Hey Fans of Fanatsy flight games,

I just wanted to share with you a website that is worth following for VIDEO reviews,

Check out http://www.boardtodeath.tv

Enjoy the video reviews of fantasy flight games!

-Luca-

Board to Death TV said:

The Descent review I just did not like. Describing the OL as a "Game Master" is one of the most unfortunate and detrimental assumptions about Descent. The OL is just another player trying to win the game. Descent is NOT and RPG... even with RTL and SoB that add a bit more STORY to the game, Descent is still a tactical miniatures game with a kill or be killed feel.

Hey Oboewan,

Thanks for the feedback, we did mention that he's trying to kill us off by the way.

And if you also follow forums online, you will see that many players were always winning as heroes and needed to create house rules to even it out.

We still like all types of feed back, and what you wrote here you can also write on our website. Just go to Descent, and click on Comments. You can also rate the game if you don't like our own rating.

Thanks again, and hope you enjoy our future reviews.

-The Board to Death Team-

Another small quibble....The number of players is 2-5, because the Overlord is a player.

I must agree with Oboewan that to call the Overlord a "game master" is to largely miss the point of the game. Also, since you didn't mention some missions getting ridiculously hard, I would theorize that you didn't play Quest 7 or missed a rule somewhere (I'm guilty of both). It also sounds like you're basing the difficulty of the game on the first few introductory quests, which would be pretty silly.

However, the overall assessment is fair; you touch on most of the important points, even if you missed the lack of scaling of difficulty based on player count (this is why all the missions were so "easy").

Tips:

-If you're doing voiceover work, take the time to edit out any speaking mistakes. I mean, Steve makes several tense errors (and has a tentative grasp on pluralization) and Michaela stutters a couple times; if you have the time to make fancy logos and videos, you have time to do the audio in chunks as well as several takes.

-Don't change the nomenclature the game uses without mentioning the original names. It makes you look ignorant ("game master", "village", etc.)

-For most games, especially FFG's games, especially Descent, the expansions are such an important part of the game that failing to mention them leads to an impression that the problems you discovered have gone largely unaddressed by the manufacturer. The "Players always winning" thing, for example, was (brutally) fixed in the first expansion. The omission is especially glaring given the repeated suggestions to customize the game in order to make it better.

I did like the extended shots of the components in action, the emphasis on showing the unboxed game, and review's underlying structure. Good luck with your video reviews.

I watched ton of the reviews myself last night.

My suggestions for all your reviews...

Like previously mentioned poster mentioned use the game's nomenclature (Over Lord, not the generic DM term cause they are different. You did say it was your job to kill the players though.)

I think you should definitely mention difficulty and scaling (make sure you have played the game enough to truly know this stuff)

Mention expansions and how well/bad they integrate. (you would see some make the game much harder for the heroes)

Mention if the game is playable solo by variants or out of the box.

Mention game-length and how many players is optimal with game length.

If the games are really complex(Descent/Arkham) make the reviews longer to show more gameplay mechanics.

Other than that they are pretty good reviews.

Thanks again guys for the great feedback, we are trying our best to bring good reviews and take all of the help that people just like you are give us.

The sound and editing does take lots of time and we will try our best to fix these mistakes.

As for the mistakes that we might make on the actual game review, please do not hesitate to write your own comments and reviews in the comments section.

This will help everyone on the site and visitors understand more about the game. And if something is posted by visitors, that we forgot to post, we will add it to the review.

We are trying to stay away from expansions for now, we started with games that we owned and not games that were sent to us, so we don't have the expansions yet. If Fantasy Flight Games send us expansions, we will definitely review them.

Please keep in mind that we are still in Beta and that we appreciate all your comments and input!

Stay posted as we will bring you better and more complete reviews!

The Board To Death team

I would disagree with the idea of using the games names for aspects of game play. I think using standard gaming nomenclature for reviews is a good idea. It allows your audience to quickly grasp concepts you are trying to get across. I really think most people disagree with the game master title for the OL because it down plays the competitive nature of the game which is a big differential mechanic for Descent. Downplaying this aspect is not helpful to your audience.

I would suggest you take more takes. I caught several mistakes during the reviews I watched and could really notice that the reviewers were reading. The unnatural flow really prevented me from watching more reviews.

I would suggest listening to the D6 generation for ways of making the reviews sound conversational.

edit. You should look at http://www.launchly.com/

Thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it.

We looked at the website you have sent us, but right now we don't have any budget to do such a thing, and we don't have time to get reputation points either. We are a small team and our focus is on getting feedback from people just like you, and getting the footage we need for the day of the shoot. Next week we are launching over 10 videos in one day , this takes lots of work.

Our hosts read because we want to make sure all the information we want to give our audience is there and nothing is forgotten. Hosts on G4 Tech tv also read, they just have an ear piece and a monitor to help them even more. We can't afford that now.

We want to stay away from the tripod camera and improvised explanation of games as seen on other websites, if I wanted that, I can just go to my board game store and ask the owner for his advice and get the same answer. We want to provide more footage of game play and more information via videos.

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback and our hosts are new at this and are doing it for free for you, just cut them so slack, as we go along we will get better and better to help serve you.

-The Board to death Team-

Board to Death TV said:

I know this is difficult to hear but no one cares how hard you work. They only care about the product you make. If the reviews do not flow well people will not watch them.

If you want a news talking head sort of review having scripts is acceptable. However, you must be certain your vocabulary is accurate and your information is rock solid. Personally when I run into new review sites I read the ones for games I already have to determine the ability and slant of the reviews. Secondly when I watch the news I know the people are reading but it doesn't sound like they are. I am sure your reviews will get better at this as they get more experience. You should really have them watch the finished reviews several times so they know what they sound like.

On the up side. You have a great advantage of being able to show the game components and even show the game being played I would use this as much as possible.

I would like to applaud the initiative behind Board to Death TV, though. I really appreciate the concept. It's not like video versions of board game reviews are all over the place. It's something I, for one, very much like to see The execution still needs some work, but you guys are clearly doing this with a passion and that's wonderful.

Having said that, I have to say I don't really agree with some of your viewpoints on Descent. I've only played the game a few times but I don't think it's that easy for the players (or that hard for the Overlord). It really depends on the scenarios and the experience of the players involved. I don't think there's anything wrong with the game design itself. I know I got brutally slaughtered in Quest number 3 by allowing my girlfriend, the Overlady, to spawn far too many monsters. Of course, I do have to add that I have the tactical insight of a peanut.

Hello Ludlov Thadwin of Sevenpiecks!

Thanks for the kind words, and feedback. We encourage people like you to join our team by writing your own review of the game and if you disagree with some stuff we commented on, then please let everyone know by posting your own review on our website. You can also use the STAR rating to rate the game. Some videos also have USER videos, you should check those out as well

Keep up the great support so that we can offer you better videos.

-The board to death team-

PS: 14 video reviews coming up this week!