're still

28:41 No, go ahead.

28:43 Oh, um [clears throat] I mean uh the way it's its story is definitely a little more uh spoonfed to you. A little more uh it's paced out and you are you are gifted the story as you progress.

28:59 Yeah. you know, versus forlororn where you're piecing it together. Uh because you're you're you're actively like living the story, I guess, of of the Argo is the you know, your main character versus the individual knights uh for Lauren.

29:16 Yes. Yeah. So, I'm curious as to because Aon Tresposi definitely has like that. Okay. Here's the here's the main story that is affecting all of the players. you know, all of the Argonauts are are wrapped up in this in this grand epic narrative telling

29:36 um based off the Yeah, there's like the individual cycle and you make decisions and you know things come up, but it's it's based off of like you as a group are making it and your decisions impact the entire player base. Um that's how atto is structured story-wise. Kingdoms Flororn, like Devon was saying, is way more individualistic. Like whenever you are going to play a game of this and you're reading, you are reading your knight's story

30:17 and it virtually has nothing to do with anyone else. Like what is happening to Sir Son and his story

30:24 is no way in like involving any of the the other characters.

30:30 Yeah. They might like pipe in a little bit.

30:32 Yeah.

30:33 On very specific situations.

30:35 Yeah. Hyper specific situations does and and we seem to miss all of them every time like we get like

30:41 every single one.

30:41 We've had like I think one uh where someone happened to be it's like hey yeah Flesh Shritter is in the party. Um, I mean, we actually had it between Sir and Stoneface where Sir Son went up and he's like, "Hey, that friend of yours is kind of a piece of [ __ ]

30:56 You should leave him alone."

30:58 Yeah, he you should you should abandon him. Um, which is still really cool. Like, I like I like that element of of storytelling. um where the the knights do interact, but whenever you're actually reading out loud, it's like it it is kind of like, hey, here's this massive thing that's happening to Sir Sanange or to to uh Renholder and then the other knights feel like they're teosing in the background,

31:28 right?

31:29 Um

31:29 it's like, oh, all this cool stuff's going on. It's like, I'm hunting for mushrooms.

31:33 Yeah, exactly. It's like, all right, I guess I'll go [ __ ] myself over here.

31:38 Um, so yeah. So I'm curious, Devin, which one do you like? Which which narrative structure? Actually, first of all, which theme do you like better? Do you like this dark fantasy um, you know, cataclysmic event that has [ __ ] over all these kingdoms and we're going in after the fact? Uh, I guess both of them kind of do that, but it's it's definitely more medieval fantasy with these creatures. Or do you like the pseudo sci-fi ancient Greek mythology um where these primordials came through and killed the Greek gods?

32:16 Well, in the methods that the story is gifted to us, uh, ATO definitely has the smoother story exposition.

32:25 Yeah,

32:25 by far. Um, how do I want to put it?

32:31 I will say though, there are times where they are a little too lost in the sauce where they are using Greek terms and I'm like, I have no idea what you are talking about.

32:43 Oh my god, I know.

32:45 Like what? I have to I I have had to Google words to be like what is this? And it's like oh it's a it's a ship. It's a type of ship they're talking about or it's a piece of clothing that they're talking about. Uh, I have not had to do that with Kingdoms 4, Lauren.

33:01 Not yet.

33:02 Not yet. Yeah,

33:04 but as I was saying with the Aance Trespass, uh the the way they feed you the story, it is regimented. Um you know, uh the story events, you know, they are based off tables, but if you are able to like with, you know, complete a table and you get that whole story, it is very satisfying. Um, sure your individual Argonauts, you know, we all act more as like a a gray mau, but it's like we are the Argonauts and we all speak the same voice more or less.

33:37 Um, well, and you know, Kingdoms for Lauren, it's you have your individual knights.

33:42 Uh, just living out their individual adventures.

33:46 Yeah.

33:46 And from the experiences we've had so far, I it has I have to give it to atto. Um, it definitely hooks you um and and you want to stick around to see the end of the story more.

34:00 Yeah, atto definitely kind of keeps you intrigued along the way. Um, especially because I'm I'm taking a look at like the that's the that's the calculator. I'm taking a look at the various um uh topics we're going to mention. Um, yeah, I guess it could go here, especially with like the choice matrix that ATO has. Um, and like you have a bunch of different adventures. You have rest and relaxation,

34:36 which is a lot more personable. Like that's kind of where you get a lot more of the human elements between your Argonauts. Um, but then each cycle also has uh their own individual adventure hub tables that are their own massive side quest narrative tellings. And Kingdom's Floral Lauren doesn't have that. It has kingdom adventures. So, if you're in if you're in a kingdom uh for kingdoms for Lauren, then you may get to roll on the adventure table for a kingdom.

35:13 Yeah. And it's a D100, isn't it?

35:16 It's a D100, but there's not a 100 adventures.

35:19 Gotcha.

35:20 It's like, you know, if you rolled a one through a nine, it'd be this adventure

35:27 is kind of how it's broken up. But that's in terms of like side quests. There isn't really any of that. Like I guess the closest you would get would be your investigation story

35:40 as the individual knight. Um but yeah, if you're wanting if you're looking at both of these games and you're you I mean because we I mean the combat from a generic standpoint is very similar. If you're like well how's the story being told? It's kind of like, well, there's a lot more story in atto.

36:03 Oh, yeah. Big time. But uh worth mentioning it's sometimes hard to keep track of it.

36:09 Oh, yes.

36:10 Especially when you're only meeting every month.

36:12 Yes. Yeah. If you are not playing consistently or like I guess not even cons because we play consistently, but it's once a month.

36:20 Um maybe twice a month if if schedules line up. But like if you're playing weekly, then you might be able to keep up. But yeah. Um, well, I don't know. Our cycle two went really well because we happened to always roll on the same adventure hub, so we were able to keep up with that.

36:38 Were there fewer adventure hubs or was it just that we No, we were just rolling on the same one.

36:43 I think we also had a technology that let us choose the one above it. So, anytime we rolled one that we hadn't done before, we were able to pick the one right above it, which is what one we had done.

36:54 Mhm. So, we were able to stick with the same side story the entire time.

37:00 And that's why I was like, "Oh man, yeah, I can I can keep up with this." Versus our cycle one where we just rolled and we were constantly all over the place. So, whenever we'd have, you know, a conclusion somewhere, I'd be like, "Who?

37:16 What?

37:16 What?" Yeah. What's happening over here? So, it can feel a little muddied. uh with the amount of story in atto

37:28 and Kingdoms for Lauren is a lot more um succinct.

37:33 Yeah. I mean, the way it's designed, it's, you know, you hold on your personal night. So, like, of course, you're going to remember your story. Yeah.

37:39 You know, and then when you're going to someone else's story, you don't really have to give a [ __ ] You're here for loot.

37:43 That's That's true to get your get your uh or get an investigation done.

37:50 Yeah. I'm trying to see if I can um I was trying to see if I could find a like a a sheet on Oh, it's it's cuz I'm on into

38:15 Let's see. Yeah, this is like the cycle one sheet. And then does it have It does not. It's on the back. There it is. Yeah. Kind of like the the choice matrix. So this is the entire choice matrix for this entire for for all the cycles. So this is this is the the thing that carries over from cycle to cycle. Uh, and sometimes your choices will matter in the cycle, sometimes it'll matter at a later cycle.

38:51 Okay.

38:52 Um, and then with uh kingdoms kingdoms forlororn, let's see, they also have a a choice matrix, but it is significantly smaller

39:11 um for that individual knight. Um, but I also I do feel like you're marking on this less and our only guess is that these are the different endings for your for your night.

39:25 So, yeah, I don't know. Um, I mean, I I do agree. I I very much enjoy I love dark fantasy. Um, but I really like the Greek mythology setting also with the idea that it's like, hey, these gods exist in this world or they existed, but they were killed

39:45 um by some massive event. And I mean, hell, even the city ship that you're on, the Argo, is fascinating.

39:53 Learning about that. Yeah. It has its own [ __ ] side quest every chapter.

39:57 Yes. Every cycle.

39:58 Yeah, exactly. Where you just keep learning more and more. Um, but I guess if you if you like I mean this is kind of like yeah your grand epic uh storytelling and then this is [sighs] yeah this is like kind of like your indie your indie storytelling very personable. um less to keep track of, but if you really like a knight, then you're going you might be a little bit more invested. You feel a little bit more unique with the storytelling

40:35 in Kingdom Flororn.

40:37 Um cuz that is one one good thing about Kingdoms Flororn is your knights are

40:43 Yeah. hyper different versus the Argonauts are just a card. Mhm.

40:50 Like the the knights have personality. The Argo, the Argonauts, you give them personality. You try and roleplay them out a little bit more.

41:00 The game doesn't give it to you.

41:01 Uh what are those cards called? I forget. The um they give you abilities, but they're also like a

41:09 the you talk about in Kingdom Flororn.

41:12 No, Nemos. Uh for

41:15 Oh, yeah. The notes. The the Neos notes.

41:17 Yeah. Mhm. That that kind of creates a little backstory for them.

41:22 Oh yeah.

41:22 Personality where originally they would just be blank slates.

41:26 Yeah. Yeah. Like Siren Survivor or something.

41:28 Yeah.

41:29 Yeah. But

41:32 um so you're giving the edge of storytelling to at

41:36 By far.

41:39 It's not even the edge. It's it's just

41:43 I'm gonna pretend like they're close, but really atto has it. Okay. All right. Um, yeah, I completely agree. Um, I would say if Kingdoms Floral had if it had more diversity with its ca with its um, you know, the knights interacting with the with the kingdoms you're going into. Um, versus just like a uh, you know, a cipher that you walk in and it's like, "Ah, I remember this fountain." Okay, there's nothing for you here.

42:20 Um, [snorts] and then once you read that, then you're done. It's like I never have to look this up again.

42:26 Uh, then then yeah, that would probably make it a little bit more intriguing. And even though I like how rare it is, it it still would be nice if our knights acted like we other knights were around. Yes, I know that's a like a very difficult thing to actually accomplish as a designer, but it would feel a lot better if you were actually interacting.

42:52 Yeah. Yep. I agree. Okay.

42:56 The goal and the scope were definitely uh significantly different in the two game designs.

43:01 Yes, 100%. Um because one thing that we probably should have mentioned at the very beginning is even though they have the similar bone structure, Kingdom's Flororn is not dark fantasy atto

43:15 like they they might share you know the same skeleton but in terms of how they go about it is actually you know quite different. Hence why we're doing this comparison. Okay. So third up is what we are calling framework. Uh which is kind of like the overall like if you're sitting down to play a play a session of each of these. This is kind of your general if you were playing all day, this is what you would do.

43:47 Like say the different phases and the different systems

43:51 uh and how they're organized and that.

43:53 Yes. So we started with uh Kingdoms Flororn. Um, so, uh, we can start with ATO and this one. Um,

44:02 or do you want to do like a back and forth on like say a comparison to their phases maybe?

44:07 Yeah, I mean we could definitely do that

44:09 or just kind of, you know, just kind of zigzag between the two.

44:12 Yeah. So, and this is actually a kind of the major difference is how involved do you want to be? because Aon Trespass Odyssey has way more phases than Kingdoms 4

44:26 and it's you know and it's it's so much that I still to this day have to keep like a sheet next to me just to remind myself of which phase we're in. Um like let's see this is Kingdoms Forlororn. Um, I was hoping that there's so actually the rule book will be will be nice here because I think I can actually just pull pull it up. So essentially whenever you're looking at atto and the amount of phases it has um you have God there's so like okay you have the voyage phase which includes a movement step

45:18 then you have the timeline step where you update the timeline and a lot of these are like mini phases that you just kind of naturally do that. They're not that involved. Then there's the exploration step. Then there is the encounter step, then advancement step, and [clears throat] then the story step, and then the doom step. So you have eight different phases that you have to go through whenever you are like playing a session of atto versus kingdoms forlororn.

46:04 I didn't click on the rule book. Oh, it's too large to preview. Well, I can download that uh while it is doing all that. Uh but essentially it is uh what is it? It's like the del

46:19 outpost phase or the vision phase like outpost phase. I forget exactly

46:26 you have an outpost phase which is actually before before you even you know delve off but it's literally move exploration deck and then story. Those are literally the three things that you do. Um,

46:47 yeah. Vision phase, output phase, it's right there.

46:49 Yeah.

46:50 Flash phase, rest phase, spoils phase. Okay.

46:52 Yeah.

46:55 Yeah. And the vision phase is even like I mean that's that's almost basically setup.

47:03 Yeah. That's just like what do where do we want to go today, guys?

47:05 Yeah. Yeah. Um, so you have if you're looking at Yeah. the different phases. It's like [snorts] it's it's three. Um but yeah, because this is all the opposes stuff you do before you even like actually start interacting with the game really.

47:25 Yeah, very true.

47:27 Uh because then yeah, it's vision phase, output phase, and then the Dell phase. And then your Dell phase is kind of like the same as as the steps in um where is it? Uh they're the equivalent of the steps.

47:42 Oh, fair enough.

47:43 Yeah, because here's the delve round. Travel step, uh kingdom tile step, exploration step, story step. That's it.

47:52 Yeah.

47:53 It is literally half the amount of stuff. Yeah.

47:58 That you have to do.

48:00 Um

48:02 so, okay. So then, yeah, I will agree. Let's keep them separate and we'll compare both. Um so whenever you before you even actually get into the idea of steps the way that atto is broken up into what you are deciding like how you are going to play the overall game is you pick a cycle and as we mentioned in the content step there are five cycles uh that you play from cycle one all the way to cycle five. Everything that you are doing in ATO is engrossed and encompassed by that cycle. Uh there's unique rules for it. There is uh the unique enemies um and the unique uh technologies, the unique uh uh gear.

48:56 All of that is tied to the the the cycle that you are in. Um, and each cycle has its own uh like unique rules uh that do not like really carry over from one cycle to the next. And and then that's I mean that's kind of like the overall framework of what you would be.

49:26 So yeah, you're existing within a cycle and say say we're sitting down for a game session.

49:31 Um so essentially we're we're in the voyage phase. Yeah.

49:36 And you're traveling through the map.

49:40 Yeah.

49:41 You have a you can find a heading more or less. Each tile is going to have different locations.

49:49 Yep. So, I mean that Yeah. So, speaking of like the movement step, all these tiles are also cycle specific because you're in a very in a different region,

49:59 right? They each have their own map.

50:01 Yep. They each have their own map. Uh, and they all have their own story cards. So, each uh that's kind of like your main goal is what the story uh the story card's telling you to do. And each cycle also has its own doom card that is kind of another way that you can lose.

50:23 Um so you are traveling around uh the cycle specific map dealing with cycle specific locations and cycle specific stories. Um, and then you're also funny dealing with cycle specific factions.

50:45 Oh, true.

50:46 That you have to manage that are the kind of the inhabitants of the area that you're in. Like, um, I mean, I guess slight spoiler, but the first cycle has you in CIT and then the second cycle has you in Sparta. And both of those cycles are radically different from one another. Um, each cycle has its own timeline that you have to keep track of. This is kind of like a a timer uh that you have to go through because if you're looking at

51:20 every move was a day.

51:22 Yep. Yeah. So the voyage timeline here uh I know it's sideways but you would effectively mark you know you would check box and this the timeline tells you what you might be doing on that day whether it could be a fight or it's going to be an advancement on the technology and stuff like that but you have 80 days every single cycle um unless something changed that I'm not aware of has 80 days for you to complete all the story the story cards and in our experience they've lasted what around the 70s late 60s early 70s.

52:08 Yeah, thereabouts.

52:09 Um but but yeah, so you have the the timeline which where is it? That's the timeline step where you might have timeline events. Exploration step. This is where you actually draw cards from a cyclespecific exploration deck um that will kind of generally give you resources. Um it's kind of like a constant flow of resources, but it might move a if he's an adversary, if he's on the map, um it might have you, you know, interact with some fleet depending on how you know your relationship with them. But it it's kind of like a mini event deck, but not really. A lot of the times it's like, oh, okay, we got two resources,

52:59 right? Because you have your that's that's your main source of mortal resources.

53:03 Yes.

53:03 Is that deck?

53:05 Yeah.

53:05 Which is the primordial resources which we get from the foes we defeat.

53:09 Yep. And then so after the exploration step, you go to the uh expedition step. Um, this is where based off the map tile, if you happen to actually see a particular icon, uh, this is where you will have your adventure or your rest and relaxation uh, story. So, right before the encounter step, you you might have your side quest move on. Uh, and there's a cycle specific table that you roll for and that will determine the the the story that you're going to be having. Um, so the first three steps before this are actually pretty quick. Uh, especially if you've been in the game a little bit. It's like, okay, you move, then nothing there. You advance the timeline, nothing there, then you draw a few cards, log whatever you get, and then this is where it's a lot more involved. If but that's also if you happen to have those icons on the map tile you move to.

54:13 So

54:14 it could be blank.

54:14 Yeah. If if they're not there then nothing happens here. Then give the encounter step. This is kind of where and actually funny enough that now that we're comparing them whenever we talk about kingdoms forlororn I know we're not the biggest fans of the del phase but you know what I like? I like the fact that we're we don't have to break up our story with a fight,

54:40 right?

54:41 Um because in the encounter step, you take a look at the the timeline and if you see this little uh these two swords here, that means you have to have an encounter.

54:56 Like this is where you will have a a scheduled fight. And so you know, you know ahead of time that you're going to have a fight. However, you have the entire game already set up.

55:10 So then you either have to move all that stuff aside. You either have to break it all down or you kind of do what I do and you have the the the the hard cardboard map board that you lay over your travel map. Um so then you could set up for this encounter. Mhm.

55:31 Because even though I have a 4x6 gaming table, uh that's that's not enough. So, you have to tear either tear everything down or or kind of layer things over. Um

55:43 or use a separate, you know, table.

55:45 You could use a separate table uh if you have the room. What am I where is it? There it is. So, it's actually kind of interesting that in the middle of everything Yeah. in the middle of reading a story and then doing everything else, you could just have this like, oh, now we have a fight. And sometimes your story will make you have a fight um kind of out of nowhere.

56:10 Yeah. You know, that's happened.

56:11 So it several times.

56:13 Yeah. more more often than we'd like because and it really bugs me the most because we I like to have everything set up just because for the ease of recording and it uh it be it just makes me feel scrambled whenever it's like oh okay cool now we have this fight and you know and have to quickly try and set it up and then decide how I want to edit everything

56:38 even though like I said you could look at the sheet and see that you were going to have a height. Um, it's it is kind of interesting to have this this comparison now when comparing the steps. Um, but again, it's not every single time. So, you could have you could do all five of these steps, you know, five times in a row and and you won't have an encounter. Um just cuz if you're taking a look like I said at the

57:08 depending on the day's rest.

57:10 Yeah. It's like 14 14 through 18 you don't have a fight.

57:16 Uh then after you have your fight um then you go to the advancement step. This is where the technology uh stuff comes in which we'll talk about later. But this also relates to the timeline. So based off of these icons, this fist here and this lantern I guess um uh th this means which type of technology you can pick based off prerequisites that you have. The fifth is your combat tech. So which is again cycle specific.

57:52 So it's like which prerequisites do we have? Okay, now which combat technology do we want to just have to to unlock? And then this this typically allows you to uh craft more um you know more weapons or get you more Argo abilities that are like combat abilities that you can have throughout the fight. And then this one here is your structure that just gives you general passives. Um, so kind of like the encounters, if you don't see these icons on the timeline day that you're on, then you you ignore this. So that's the advancement step. Then it goes all the way to story step, which is different from the adventure step or the expedition step because this is all based off your tile.

58:52 The story step is where you would look at that cycle specific story card and if you've met the requirements for it,

59:00 then it progs. Gotcha.

59:01 Yep. And then after you do that, then there's the doom step which is related to the cycle specific doom card. And if that one procs based off the amount of doom tokens you have. Mhm.

59:17 And then there's the end step, which technically this is also something that's weird because whenever you are traveling, so the very first thing you do if you travel to an unex like a flipped over tile, you flip it over and it's now considered explored. Um, and so that's pretty much the only thing. It's like, hey, if you're on a tile, it's now considered explored. Uh, and all that really means is that you can't go back. You can't like loop around and keep keep triggering adventure hubs,

59:48 right?

59:48 Um you always have to be making forward progress. But that is your um

59:57 that's a that's an atto rundown.

59:59 That is a big Yeah. A quick atto rundown of of how a cycle is is broken down. This is what you would be doing.

1:00:08 Last 10-minute adventure. Um, so it's like e each session I mean that you're playing they they're not the same. You might have uh I mean yeah the the movement's all similar um and all that like some of these steps go by really quick but then sometimes a timeline step might have a event on it that you have to read an event for. And then that's also on the same day that you had uh you drew an adversary symbol in the exploration step that caused it to move on to your location to where you have to fight the adversary on the same day that you had an encounter scheduled.

1:00:54 So you have back-to-back fights. H

1:00:58 uh and then so it's like

1:01:00 yeah a little less structured in that way and setup wise.

1:01:05 Yes, exactly. Uh and then oh hey we happen to have you know a day where we get boat where we get have two technologies the very after the the two fights that were that broke up our our flow of of reading stuff. Um, so it it definitely can feel like like you have a lot more stuff to manage

1:01:30 whenever it comes to like how how atto is actually structured. Mhm.

1:01:37 Um because that's just the surface level. Like I mean I skipped over like all these icons and you know how you can use technologies that kind of interrupt a bunch of stuff while you're doing you know while you're playing throughout the the game. So, so yeah, Devin, you want to go over Kingdom Forlord? I got it for you right now.

1:02:09 Why? Sure. Little scroll scrolly scroll, my guy.

1:02:14 There we go.

1:02:14 Let's see. Oh, man. So, what's this? So, Kingdom is Flororn and it's comparison framework. So vision phase, you're kind of deciding what you're going to do. You're sitting at the table with your guys and you're like, "Huh, what do we want to do? Whose story are we doing today?" Because everybody has a night and every night has a story rather than one overarching campaign. Uh it's like, "Huh? Ah, Seth, it's your turn today." So we're going to learn a little bit more about uh the flesh. Was it flesh?

1:02:49 The flesh ritter.

1:02:50 Flesh Ritter. Yes. Yes. The flesh ripper. uh or the flesh knight uh delicious and dungeon the guy. [clears throat] So once an individual has chosen their knight, it's like I said, this game is very modular uh like very smooth I would say and like set up and direction when you're uh

1:03:15 preparing. So once you've decided your story, we go to was it um your outpost phase? Is outpost phase after that? Yep.

1:03:24 Yeah. On outpost.

1:03:27 Yeah. And actually, real quick,

1:03:29 we with vision, we're deciding like we we begin that night story on there for whatever chapter you happen to be on.

1:03:38 Yep.

1:03:38 It's gonna it's going to describe for you what uh or give you an option of kingdoms to go to. Uh let's see here. From there, uh, once we reach the outpost phase, you're you can decide on I believe it's activities therein.

1:03:57 Yep. Which are all these

1:03:58 different guilds and whatnot. Yeah. Your scouts guild, notice board. Uh, you get a little bonus if you pick go to one originally uh before the others. You can go to all of them.

1:04:08 Yeah.

1:04:08 But the end say gives you a little money or a free activity or you get to choose whatever bonus you get.

1:04:15 Yeah. Essentially, if you go to the inn first, like instead of rolling on the table of a d10, you roll uh you you get to pick.

1:04:26 See here, I mean, once we're from once we've selected all that, you're I mean, you're you're on the kingdom board. You're delving at that point.

1:04:35 So, you're right into the kingdom, baby.

1:04:37 It's going to tell you what square you're starting.

1:04:40 Uh, of course, yeah, we have our kingdom effects and whatnot. You got your different uh meters you got to keep track of. You got your threat, you got your time, you've got your curse.

1:04:49 Yep.

1:04:51 There we go.

1:04:52 It's a little And it's very segmented. Um when we're comparing it to atto where uh we had the small complaint of the uh you know, combat could transpire randomly or repetitively.

1:05:06 Yeah.

1:05:07 Yeah. You have a very fixed expedition fight or not expedition fight, excuse me. Uh what was the um what was the first fight called?

1:05:17 Yeah, the expedition fight.

1:05:19 Is that is it expedition?

1:05:20 Yeah, because you're think you're thinking of encounters.

1:05:23 Encounter. Yeah, the expedition encounter followed by the full clash encounter.

1:05:28 Yep.

1:05:30 And so those can be those can vary depending upon the monsters on the board. And that's usually given to you by what is that? What sourc is like what monsters are on the board?

1:05:40 Yeah.

1:05:41 Or is it

1:05:42 So, uh, during the vision step, um, which it's actually kind of weird that they call it a phase because this is like you were saying, it's like you pick out which uh, you know, which knight is going to be the questing one. So, the one that is kind of having the main story. um he's the one that's spearheading the overall session

1:06:06 um or the overall yeah expedition.

1:06:09 Um but it also determines which monsters you are in. Um cuz each kingdom has uh has like their their codeex for all the different monsters and what their levels are. So what you're supposed to do is you take the party leader knight. So the knight that you picked if it's flash ritter then you go you line up this red line from their night sheet. So over here and you go to their lowest marked box and it's it's a little kind of weird but like so if if this was my night sheet and I had done my quest and I had done you know my first two investigations this right here would be my lowest box

1:06:59 and we would line that up with this. Oh, okay.

1:07:03 And then it's like if I'm right here, then these are all the

1:07:08 uh like it could be a level it'll be a level two rat wolf, a wing nightmare, level one pale blood worm, level one pumpkin head. And those are all the various possibilities that you have. And then you shuffle their tokens or if you download the the app, it can randomly do it for you. And that will determine what wandering monsters are going to be on the uh on the kingdom sheet.

1:07:36 Right. Right. And now generally on a uh on a scheduled like Knight's Quest, it's it's going to give you scripted beasts to fight at those steps. Now, if you're doing like a

1:07:50 if everyone's doing uh investigations or uh what's the other one? Uh, free roam.

1:07:56 Free roam.

1:07:57 You you get depending on what section of the kingdom you're in, that's the boss you're going to be fighting.

1:08:03 Yeah. Yeah. Because each kingdom has Yeah, you're right. the different districts.

1:08:08 Mhm.

1:08:09 So, like if if the the pale blood worms were in, I don't know, this this merchant district and we finally got to the part where we ran out of time. Um, and it's like, oh, okay, this is who you're fighting because that's what district you're in. Mhm.

1:08:25 But yeah, like de Oh, yeah. It's up here. Yeah, the kingdom track. Um cuz this I mean it's very streamlined like whenever you think about it. Um because every time you move it ticks the time up one.

1:08:42 Mhm.

1:08:42 And then

1:08:43 and depending on the the map segment that you unlock, you could be reducing threat or increasing threat.

1:08:49 Yep.

1:08:49 Threat causing the the foes to chase you down or possibly spawn. Yep. And also way you can lose on your delve.

1:08:58 Yeah.

1:08:58 If you if threat gets too high. Same with curse. Curse is at the very top,

1:09:03 right? And that's usually affected by exploration cards. And as you're moving, you're opening explan or turning exploration cards. And while you're turning exploration cards, you turn another exploration card and see what clues you're getting that are going to build you towards um your different Well, that one's more important for investigating knights.

1:09:23 Yeah.

1:09:24 Versus the actual story knight, which they're going to have very specific parameters that they need to seek and complete.

1:09:32 Yeah. So, it's it's definitely whenever you pick your whenever you pick your knight, they're gonna have they're going to be dictating a lot of where you're going and what you're doing and everyone else kind of has to go along with it. Um, which I mean is kind of like shitty in a way where it's like, hey, I'd really like to get my, you know, my vassel tier weapon, but we're not getting any of the clues I need. It's like, "Yeah, but I would like to succeed by main quest."

1:10:03 Right.

1:10:04 So, this is tied to where we're going.

1:10:07 Yeah. Is that it's definitely more um how what's a good descriptor for it? How like uh each each endeavor or each story segment? It's very uh isolated from each other, you know, like everything that's transpiring during that uh during that session is is strictly for that night story. Like you're not going to trigger any big overarching, you know, uh repercussions for other nights during

1:10:37 during each segment.

1:10:38 Yeah.

1:10:39 So, it's kind of like a what do you call like a baddy of the week more or less. Uh

1:10:43 yeah, your monster of the week.

1:10:45 Monster of the week. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're going on an adventure, you know. Um, not a lot of uh repercussions there, but for your story, your your your traveling night, that's uh big stuff's going down for

1:10:56 This kind of goes back a little bit into the story and theme, but it's like you you kind of have to have everyone at the table who want to be involved and care about other nights stories. Um, versus at where it's like, hey, this story is involving all of us. Um, but anyway, yeah, it's Yeah, and I mean, and it's so sy like say what you will about like the sporadic nature of, you know, this timeline. Like, yeah, obviously this is very curated. We know when we're getting attack. We know when a a battle is coming in. But like I was mentioning, it's like based off the tile you move to, um, the exploration cards you draw, the adventure hub, you have a lot of each day could be different.

1:11:47 And the way Kingdom's Flororn is broken up is, okay, yeah, you have a travel step, but the way a card works is like you take a look at it and it's like, okay, this tile is, this is number one. It's always going to be number one. This is 53 star star which is like your cipher. That is always going to be the same every time you hit number one. There's not a different number one. The kingdom is what the kingdom is. Um so this always leads to six. This always leads to seven. And it it's very which I guess some people might like because they're like it's thematic. There there has a in the last session that you and I had, we had to get to a specific map tile and we got to it because we we had been through the kingdom before

1:12:38 so we remembered where it was, which is like real life. You go to a city tons of times, shit's going to be the in the same spot as last time.

1:12:49 Mhm. Um, and your only chance of variety in a delve going to the same kingdom is potentially the the different monsters that got randomized, you know, during the vision phase and the ex the uh expedition or the exploration cards you draw.

1:13:10 Right. Right.

1:13:12 And even then, those are kind of they're fine. Yeah, because they definitely made the delve uh its own challenge in just being around the map and the way the exploration cards like proc. There's so much path blocking and um like teleportation issues and not to mention like the fog travel.

1:13:35 Yeah, it's own like they made it its own challenge. Well, in ATO it's you know like traveling is more thematic.

1:13:43 Yeah.

1:13:44 Um and here's an adventure. you know, maybe there is a gate and we get, you know, in in the Sparta campaign, we learned there was, you know, different gates and we had to get a little further in the story before we could even access certain portions of the map.

1:13:54 Yeah.

1:13:55 But short of that, it was mostly, you know, you float around and stuff happens around you,

1:14:00 right? Yeah. I've heard some people like the the delve because they they like the idea of the kingdom being the same, like, oh, we've been here before. So, you kind of learn you you learn the principality of stone. Um, and your variety is going to be, you know, the knight's quest that you're on at that at that particular time,

1:14:25 right? The monsters or the night's quest and so on.

1:14:29 Yeah. Um but like Devin was saying is that the unlike you know atto where you had curated fights on a specific day um that could just that's that fight is right in the middle of of all those steps. Camor is not that way. If you have an event that causes you to have a fight, it's going to jump you to the exploration uh not the expedition fight.

1:15:03 Um like if you if you're on time four

1:15:06 and it's like you actually procked your your night's quest and it's like oh have your expedition clash, you just jump straight to eight. It's not like you have a random fight in the middle and then you also have to continue until you hit eight. And that's the way atto would have done it. It's like ATO would have been like, "Hey, here's a fight here also. Okay, after you're done with that, now continue and then have another fight,

1:15:30 right? Um well, I mean it does also have its in uh what are they called? Encounters?"

1:15:36 They are called encounters. Your skirmishes

1:15:39 skirmish fights. Yeah. that are just essentially it's like a single round of combat where they sneak up on you and it's it's kind of like a tactical placement

1:15:48 pretty much,

1:15:50 but it's it's so it's super surface level. It's just like, oh, do they hit you? Do you hit them? Do you suffer these bad effects

1:15:57 if you're in this square? Uh otherwise, did you scrape them? You might get a little bit of uh a little bit of salvage for it.

1:16:05 Yeah, it's incredibly tedious. Um, in fact, in one of the uh comments on on our Kingdom Forlorn discussion, um, one guy mentioned he had like 19 encounters in a delve.

1:16:22 Oh my god.

1:16:23 So, it was some it was some absurd number. And it's like, dude, I would just roll a d10 and be like, odds we take a damage, evens we don't. Like,

1:16:37 but yeah, like they they do there's a little bit more involved. Like I mean, especially if you have that expansion, the uh the um 10,000 Succulent Fears, there are cards that have a certain icon on them that let you go into like a an underground level of these kingdoms, but for the most part, the kingdoms are they're they're pretty basic. Mhm.

1:17:04 Like your story events are happening based off the knight's quest. Um, and maybe there are exploration cards you can draw that say, "Hey, you have a kingdom adventure, then you roll the d00." Um, but it's nowhere near on the same level as the adventure hubs or anything like that. So, this is probably um while yeah, it's it's it's streamlined and it's clean, the fact that like whenever you only have two kingdoms to explore and you see everything that they have to offer by like the second vent that they know venture into it. M

1:17:49 it's like in fact one of the guys mentioned like oh I think in in the our kingdoms floral and he's like I think you guys would have benefited greatly from going to the sunken kingdoms and I'm like you're right at the time of this discussion we had not been there yet but right now as I'm commenting back we have thematically they're different mechanically they're the exact same like

1:18:13 Right. Right. I mean, the kingdoms kind of act as like cycles where it's like the kingdoms do have their own rules. Like the principality of stone has the panzer gates. Um, and the sunken kingdom has flood tokens, but that's that's kind of it

1:18:31 more or less. Not too much differentiating them, unfortunately. I mean, they they try to characterize themselves quite a bit different with their different districts, right? Different lore, I think, is what they're trying to, you know, feed you. Yeah.

1:18:44 And based on, you know, character, you know, sometimes their quests will elaborate a little more on the kingdom history. The little ciphers as you go about the map typically give you a gleaning as to what transpired.

1:18:59 Yeah. And I mean, and then the the the monsters that track um during the vision phase, like that's going to be a little bit different, uh depending on which kingdom you're going into and at what point in time.

1:19:15 Um but hell, even a lot of stuff like whenever we're questing and going through the delve, um has kind of mattered in what order you did it. like Sir Sanchez. Uh I I remember he had a thing depending on if Stoneface finished his quest or not,

1:19:34 right? It would have just had a different uh Yeah. different uh segment I would have read, I guess.

1:19:39 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, but then again, yeah, like the kingdom tile step, you do, you know, you take a look at the kingdom

1:19:47 kingdom tile and you might have a point of interest which lets you scavenge or you might get ambushed. You might have an encounter. Then you draw a card and it'll say what it says. Like down here for example, fog that follows. You just do whatever this says and they might have the active exploration card. [snorts]

1:20:09 Um

1:20:11 then from there, what was it? Uh

1:20:13 then that's the story step where if you had met your well this is if you're at like oh hey if you're at time resolve an exhibition clash or if you're at time 16 resolve your full clash but this is where you would check

1:20:27 uh point of interest and your your night's quest.

1:20:31 Yeah. I mean is there really is there is there much else? No. You do the you do the del you do the story you hit your encounters and while you're reading the night story that's that is the that's the structure that's the framework.

1:20:43 Yeah.

1:20:44 It's not it's it is meant for one session.

1:20:48 Yeah.

1:20:49 Which somehow always takes six hours.

1:20:51 It's insane. It it is absolutely insane. like like there's something commendable about how how simple it is, but [clears throat] it's like is it too simple, you know? And if it's so simple, if it's half the amount of steps, why does it still take so long,

1:21:13 you know? And I I mean, I personally find I find this so uninteresting. I love the lore of the kingdoms, but there's not I mean, if this if these kingdoms are supposed to have a rich history, you know, why does it feel so surface level?

1:21:31 Um, like,

1:21:33 well, I think we're already leaning in a particular direction here.

1:21:37 Oh, 100%. I knew as soon as we got to the framework, I I mean, again, it depends. Do do you prefer I know whenever we started playing Kingdoms for Lauren you were huge into the modularity. You love the idea of your game your your campaign of Kingdoms 4 is dependent on which nights you happen to want to play. [snorts] um versus atto is like hey like if you're having a bad time in cycle two for example sucks to suck

1:22:12 you're going to have a bad time the whole cycle.

1:22:14 Yeah. Like either either you somehow skip it which technically you can you you actually there are rules in the beginning of a cycle where it's like if you're if you didn't come from the previous one then do all this stuff. Um but we haven't done that. But yeah, if you are not vibing with the with the the story or the theme or the monsters or the tech or the the loot of a particular cycle, it's going to be a bad time. Versus Kingdoms for Lauren where you're like, "Oh, I just don't really like my knight. Okay, I'll play I'll play someone else." And they plug and play um with no issue.

1:22:57 But this Dell phase, man,

1:23:01 it's brutal.

1:23:02 It's so mind-numbing.

1:23:04 It needed Yeah, it needed a little less. I don't know.

1:23:09 Yeah,

1:23:10 it was too much. Too much going on there. I feel like could have been a little more I [snorts] don't know. I don't know what to give suggestion wise, but it's just it's not super thrilling. A couple people on my on our Kingdoms Flororn discussion has kind of mentioned um uh let me see where is it? Hold on. Well, I'd have to have to look. But someone I believe Oh, yeah. Um I guess there might be a Dell free variant. That could that might be on board game geek somewhere.

1:23:55 That'd be pretty okay.

1:23:57 Um but yeah, and then again, if you're also like the only time the Dell phase is is interesting is if it happens to be your knight that's on a on a quest.

1:24:10 Exactly.

1:24:12 Um but then the here's the other interesting thing is this can go back up to uh the sheet. So, uh, because this is centered around framework cuz the entire because we mentioned the cycles, that's going to be your whole your whole shtick. Um,

1:24:28 they have their tiers.

1:24:29 They have the different tiers. Um, but you are locked in a tier. This will dictate the types of enemies you fight, the levels that they're at, and the loot that you get is all based around a tier. and the contracts that you pick in the conquest or in the outpost phase. Um, those are also based around a tier. [snorts] But to go to the next tier, you have to do your knight's quest and three investigations. So once you do all that, whether you succeed or fail on your investigations, you've done three, you did your night's quest, boom, you're in chapter 2, Fasel tier. Um, now if you're playing a threeplayer game or a two-player game, your overall framework is going to be you go on a quest, you you do all that yada yada. You your your other player is doing their investigation.

1:25:30 Then they go on their quest, you do an investigation, all that's said and done, then you both have two investigations left to do. where you have no direction, no driving point or a quest where someone is telling you where to go and all this stuff.

1:25:49 You're just going to a you're just going to a kingdom just uh [ __ ] around more or less.

1:25:53 Yeah. Roam around. Hope maybe you fight an enemy, you know, by by the full clash. Maybe you happen to be in a kingdom or in a district with an enemy you haven't fought before

1:26:05 to give you some experience. But literally what you're doing is you're roaming around randomly to get these clues because each each uh exploration card depending if you if you went north then you get a green clue. If you went west you get a blue clue and so on and so forth and you're just trying to get three of a certain color depending on which clue card you randomly drew. So if everyone is doing that, then you are literally just roaming around in a uh in a kingdom just to collect tokens. And then you have to do that twice [snorts] or three times or or or one time if you're in a three-player game

1:26:49 and then once

1:26:52 and just which brings in unfortunately another criticism of a system is just like the loot system.

1:26:58 Yes. Oh, we'll get there. That's at the end.

1:27:01 Yeah, it's just not satisfying.

1:27:03 Yeah, but yeah, then once you do all that, then you get to go to vassel tier and then you do the same thing again and then you go to king tier. Um, and mind you, you're doing all of these five chapters. Yeah, the tears and the enemies get stronger and they, you know, there's more options of where you can fight and so on and so forth. But like these are all done in two kingdoms, whereas atto has the cycles where

1:27:39 once you're done with a cycle, you move on.

1:27:43 Mhm.

1:27:44 But there feels like a natural progression every single time. This feels like you're doing the same thing just with higher tier items.

1:27:53 This feels like an actual progression of going somewhere.

1:28:00 So, I mean, yeah, that that the delphase alone

1:28:04 uh would have made made me lean atto anyway.

1:28:10 Oh, yeah, for sure. So, I think atto has sweeped this category.

1:28:14 Yeah. Um, okay. So, the next is the battles.

1:28:22 The battles.

1:28:25 And, uh, we can go with uh, King of Forlororn first.

1:28:32 I mean, that's the thing on this one is that they're both very similar.

1:28:36 They are. Yes. So just doing a just uh on initial impression just to give you like laying them out side by side you you first notice that Lauren operates on a much smaller map.

1:28:50 Um is it is it smaller

1:28:52 combat? It is significantly like the board to for combat. It is smaller.

1:28:58 Oh okay.

1:29:00 Yeah. I just assumed it felt smaller because enemies don't have a movement value.

1:29:08 Yeah. No, it's I think that's part of it because we also have uh you know some characters with very limited movement values. Like I think mine started at like three.

1:29:17 Yeah.

1:29:17 And same with Stoneface also had only like a move in three which it has upgrade. I think I can move four now.

1:29:25 Yeah. Like gridway's a lot smaller. Um let's see. I would say for uh since we're on forloren, how do you want to structure this? I mean, I have to give it. So, the biggest difference because I don't want to go into like the nittygritty of

1:29:46 um

1:29:48 of like how combat actually works. Mhm.

1:29:52 Um I think the biggest the the the the biggest difference is atto has single enemy fights and Kingdom Flororn has mobs

1:30:05 and single enemy single enemy fights.

1:30:08 Yes.

1:30:09 So yeah, if you want to talk about the mobs,

1:30:13 I mean I really have to commend Flororn because they they handle mobs really well. Yeah. I think it's really cool how they've modified their uh body part deck system, however you want to describe it.

1:30:25 Uh and just made them each their own individual character.

1:30:29 Yeah.

1:30:29 So, you know, it's like, oh, this is the more Oh, this is the armored knight. You blast him out. Oh, he's dead. And it's a new one takes their place. So, that's that is entertaining.

1:30:41 Yeah. Yeah. No,

1:30:43 I would say the scaling.

1:30:45 Go ahead. I was going to say I I think that they they really uh did a did an awesome job with the um with the mobs because that could have been so clunky.

1:31:00 Oh yeah. Yeah. It did not feel too overwhelming. They did well with it. um

1:31:05 you still have the similar aspect of like they have an AI deck and then a body part deck and that's all well actually in mob fights the body parts are assigned to an individual miniature.

1:31:16 Um but their AI deck still escalates and things like that. So if you're familiar with how you know how that works then it's like okay they have mob fights on top of Yeah, you have one big big boss. I'm trying to find the rule books now. There we go. Nope, there it is. Um, yeah, like the white ape troll, this is a single enemy fight. Um, but it almost feels like they they wanted the fights to be a lot snappier

1:31:49 because you have to do two of them. That's the other thing is with the battles is you have two fights in a session instead of just one. Well, it depends how you're I mean atto doesn't really have that structure though.

1:32:02 That's true.

1:32:03 It has It has an Itto doesn't really have like a session structure. It has a you go until you're done kind of structure.

1:32:11 Yeah, that's Yeah, that is true. Like

1:32:13 Yeah, you have to find your own natural stopping point where it's like, oh, okay, cool. We finished chapter chapter three for this character. Um and

1:32:24 and that's it. Okay, now we can pack up. Yeah, because you're definitely just doing one session of fourlororn.

1:32:34 But yeah, I I would agree with the snappiness because I'm going to say that they did not gate um a lot of their uh mechanics in Forloren like they do in ATO. Like that first cycle equipment was just like basic [ __ ] Uh opening one maybe, you know, you hit on an eight because you suck. Um, right.

1:32:57 And then you know, you're playing fourlororn and it's like you hit on a four cuz you're a badass knight [ __ ] Yeah. Oh, here's the sexy ass storyried blade on turn two. You just you're kicking all the ass.

1:33:08 Yeah.

1:33:08 And it's like, oh yeah, I feel powerful.

1:33:10 And I think another thing that they did um which was pointed out is the enemies are a lot easier to hit.

1:33:19 Yeah.

1:33:19 Um

1:33:20 Yeah. No, they have definitely slated it more in favor towards the towards us,

1:33:24 which I I have heard that the 12 sins of Heracles is also kind of trying to do that. Um is is uh decrease the technology um track that atto and then um kind of make make the fights like a lot quicker where it doesn't feel like you have to always roll a nat 10. Um,

1:33:50 but the other thing that's interesting with Kingdoms forlororn fights is if you happen to fight an enemy like the I'll just use the white aprol in an expedition fight, you have to do six wounds and it already starts with one.

1:34:07 Um, but in a full clash he doesn't. Uh, now it is kind of weird though because it's like, oh, at level one you only have to do six wounds and he starts with one, so you have to do five wounds. And, oh, what about level two? Oh, I have to do eight wounds. Oh, no, he starts with three. So, I guess never mind. It's still a difference of five. Um,

1:34:28 yeah,

1:34:29 I guess the biggest difference is if it's a full clash. In a full clash, you have to deal six wounds at level one. Full clash, you have to deal eight. Uh, but expedition fights, it's five each. Um, but I I do really like that. I like the fact that you have an expedition fight and it they're a little bit weaker, so it shouldn't last as long, even though it still relies heavily on dice. And this the expedition fight could last forever because you roll like dog [ __ ] but in the full clash fight, it goes super quick because you rolled nat 10 the entire time.

1:35:06 Yeah. Um, but it is also kind of fascinating that the fights don't have

1:35:14 the enemies don't have a movement value.

1:35:17 No, no, they get you every time.

1:35:21 So, it kind of removes that whole like there's no there's

1:35:25 I mean there's not really any dash cancelling in atto be honest.

1:35:30 Uh, in very rare and specific circumstances can you pull that off. Yeah, it's not kingdom kingdom death where that's like a very

1:35:40 Yeah, exactly.

1:35:42 Um, so

1:35:43 there's also I mean enemy variety.

1:35:46 I that's what I was about to bring up. Yeah.

1:35:48 Okay.

1:35:48 Yeah, go for it.

1:35:50 Uh I mean in Kingdoms Floren I mean it has the random dial. You have up to three to four different foes circling the map.

1:35:58 Yeah. Um, and you know, depending again, if it's on the the shoot and loot phase or whatever the hell, you're going to get whatever random guy in whatever random district is, that's going to be your boss fight.

1:36:09 Yep.

1:36:09 Um, which is really cool in one in a fashion. Well, in atto you, you get two stock monsters that you're battling throughout the whole [ __ ] campaign.

1:36:20 Yes. You get two guys to pick from, maybe an adversary to spice it up, and then you've got the big bad that's going to, you know, show up to to check your growth, more or less,

1:36:30 pretty much. Yeah, he is he is thematically tied at very specific circumstances. Um, but yeah, like

1:36:37 typically Doom cards, I think I've noticed like later Doom cards will usually cause them to spawn.

1:36:42 Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Um and then yeah, it is kind of like yeah a check or like a a a tester um so we know what we're up against

1:36:55 to see how [clears throat] we're fairing. So to make sure that we're on the right on the right path and we're growing properly,

1:37:01 which I appreciate. I know it it kind of jumps out of nowhere and it could be annoying, but like thinking about it, it's like it gives us an idea of how the mechanics work for your final fight so you're not blindsided like we had no idea that he worked this way and we lost so I guess our start over. Mhm.

1:37:20 Um it gives you like an idea because because yeah like Devin said in atto depending on your cycle you have like cycle one you have the hectaton and you have the labyrinthoros and you fight those two it like if you're on day you know day one you pick one of those two day seven one of those two day 13 one of those two

1:37:45 and and each time you pick one you Mark a you mark a um you mark a here. Uh where is it? Yeah, up here. It's sideways. I I can't Can I rotate it? I don't think I can. Um but it's like all right, you fought the Hecaton at level one, then you mark level one. And then next your next fight u if you don't choose the labyrinthoros and you choose the hecaton again he's level one but now that advances the other one. So they will always be like you can't all of a sudden fight a hecaton up till like level three and then go back and fight a level one Linthoros. Um

1:38:27 and then and then the but the the main boss like in this case it's cycle one it's the alpha teos. it like this is more of just how many times you face him and then so at most you will have you'll have four bosses to fight but these are the two you are fighting a lot

1:38:46 and kingdoms for Lauren as we mentioned if we're looking at like the uh like the rule book

1:38:54 yeah you have the whole I mean depending upon what kingdom you're in but you get the

1:38:58 the whole smorgesport available for more or less I mean short of the higher level ones.

1:39:03 Yeah. Yeah. You have at any given time you could have like six options and it's random. Like you you you look at the you look at the sheet I'm trying to Yeah. You look at the the setup and it's like like right here for example. Oh, I'm on this this is my lowest marked one. Uh it's rat wolves, pale blood worms, pumpkin head, knight of knight of the ren I think firstmen warriors and haunts of like Uh or actually I guess it could be these four if you're in the

1:39:34 just just on that little snippet we see was that was that five seven eight.

1:39:39 Yeah.

1:39:40 Or seven seven different monsters in that little like image there.

1:39:43 Yeah. And and it goes it goes further than that. And so you would just shuffle these tiles like cuz they have tokens. You shuffle those and then oh in this particular delve these are the three options that we got or the four options. Um, however, that never seems to be the case because your quest kind of dictates who you fight,

1:40:05 right?

1:40:05 Um, which has actually kind of been unfortunate because we do have so many options and yet we personally have gotten [ __ ] on fighting the same [ __ ] enemy.

1:40:16 So, it's like we have variety, but yet somehow we never actually get that variety. So, it becomes very upsetting. Because last time you you asked me, you're like, "Why does this feel more annoying?" Even though in atto you do fight the same enemy over and over and it's like because we know we should have more options and we're just not getting them.

1:40:43 Yeah, because I think I mean atto is definitely structured more like it's definitely slated more difficult.

1:40:51 Yes.

1:40:52 Like our roles are more difficult. The foes are I mean they're always leveling, you know, they're getting gradually a little bit stronger.

1:40:58 Yes.

1:40:59 Like we're we're meant to and not to mention that titans are expendable.

1:41:03 Yeah. If they die, I mean, you know, be, you know, barring unique titans that

1:41:08 every fight is like designed to be this. Yeah.

1:41:12 Yeah. It's meant to be the skin of your teeth every fight.

1:41:14 Yeah.

1:41:15 Uh for the most part.

1:41:17 Yeah. Because we're fighting these these these beings that came in and killed the Greek gods here. We're fighting monsters that just live in

1:41:26 in in the deep fog,

1:41:29 right? So, I don't know. I mean, in Forlororn definitely once you you feel a little more powerful and it like your gear already starts with a lot of mechanics involved.

1:41:40 Yes. Yeah. You're

1:41:41 you get that pretty quickly like like there's no crafting in four Lauren.

1:41:45 No.

1:41:47 And that'll be Yeah. that that we could talk about in the next next category. But [snorts]

1:41:52 I I mean because even though like atto has the adversary, which I know we've mentioned a little bit. So the adversary is kind of like this this nemesis almost that hunts you uh as you're traversing the map like uh we mentioned this like lit Oh, I was actually here. like this symbol will spawn an adversary on the map and it'll move around and try and catch you and he's kind of meant to kick your teeth in. Um, and you you don't really want to fight him. So, this is like the difference like the adversary versus the mob would be kind of like the different the differencing factor

1:42:37 between the two. Um, but it's still a single enemy. Like whenever you do fight him, it he he works no different than the the regular enemies that you've been choosing to fight every single time. And Kingdoms 4 just has I've enjoyed every single fight that we've come across in Kingdom's Flororn. M

1:43:06 um I think that their systems like they actually while their stats like yeah they don't they get to they get to you no matter where they go somehow positioning is still important which you wouldn't think where it's like oh what's the point of moving because they can get to me wherever I go. It's like you do a lot more reaction. Like a lot of your reflexing is to get out of,

1:43:30 you know, AoE attacks,

1:43:33 right?

1:43:35 Um

1:43:35 Right. Not to mention each knight has a hand of cards to

1:43:38 Yes.

1:43:40 Yeah, that was Yeah, I was about to bring that up, too. Um, yeah, on top of the gear that they have, they every knight has their own hand of cards that both work in the del phase and in the in the fights in the clash phase.

1:43:57 Yeah.

1:43:58 Um, that has a cool down. um like where they either could be out for the rest of the fight or they can go into a discard pile that every at the beginning of every round you do a cool down step that moves cards back into your hand to use. Um cuz an ATO to like get up from being knocked down, you had to have a hyper specific, you know, either weapon or item or ability. And in Kan Forlorn, every knight has has a card that lets him stand up,

1:44:38 which I I Oh, I love like I don't think I've gotten into a single fight where I didn't pick that card.

1:44:44 Yeah. It's like I I'd rather stand up. I don't want to waste a whole turn.

1:44:48 Yeah, cuz if you don't have that card, like if it's happen like cuz and they have conditions that can affect you where you have to randomly discard a card and it's like, oh [ __ ] I got knocked down and I had to lose that card and it happened to be my standup card. So, um it's a little bit more involved.

1:45:08 So, and those cards level up as you are progressing through through the game. Uh

1:45:15 right. As it's focused on the individualized knights and their hand of card is kind of what represents their growth.

1:45:21 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And es especially because

1:45:25 you have a specific hand limit. So like I think me right now as Flesh Ritter I have seven eight cards available but I can only bring five. And whenever it's like hey you know we're going through the default do you have that thing that helps us? No, I didn't take I didn't take that one.

1:45:45 Don't worry, Cers handles the Dell phase.

1:45:49 Uh, yes. Yeah, Cersange does everything except help out with tokens.

1:45:58 Nope.

1:45:59 Um, so yeah, like tons more variety with fights, even though you might just get [ __ ] hosed and fight the same enemy back to back. Um the mob fights are incredibly clean uh and and varied and it's only going to get better too. Like

1:46:19 yeah,

1:46:20 if they do end up supporting Kingdoms 4 and more or hell even with the other kingdoms that's that adds more enemies that could be thrown into the mix.

1:46:30 Yeah.

1:46:31 Um and like and they level up too. Like depending on if you're in chapter three, you know, with your knight, they're gonna, you know, you could fight the same enemy. Like, hey, we're fighting the white ape troll again, but because we're in chapter 3 now, he has we are legion on top of all of this other stuff. He has regeneration, firstman guardians, reinforcements have arrived, vantage seeker, strength and numbers, avenger of the tribe, and we are legion.

1:46:59 Oh boy. Looks like he gets little buddies. Yeah. Uh so yeah, like I and normally I think they with the like they give you a lot more ways to react, a lot more stuff like that. It's [snorts]

1:47:25 it's actually pretty interesting. No, I you know, I almost say I don't know if we're at that step yet, but it's from what we've experienced so far. It's a little more going on. Uh yeah. No, actually I I completely agree. I think I mean they have your more discards. Oh, actually, no, there was one thing I was going to say uh because it's about the knight specifically. Um in atto you have a track. You have your you have your rage, you have your um you have your fate, and then you have your danger.

1:48:00 Uh all of those are constantly upticking with very very few ways to lower

1:48:09 and they're all ways that you can die.

1:48:11 Rage, your your Titan [ __ ] you know, it it gets so mad that you lose connection and then he it effectively dies. Fate, you tempted fate way too much. Um, and you you die that way. Danger, it's the same thing. Um, where you go over your danger and you have to draw a noble and uh that that might that might kill you.

1:48:37 Kingdoms for lore. And these are all because the titans are expendable. Um, and you actually don't really care if a Titan loses be or if a Titan dies uh versus Kingdom Death Monster where it's like it's like [ __ ] this was our this was our best dude even though it's like no people are expendable. No, they're not. This was our best fighter. Um,

1:49:03 but yeah, if they die it's like okay, we'll just find one in the wild and trap it.

1:49:08 Mhm. But kingdoms forloren is very nice because it's [snorts] passion um vigor and heat

1:49:18 um and heat is how you reroll dice but you have a cool down

1:49:24 so actually like refreshes but it cap is reduced.

1:49:28 It is but I mean but whenever you take more damage your cap goes up

1:49:34 right

1:49:34 so but you could be a lot more liquid. You don't have to. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the decision of deciding what to roll because, you know, you you might be [ __ ] if your fate gets too high in atto. I think it works very well. I much prefer that over you no mitigation at all. But Kingdoms for you are way more liquid with your heat. Um, and sometimes it burns you. Sometimes you spend a bunch of heat and then you know the enemy does something that you're like, damn, I wish I could react to that. You can't because you you don't have any heat to spend because a lot of your cards require you to to spend heat.

1:50:13 Yeah, I do like that mechanic. You know, it's it's similar but just just different enough like where in fate is your representation of, you know, a little bit of luck that you pushed a little too far. Y

1:50:25 and the monster starts taking advantage of when you're, you know, fate sitting a little too high.

1:50:29 Yeah.

1:50:30 And where uh it's cool. Well, it's represented thematically in Kingdoms 4 Lauren where your knight well it while your heat does refresh u if your heat is at a certain level essentially it represents that maybe you left yourself open by pushing too hard.

1:50:43 Yeah.

1:50:44 And now the monster gets that additional dice against you.

1:50:46 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you you you overcorrected on trying to swing and then you missed.

1:50:51 And both both are are great um uses of mitigation in in both games. [snorts] But I because I because I am not the biggest lover of dice. Um I I really like the fact that Oh, it's my turn. Oh, hey, as fly shr my cooldown's four. So cool. I mean, I'm already I already have no heat to spend. Actually, I can use my my flash tokens as heat, so I have even more um liquidity with with heat. Um, and then on top of your passion being tied to your your peril arc, not your peril arc, your heroic arc, which is similar to your rage, but you have a lot more options. Um, as your passion goes up.

1:51:39 Mhm.

1:51:40 And then your vigor, you I mean, my character has a card that lets him heal.

1:51:46 That's cool. There's no [ __ ] way to heal an atto.

1:51:50 No goddamn right there isn't. Uh, so you feel a lot squishier in atto versus

1:51:58 I mean they both Yeah. Yeah. They both do well in capturing like the theme in the gameplay which is really cool in the trickellian and in the the um there's not really a cool name for the stats and

1:52:10 there's not it's it's the inverted paradigm system I think is well that's kind of how

1:52:16 trademark. Yeah. Trademark.

1:52:18 Yeah. Well, the inverted paradigm system actually I think is their their idea of like battles don't cool down, they heat up. The monster gets tougher and you get tougher as you go on. But but you you are no longer a cannon foder titan. You are a knight that is you are a named knight.

1:52:37 Um so I definitely want to bring that up. Um dude, funny enough, I'm gonna give it to Ka to Kingdom's Flororn. I think I am too because I just I really enjoy their fights. I mean it sucks that we keep getting the same [ __ ] enemies.

1:52:52 Yeah.

1:52:53 But u I mean when they are new I mean or like different tiers it they are fun.

1:52:59 Yeah.

1:53:00 I have a blast with them and it's like you know I feel like you know my knight I'm not just some titan.

1:53:05 Um but yeah I I too will give it to uh poor Laura on this.

1:53:10 Yeah. And and I will say the other thing is uh it's a lot easier to set up. There is like four terrain types

1:53:21 in in Kingdoms 4. Atto has a ton of different terrain. Um so yeah, I guess yeah, you have a you have a better and more curated fight in in this and in the next category which we'll hop on to. Um these will kind of dictate your builds. um versus like canon forlororn where you might have a build that is atrocious against a specific type. Um and that's just that's just the way it is because of the variety. But yeah, you can also easily get hosed by having to fight the same enemy back to back in the same tier. And it's like a I want to fight something new,

1:54:06 right? Okay, last but not least, character progression. We had been kind of hinting a little bit uh about loot and um and how your character upgrades over the course of a uh of a campaign. And this is actually going to be very interesting. Um because Devin kind of talked about a little bit about it with like with like the weapons and stuff. Um I think I I will go ahead and say this. I don't know if you agree with me. I don't think either is perfect. Um none of them are going to be no no campaign no game is going to be as good for character builds as Madara.

1:54:56 We have to accept that. I mean, KDM's pretty solid, too. I mean, they are like uh

1:55:04 No, it's not, dude. You luck build and then you and then you win.

1:55:11 And and I found the

1:55:13 die by falling into a hole.

1:55:14 That's true. It's a whip or a bow and you're god tier.

1:55:20 Oh, yeah. That's it. Um, no, because KDM is basically if you can bump your luck, you win. So, not Madara is the best in terms of character builds. Uh, but yeah. So, which one you want to start with, buddy?

1:55:41 Oh, man. Uh, I guess what did we start with for learn last time? I guess we'll do atto.

1:55:46 Yeah. So the way atto works is I mentioned it whenever we were talking about kind of like the structure of atto um in the exploration step. So uh Aon trespassest has resources that you manage on your argo sheet. Uh they are all right here in your cargo hold. There are uh two different types. There are mortal resources and there are primordial resources. Mortal resources you get mainly from the exploration cards like for example, oh we happen to draw weapons cache, we get two armament resources. So you go to your sheet, you plug in two, so on and so forth.

1:56:34 Um, whenever you fight a enemy in atto, each of their body part cards that you wound has Oh, there's a problem loading this page. I see. Uh, each of their body part cards will have a resource icon on it. Trying to see if I can find it. Yep. Nope, that's it. Attack card. Dang it. Anyway, after you kill the enemy, um then you gather up all the wound cards you dealt to it. Look at the icon, multiply it by the enemy's level. That's how much you get. Then during the uh the progression phase or whatever it was called, advancement phase, you will spend those resources based off the items uh that you have available through the tech.

1:57:30 That's your progression. It is resource management to look through a bunch of different cycle again cycle specific weapons and and building out your Titan how you how you want and and the the the weapons and stuff aren't assigned to your Titan. Well, some can be actually. We found out in cycle two they can actually be like merged pretty much to a specific Titan. But for the most part, it just kind of goes in an armory. Like if if you don't really want to use an item anymore, it just goes into a pile and then someone else can use it if they want to. But that's where your builds are coming from. Your Argonauts don't really play a role into any of that. It's you can have a weapon, one-handed or two-handed, sword and shield. You can have armor, one armor, but you also have support items that you can have and you can and those can be attached to your weapons.

1:58:31 Um but and then as the course or as this the campaign continues, you will eventually unlock new technology that gives you higher level um weapons and stuff to be able to build. But those items are typically geared towards fighting one of the two um one of the two enemies. Like as you fight higher level like a higher level Hecaton, you can now, you know, get a Hecaton live study tech or a Hecaton autopsy

1:59:08 and that's going to give you more gear that

1:59:11 that's going to protect you from their like say with the Hecaton, he's going to he's a little more push back.

1:59:16 Yes.

1:59:16 And you that gear t typically gives you a little a little more resistance there.

1:59:20 Yeah. Because at a higher level Hecaton, the board edges are like cliffs, so you could be knocked off the edge. And yeah, like Devin said, a lot of the gear that you get prevents knockback. And then the labyrinthus, he pops down labyrinth tiles and it gives you access to, you know, managing those, which is cool because it's like, oh, we're fighting a bunch of these now. We're learning how to combat these in a much better way. Um, but they're a lot more. It It's kind of like qu like this is the best example I can get or the best analogy. Atto's loot is uh quantity over quality and Kingdoms Flororn to me is quality over quantity.

2:00:07 Yeah. Um, now one thing that I do think atto has that Kingdom Flororn definitely doesn't is the option of critical hit rewards. Like if you actually get critically wounded, you could like pop off a an armor plating of something and it's like get this item, the secret item,

2:00:27 and I find that so much more rewarding.

2:00:30 Or when you beat the final boss a little earlier than anticipated or wound him to a certain degree.

2:00:35 Yes. Um, but yeah, like what we found at least in atto was if you kind of get a build, you don't really change for a while at least. Like um like I I feel like we changed a little bit more in cycle one, but in cycle two we were gifted gear that was like good for a long time.

2:01:03 Yeah. like at the very beginning. It lasts like a solid half of the campaign.

2:01:08 Yeah, exactly. Um and so so yeah, it's interesting because the reason why I say none of it's perfect is because whenever you're looking at all of the items and stuff, you look at it and you're like, "Ah, this isn't really going to work for my build. I'm not really incentivized to change." Uh because what why fix what ain't broke? Mhm.

2:01:32 But and then also at the same time whenever you do look at the really high like the gigas sword from atto, it's like this is going to take [ __ ] forever to get like we need so many resources.

2:01:49 Yep. And you get it for the tail end of that that one cycle.

2:01:52 Yeah. Yeah. And and Yeah. you get it for that cycle and while while that equipment does carry over to the next cycle, it it just isn't compatible. Like you can technically use it.

2:02:07 Yeah, it it needs to be ascended.

2:02:10 And if it doesn't have that, then you you could still use it, but you take heavy penalties. Um, so yeah, like I it's resource management, tons of tons of options, and they're cycle specific. Um, which is which is actually kind of cool because I've I've looked at the pictures while I've been organizing the loot from each cycle, and it gets progressively more advanced. Um, like cycle one is like you're putting you're you're throwing boats around Um,

2:02:46 both full of rocks.

2:02:46 Yeah, both full of rocks. That's your That's your club. And then like cycle 4, it's like this high techch sci-fi weapon. This like lightning blade or something.

2:02:58 Sexy.

2:02:58 Um, so I think that's really cool. Uh, but yeah, like your build kind of goes into your Titan. Your Argonauts can get attribute buffs, but that's literally for either judgment cards in a fight or for story stuff.

2:03:15 Yeah, mostly contribute through those. Uh

2:03:16 yeah,

2:03:18 those Nemos cards.

2:03:20 Yes, the Neos cards, which that's kind of a build as well is those are like special abilities that you get. Um also depending on your Titan, there are different breeds of Titan that you can make. Those will have special abilities. they will have unique um Kratos and uh trauma like you can get patterns for those uh that can adjust your build. So there there is a little bit more creativity with the Titans where it's like, okay, this is what this Titan is really good at. And in cycle 2, for example, a little bit of spoiler, but you can get items that attach to your Argonaut who is piloting that Titan or attached to your Titan, and you can get some really creative builds.

2:04:05 So, you have options with atto uh loot and character builds. However, you're not there there's not enough variety in terms of fights that you're ever really going to be like, "Oh, I I need to change all this out." So, Devon, you want to talk about Kingdoms Forlororn quote unquote loot?

2:04:31 Oh, I'll tell you about that character progression. Well, let's see here. I mean, the most Let's see here. So, in Kingdoms 4, Lauren, you start with your basic knight,

2:04:41 and he's typically equipped with knives.

2:04:45 Yeah.

2:04:46 That's essentially their fist and tooth, right?

2:04:48 Yeah. It's like Yeah. Their gauntlet, their gauntlet and a dagger.

2:04:52 And then they have their base hand of cards, you know, specific to their individual knight, but they're usually around the same stuff. You know, you have a get up, you have a second chance.

2:05:01 Yeah. you've got a a reflex typically and then you have a few more that are specific to the knight. So you have your hand of guards, you have your gear as you um fight through the kingdoms that are so forlororn u and you defeat your expedition monsters as well as you know find scavenged loot. get loot cards, which are just small small cards that are based on uh whatever that you're there's kingdom specific uh loot cards. Um there's the consumables and then there's also upgrade cards.

2:05:37 Mhm.

2:05:38 But they're listed as just like a kind of a generic card uh with a a coin value assigned to them. Uh let's see. Uh then there's of course then there's expedition clash which will have its its loot card as well as the full clash will have its own loot card but you only get one.

2:05:54 Yeah.

2:05:55 Uh once once you finished the uh your outing your delve uh you pick one a single this is assuming you have four players at the table uh a single loot card and that's going to be transformed into an actual lootable item. So, say I chose, so we were fighting the expedition monster. I was like, "Oh, they're armored foes, and I I need a little bit more armor. Uh, I'll choose their card." So, then you get to pick from their uh pick, yes, from all their cards at that uh tier that you're currently playing at being vassal, uh, king or devil, so to speak. From there, we what we have learned is it's a little disappointing in the number. Typically, it's like two cards.

2:06:46 Yeah.

2:06:47 Two or three at best.

2:06:49 Yeah.

2:06:50 Uh which is unfortunate

2:06:52 for all five of these. For all five of these categories.

2:06:55 And this this is also for like a six-hour endeavor.

2:06:58 Yeah.

2:06:59 Uh so you get you get over one loot card. Now, if you're playing with the um what do you call them? The squires.

2:07:05 Yeah.

2:07:05 Uh it gives you like an extra loot card, so you get to progress gear-wise a little faster. Um but uh other other methods of gaining gear is uh you might have specific named gear tied to your knight that you can unlock through their uh investigations.

2:07:22 Yeah.

2:07:23 Um uh or you can upgrade your hand of cards through also their investigations. So yeah. So uh that's that's I mean the kind of the gist of it

2:07:37 pretty much.

2:07:38 You get some gold. You have the merchant deck. Let's not forget that. Where it's going to you're going to have your baseline uh gear that you're going to have for your tier.

2:07:48 I think it's I think it's the same. I think it's like six in the merchant deck. It's six cards per tier.

2:07:54 Six cards per tier.

2:07:55 And it's actually But there's two of each. So there's six cards, but there's only three different items.

2:08:02 Was there only three? I mean, there's like a couple tier was like two boots, two maps. And then two torches or something.

2:08:12 That was I think that was the principality of stonegeear is what you're thinking of.

2:08:18 I mean, I could pull it out, but I'm pretty sure that was that was mob tier merchant.

2:08:22 Okay. Because I know there's like the broken sword, there was the I think there was a spear.

2:08:28 There may not have been spear, but anyway.

2:08:30 Oh, maybe maybe you are right. Yeah. But either way, it's like the expedition clash, for example, if your mob tier for an enemy is two cards. Um,

2:08:40 yeah,

2:08:41 full clash, same thing. Two cards. So, but I mean, it's two cards per enemy. So, as we went over in the content and the battles and all that, there's a ton of different enemies, but

2:08:54 right after they

2:08:58 go ahead. Yeah, they have they have uh like I said a small number of items to choose from. I mean essentially they have

2:09:05 I mean if you think of items that they have available per tier I mean yeah they have like what 10 assuming?

2:09:12 Yeah. Yeah. Mob, Vassel, uh King D uh Dragon and Devil. Yeah. They have 10 cards,

2:09:24 right?

2:09:24 Um per enemy.

2:09:26 Yeah. And it's like as your night story progresses, they'll unlock new titles and within their titles, it upgrades their essentially their their trauma. Not their trauma, but their heroic arc and their peril arcs.

2:09:39 Yeah. And their

2:09:40 So it is also upgrading your hand of cards.

2:09:43 Yep. And also your your knight's special ability.

2:09:47 That's right. We do have static unique abilities. I Yeah. Like I have little sir and then you have your flesh tokens.

2:09:54 Yep. Yeah. Um,

2:09:56 so

2:09:57 but I will say though like a mob tier item like like Sir Sonches or even stone faces because I never went and investigated for my mob tier sword. Um, but it's like it's like a a novel of text on those cards. Like your mob tier sword would be like an atto. That's like the the equivalent of the gigas that we got at on day 60. Oh, for sure. Very potent.

2:10:29 Um, and that's mob tier. That's that's like tutorial beginning of the campaign. So, it's like it's already incredibly good um right off rip and it just gets better um as you know as as the tiers go on. But the reason why I think that this is also not perfect is because once you fight an enemy, it's like, well, we see everything they have to offer. Um, and then if you fight that same enemy again, it feels kind of pointless.

2:11:01 Right. Right. Cuz yeah, once you've seen that tier and if you face them again in the same tier, which I don't think they anticipate you doing,

2:11:09 but that does that did happen to us

2:11:12 multiple times. We have fought the Iron Cast dead multiple times, the Wing Nightmare multiple times, and the uh the Stonemason Knight multiple times.

2:11:21 Yeah.

2:11:22 Um and we almost fought the Haunts multiple times, but it happened to be the Wing Nightmare.

2:11:30 So, so yeah, once you Yeah, you have a lot of variety of enemies with their loot, but like because of the scavenge system, you scavenge all the time. Mhm.

2:11:44 So you your loot deck is pretty much the entire deck and it's like I mean yeah you only get to pick one of them but like once you see the kingdom gear like for the sunken kingdom whenever we looked at it it's like okay this all sucks

2:12:00 and you just again you have to wait you have to wait until your next tier to see anything new.

2:12:06 Yeah. It's like every outing, every uh Dell, you can essentially anticipate one new gear card.

2:12:14 Yeah,

2:12:14 possibly two if you were going on an investigation for a gear card.

2:12:19 Um,

2:12:20 yes.

2:12:21 The rest is just it's it's turned into gold

2:12:24 and you could turn that in for possibly merchant gear or upgrading a merchant gear, which you can upgrade, which is nice.

2:12:31 Yep. Or use it to hire mercenaries.

2:12:34 Mhm. Um like one time buffs.

2:12:37 Yeah. Like they have a two time buffs.

2:12:39 Yeah. They have a delve phase and a clash phase or a delve ability and a clash ability,

2:12:45 right?

2:12:46 Um so kind of like the gold in in Kingdom Flororn feels like it's like the resources. It's it's the only resource

2:12:54 that you don't even really have to manage, but like things get more expensive the higher tiers,

2:13:00 right? Because like into you craft. You're gathering resources and you have to manage them and you have to

2:13:06 decide what you want to create. You have I mean I I've had complaints of atto in that you know it's very segmented when you get your gear that you have these complex trees you have to follow to get the [ __ ] you want.

2:13:19 Yep.

2:13:20 Um so I was originally you know I was all for all four forlor with no crafting and it's all loot. We love loot. I you know I've played plenty of Dungeon Delver video game in my day and it's like oh loot more stuff. Yeah.

2:13:32 You know I've played Diablo. You're constantly looting and bullshit's coming out like crazy.

2:13:37 Yeah.

2:13:37 Um unfortunately this is a very slow board game.

2:13:41 Um and you get you get one [ __ ] loot and then when the the pool is not exciting. It's just I don't know how they made looting unexciting but they did.

2:13:50 Yeah.

2:13:52 Um like it is cool to get like you know get a nice I don't know. I would just want more. I guess I want more to pick from.

2:13:58 Yeah. Like

2:13:59 even if even if I am still just getting one item. I just want more to pick from, I guess. Is that is that my is that valid?

2:14:07 Oh, no. 100%. That's the issue. I mean, that's what I'm saying is Kingdoms Forlorn is quality over quantity. Like you have such little options to choose from. But technically, if we're doing a onetoone comparison, the gear in Kingdom's Flororn is better. Mhm.

2:14:23 Um like I mean like I like I said the best weapon that we've got uh you know in cycle one of atto was the gigas and that took all of our resources almost till the end of cycle one to get and we had to unlock all the tech to get to a weapon like that.

2:14:44 Your first investigation in mob tier for your night sword is better than that. um or maybe not better, but is of the equivalent of that.

2:14:58 It was a very quality weapon. Yeah.

2:15:00 Yeah. And that's mob tier out of five different tiers. But the problem is at the same time, kind of like what we were saying with Gigas not being ascended to go to cycle two. So, it's not really good. You're not even using your mob tier sword anymore because we went to vassel tier,

2:15:21 right? And I mean you have to I mean you do have to upgrade.

2:15:25 Yeah.

2:15:26 I mean because there the thresholds do increase.

2:15:29 Yeah.

2:15:30 I noticed my the issue with my sword was well it was very accurate and it had all these different buffs essentially to make me always hit.

2:15:38 Um and I always had like plenty of power to back up my hits, but I was capped at like seven.

2:15:43 Yeah. Yeah,

2:15:44 I was going to deal seven damage and as soon as their like armor threshold goes higher than that, I was I was nobody.

2:15:52 Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess the one thing that we that we don't know personally is how how far do those do these weapons take us? you know.

2:16:01 Mhm.

2:16:02 Is it literally like as long as you're in mob tier, it's really good, then as soon as Vassel tier hits, you got to dump it. Or can can your, you know, chapter one investigation sword carry you for a bit.

2:16:16 I don't know. Like we we immediately moved on. I never even investigated for Fly Shritter's sword. I just used, you know, I think I used um

2:16:27 you know, a merchant. I used I used the stonemason spear for a bit and then now it's something different while we're in vassel tier because a new sword came out and I'm like, "Okay, cool. I'll try this." Um, but they're all they're all viable. They're all really good weapons, but like there's something to be said about working towards a weapon that feels badass versus it being gifted to you

2:16:53 and handed to you. And cuz I know while you hated the tech tree in atto um and you were like well we never really changed our our load out. Uh so like yeah you have all those options. It's like the fact that we can though.

2:17:12 Yeah. the fact that like we can't we have all those options of weapons and armor and support and all that stuff to be able to do a different build um versus looking at everything Kingdom Flororn has to offer and being like well we can't even really change our build because there's nothing to change it to. You do one one expedition

2:17:37 into the sunken kingdom scavenge 30 times because it just [ __ ] throws out that scavenge keyword. You've seen all the kingdom gear. You've seen all the upgrades. You've seen all the consumables. You've seen all the expedition. And you've seen all the full clash. And you're like, "Okay, well, I didn't like any of that. I guess I'll wait another three sessions to go to the next tier and hope that stuff's good.

2:18:07 Like if they if they did this loot system similar to how like with with the with the variety of atto

2:18:15 Oh, it'd be significantly better.

2:18:17 Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like be able to gift it from like random crits. I don't know how they would do that.

2:18:26 Yeah. Also,

2:18:27 makes it more exciting that way. I don't know.

2:18:29 Yeah. Kingdoms Flororn also doesn't have like secret de cards where oh if oh man if you crit this location yeah you you you know knock off a chunk of its armor and you get to take it.

2:18:42 It doesn't have any of that. It's it's all upfront. It's designed Kingdom Warlord is designed for you to see everything

2:18:52 and because it's not new every single time even though it's supposed to be. Um, it kind of feels like a letdown even whenever like

2:19:03 because even whenever we had the um like the full clash against a new a new enemy and we saw it, it's like, "Oh, okay. This is really cool." But then you that that's it. Okay. We've seen it.

2:19:19 Yeah.

2:19:21 Like, all right, got to do three more expeditions before we get to go to the next tier. to see new stuff.

2:19:30 We certainly tried something different. I mean, but yeah, I don't know. You see more variety, something. It just wasn't spicy. It just doesn't feel good.

2:19:37 Yeah. Um, so I guess it boils down to

2:19:40 We're not excited about the the loot cards. It's just, you know, you're getting something. You're getting a new item every outing and that's that's your lot.

2:19:48 Yeah. I mean,

2:19:49 an upgrade or a single single piece of something.

2:19:52 Yeah. And you get to pick it because you get to pick your investigation. So you could be like, "Oh, we're in chapter 4. Okay, I want to go after this helmet. I want to go after Fly Shredder's helmet." And wow, I collected three tokens. Got it.

2:20:09 It's I mean, maybe this is a lesson where it's like, "Hey, Devin, I could give you this, but wouldn't you feel better if you earned it?" [clears throat] Um, and and yeah, I I don't know. It it depends on if you do you want to manage resources or not. Like, do you want to have a craft system? Do you want to have a tech tree

2:20:36 uh that over the course of the game? And we mentioned this in our in our KDM and ATO comparison. atto is so curated. Like you will get the next best gear when you when we want you to.

2:20:52 Yeah.

2:20:53 Like

2:20:53 you'll never be overpowered.

2:20:55 You will never be over Yeah, exactly. You need to fight a Hecaton level you uh level three and win to unlock this tech tree or this technology card that gives you access to better weapons. Kingdom Forlorn is not nothing is gated. It's just like, oh, cool. You went here. This is where you fought. You get its loot.

2:21:19 Yeah. Yeah.

2:21:20 And I mean, you're never getting bassel gear and mob here. You got to actually reach that.

2:21:26 That's true.

2:21:26 But that's that's that's their extent of their gating.

2:21:29 But that's Yeah, exactly. That's just something that you would naturally do anyway

2:21:34 um just by playing the game,

2:21:36 right? It's just I think our biggest issue with the loot system in [clears throat] Kingdom Flororn is it's it's you see it all immediately.

2:21:50 And the gold I don't find exciting at all. I find that to be so artificial of like, cool, I have 30 gold. All right. Uh yeah, we can hire the bard.

2:22:03 Yeah.

2:22:04 Yeah. We want one. We didn't buy a single mercenary and we're like it was fine. We were fine.

2:22:11 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Nothing there is like super exciting. Like and then you look at like oh we can get rewards for doing bounties or for doing contracts and it's like these I don't want to do. I don't want to do anything that makes me stay in the Dell phase any longer.

2:22:28 Right.

2:22:28 Um I mean but it does have it it does have that loot box kind of feel though. Like the only time the the loot gear in Kingdoms Flororn is exciting is when you when we did fight something new. It's like, "Oh, thank god we could look at something different."

2:22:44 Yes.

2:22:45 Um

2:22:45 you don't know what it is and it is something new. That's I mean I know that's what they went to preserve with the different tiers and the variety of monsters.

2:22:52 Yes.

2:22:53 Is that And yes, that's that's Yeah. And so there are just there only like two or three items per monster per tier. Um, but they anticipate you fighting something new every single time.

2:23:04 Yeah. And it is kind of it is interesting. So, let's let's assume that Kingdoms Warlord has everything out for it or or they support it and you have six kingdoms to go to.

2:23:16 Oh, six kingdoms. Damn.

2:23:17 No, no, no. I'm I'm just hypo like hypothesizing. Let's just say they support it even more.

2:23:22 Um, because of right now we have four and then you have the the underground with the succulent tiers. Um, but if if what uh god if if what my my discord buddy is saying like they've alluded to potentially doing more. So your loot system is tied into having a a ton of kingdoms, having a ton of monsters and a ton of knights. So you have three different pools of loot. Whereas kingdom the kingdom uh whereas aon trespass has one. It's just cycle gear.

2:24:08 So it is different. I guess it's just like like do you like that? Do you like the fact that you have unique kingdom gear and consumables? I mean, the only reason we don't have any consumables is because we happened to take a a contract that trashed them all. But consumables are like one time use, but then you can buy them later. Um,

2:24:34 but it's like you have to get to the end of that of your six-hour [ __ ] session and just say, okay, I'll take the potion,

2:24:41 right?

2:24:41 It's like, I don't want the monster gear.

2:24:45 Um, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you have to look at the the loot deck and then pick which one you want. And then

2:24:52 um but then there's also the upgrades that you can attach to your different weapons um that are really good.

2:25:01 Like it's like, hey, my weapon cannot I it cannot be voluntarily discarded from me.

2:25:07 Like I have a sandpaper grip.

2:25:09 It's not getting knocked out of my hand,

2:25:11 right?

2:25:12 Um

2:25:12 or my banner and I can motivate everyone around the board.

2:25:16 Yeah. I mean, or or your um sling that has like four shots that you roll a [ __ ] ton of dice to crack someone in the skull with. It's like and and it sucks because the loot is cool.

2:25:30 Like, but it's just there's so little of it, but they pull it from four different areas. So it's like would you rather kingdoms fourlor and loot and and build just be one big pool like it is in atto and then you could just pick from any of that or do you like the fact that your knight can I can never get your weapon I can never get anything like your weapon and that's what differentiates us which is how which ties all the way back to the framework of kingdoms forloren is it is it is individualistic knights who can have individ like different card builds, different item builds, and then the modularity of the the various kingdoms and and enemies determine your loot and your character build.

2:26:22 Yeah, I

2:26:27 And then we just came from

2:26:30 the scavenge just doesn't feel good.

2:26:33 Yeah. And until they fix that, uh, I I have to go to ATO. Honestly,

2:26:40 that's surprising.

2:26:42 I'm also going to get to at

2:26:45 Well, well, I mean, I think we knew our I mean, we knew our answer on this one because we have had this.

2:26:50 It's just not satisfying.

2:26:53 It's like the more I don't know.

2:26:55 It's It's because everything

2:26:57 like even when you know you're getting something new, it's like you get one card. I don't know. Oh, and then like you said, the gold doesn't feel good.

2:27:03 Yeah, I think it's also

2:27:04 like throwing the knight.

2:27:06 Yeah.

2:27:07 Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

2:27:07 I I was going to say I I think it's because everything you do is it it scavenge one, scavenge three, and it's like, okay, well, what's the point? Like, okay,

2:27:21 it's Would it feel better if it was just like, here, have three gold? Um, I think it'd be better if there was a loot deck, like a a a big loot deck, and it was random

2:27:34 instead of you just picking it up and it's like, what do we what do we find? How much kingdom gear do we want? What's the point? Why why is there a scavenge three option and we pick three consumables? And it's like we know exactly what we're getting. Yeah,

2:27:50 I think it's because the overall flow of Kingdoms Flororn is way too long to to to have that little options at the end of it.

2:28:01 Yeah. I mean, six hours, I'd want a little more.

2:28:06 Yeah. Or better yet, the way Madara does it. Yeah. you you just you draw from a loot deck that gives you money and then you go and it's like, "Hey, here's kind of like the way the contracts are where it's like, "Hey, we can only take one of these contracts because we're in mob tier."

2:28:20 If it was literally like, "Oh, hey, we're in mob tier. Here's a list of things we can buy."

2:28:28 Yeah.

2:28:29 How much money do we have to be able to afford it versus it being handed to us? Um, and maybe the expedition clash and the full Clash loot were actual drops, but like everything else is kind of like a list of money. And we actually And so

2:28:47 like you're always gonna That's true. You're always going to pick like the full Clash of the Exhibition. That's generally going to be their best gear. So why shouldn't that just be a guaranteed drop for somebody?

2:28:57 Yeah.

2:29:00 Yeah. I mean

2:29:00 Yeah. Yeah. And then so so kind of like how atto is with its resources that you spend to craft your gear and stuff, you don't have resources, but you have gold that you have to manage for your gear instead of it being just handed to you because you scavenge 15 cards in a run.

2:29:16 Yeah. So, so yeah, I think I know we got we got hung up on the loot system, but like do you do you like in terms of because we this is called character progression. Do you prefer still the way Titans are built out or do you like the Knights?

2:29:41 I do. I I mean I like the Knights hand of cards. I like that elevating. I like that they're I mean their titles upgrade with them obviously.

2:29:51 Yeah.

2:29:55 I mean, but your characters are more or less tied to their cycle. I mean, sure, there's a handful that continued on when we played, but most of them ain't retired. Like, when they complete a Nemos, they're done.

2:30:06 Yeah.

2:30:07 And so, they don't really feel like characters.

2:30:15 Split up here. Uh, let's see.

2:30:23 Yeah, like I mean this

2:30:24 I mean I might still just be hung up on how much I hate the delve

2:30:29 and it's like you know you know as hateful as the delve is, shouldn't I get more loot for this?

2:30:33 Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of where I was thinking. I'm like I'm like I think the character progression for both of these it's atto is is this all congruent flow of of of advancing. It all feels like it's tied into one where it's like we are going through an adventure. We are going through this entire cycle where everything just feels natural. like yeah when you segment the loot out it's just like oh yeah this is all tied behind a tech tree but that's naturally happening when you're looking at you know this timeline it is curated of tech tech battle tech tech you know ex I mean exploration cards change right here and so story stuff is just constantly naturally flowing so that by the time you do get better gear it's it feels like this was right versus and but that but that takes a that's a commitment that takes a long time to do that. But then you look at Kingdom Forlorn and it's like this is kind of the equivalent of the timeline and here you level up your knight. Here you get an item. Here you get an item. Here you get an item.

2:31:55 But they these are all individ indivi individualistic sessions. that take way too long,

2:32:03 right?

2:32:06 So, like whenever you're looking at here, like if we played from like day one all the way to day 17, that feels satisfying. And for how long it would take us to do this, we'd probably do one night's one night's quest. and you get you you get very little payback.

2:32:35 And then unfortunately this is a this is a constant progression towards a a an epic finale.

2:32:42 And here it's like, oh, we did mob tier stuff. Okay, we're going to do the exact same thing but in bassel tier,

2:32:49 right?

2:32:51 So

2:32:52 I mean it's like the main thing you're building for is that story, that night story. Oh yeah. Which is amazing. Like I mean the narration for both these games is awesome. So, so yeah, it is kind of interesting because it's like hm I I like the knight build more than the titan build, but I think the loot is

2:33:22 is when it's isolated is much better in Kingdom Flororn.

2:33:29 Right. But I think overall character progression I feel I feel much more satisfied with the way it goes in atto because we earned it. Like we worked for we we we managed resources. We saved up for it. We specifically fought that the the same enemy twice to level it up so we could get that technology that allows us to get to this item.

2:33:57 So,

2:33:58 right. And not to me. Yeah. And then those little surprises, just something about rolling a N a critical and getting a piece of gear. It feels good.

2:34:07 Yeah.

2:34:09 Yeah. And it's awesome. So

2:34:14 So yeah.

2:34:14 So yeah,

2:34:16 that is our comparison for Kingdoms Flororn to Aon Trespass Odyssey. bring bring these sexy sexy pictures back up, right? Oh,

2:34:36 and it's crazy though whenever you're looking at it's like hit 9.0 and then Kingdoms for Lord also 9.0

2:34:43 9.0

2:34:45 but it's out of 440 ratings versus 2.6,000.

2:34:50 Yeah.

2:34:51 So, I am very curious to see where Kingdom's Warlord lands. I think I mean this is tried and true because one it pulled from Kingdom Death like

2:35:02 Mhm.

2:35:02 and it's also been out for three years. I am actually extremely curious to see what Aon Trespass Odyssey the 12 sins of Heracles does because they just released like an update where they talked about how they changed it. Um like what they've learned like I know I know they've streamlined it. Um,

2:35:24 yeah.

2:35:24 So,

2:35:25 so is it are they using like

2:35:28 I mean it's still the same game, right? Still the same systems.

2:35:30 All for all intents and purposes, yes.

2:35:33 But it doesn't have like eight steps to go through in, you know, in a in a round.

2:35:39 Oh, okay. Okay. So, it's stepping away from that. So, they continue that for five cycles and then Heracles a little different.

2:35:47 Yeah. And like I I I'd have to read it. they their updates are are so long. Um

2:35:54 but like cuz someone's like, "Hey, is 12 Sentence of Heracles like a sequel?" And it's like it's a prequel sequel in, you know, threequel or whatever [ __ ] they said.

2:36:05 Um so yeah, I'm very curious to see how that kind of like if they took anything from Kingdoms Flororn and was like, "Here's what worked in Kingdom Flororn." Um and they're going to implement and kind of do a merge. Um, but I'm also extremely curious cuz I think all the negatives that we said about Kingdoms 4, Lauren,

2:36:30 I think can be rectified with more content.

2:36:35 Like,

2:36:35 yeah, for sure. This game, this game gets better if they they just release kingdom packs and knight packs like they have I mean when like these because the game is the knights

2:36:49 just like ATO is the game is the cycles

2:36:53 but they've designed Kingdoms for Lauren where they can release

2:36:58 random expansions

2:37:02 of here's a random kingdom box that has one knight in and one kingdom and they they they could not do that with atto. They couldn't just be like here's a random cycle. So I think what hurts kingdoms forlororn the most in this comparison pledge is we have five cycles of content to compare it to against two kingdoms. Even though there are seven knights, those knights only go as far as the kingdoms that they go into.

2:37:38 Exactly.

2:37:40 Um, so I mean I'm still curious. We're still playing it.

2:37:48 Yeah.

2:37:48 But

2:37:49 I mean, again, I don't hate it.

2:37:53 It's just not It's not atto. It's just not the perfection atto is. Yeah. No, that ongoing satisfaction.

2:38:02 Yeah. Um, so yeah, I Devin, you have anything else?

2:38:10 No, we covered it. All five segments.

2:38:12 Sweet. So, if we're looking at um how do I open this? There we go. So, if we're looking at the uh the thing I've been keeping track of, price and content, Kingdoms Flororn, uh one out for us, story and theme, we're leaning into atto framework, uh between like the way the cycles work versus the individual individ individualistic knights, we got atto. Um battles between boss and adversary or mobs and bosses, we actually got kingdoms forlororn. and character progression were leading atto.

2:38:49 So it actually it wasn't the sweep that we thought it was going to be,

2:38:54 right? I when I had said that earlier, I kind of forgot about the battle. I was like, man, four does have slapping battles like and you know it's it's got gear that really supports it.

2:39:03 Yeah.

2:39:04 So it's a good time. You have a lot you can do.

2:39:06 Yeah. And that's the interesting thing is like if if everyone was looking at this and they're like, "Well, geez, I get a lot of stuff. I get more stuff with Kingdoms Flororn and the main crux of the game which is the actual where all the all the mechanics come in.

2:39:22 Like technically Kingdom's Flororn is is better like if you look at these

2:39:29 on their own.

2:39:29 Yeah, if they skip that [ __ ] del phase.

2:39:32 It is it is kind of atrocious which I might have to see if I can find that Delve Delree variant. I don't know where people are talking about that. It's just not gone.

2:39:43 So yeah, I hope I hope this comparison video uh is is very helpful um for anyone who who is watching. I know it was very long. These are very long giant games like ATO is a 70page rule book. Kingdoms for is a 100page rule book. Um so these these are just small pieces of of a whole. Uh, but it comes down to what do you value? I think Kingdom's Flororn, if I was to like make it very quick, Kingdom's Flororn is designed to be modular and quicker in terms of setup and tear down. Um, and you know it because because one thing that we have didn't even mention in our discussion, it's in the rule book. you are. It's designed for you to be able to take your knight and go and play in other people's campaigns,

2:40:43 right? Right.

2:40:44 Like they

2:40:44 assume all your friends bought Kingdoms 4.

2:40:46 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Assuming that everyone had, you know, $1,000 and they just wanted to buy this game. But it it is meant to be almost plugandplay where, hey, here's my knife for my game that I can throw in and play with you guys. Uh, so it's it's it's a unique system that they've done for the game and atto is meant to be a long equivalent of a D and D session

2:41:11 or a D and D campaign. Um, so I had fun. I I mean I I think this campaign or this comparison video uh actually shed some light on on both of them. uh whenever you're looking at them in a different context.

2:41:34 Right. Right. Yeah. The uh the four line definitely holds more onto the uh you know the core value of the combat.

2:41:44 It just it just tried to add more challenges that were

2:41:48 uh a little too vaccine.

2:41:51 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll see. Like, uh,

2:41:58 I mean, we Deon and I have done two cycles of atto. Um, after we're done with Kingdoms Forlorn, we plan on hopping back in. Um, who knows? Maybe maybe down the line we'll revisit this after after we finish out Kingdoms Forlorn and it's released a few more Kingdoms and after we finish all five cycles of atto. very likely

2:42:20 we might uh might come back and see if if any of our perspectives have have changed by seeing everything that both games have to offer. But until that time, um Devin, you good?

2:42:39 Yeah.

2:42:40 Awesome.

2:42:41 Well, sweet. Well, I hope this has been helpful for everyone. And I hope you enjoyed uh you know go watch our our series for both of these games and uh enjoy those. And then like, comment, share, and subscribe. And have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you.