...I hate to say it,but it seems to me that I've spent a buncha time backing a game that's going to die on the vine. No expansions announced and then...selling for $25, the equivlent of the quarter bin at the comic book store.

So, anyone know what happened? This was, for me, a game every bit as good as anything I've played in a long time. I noticed that contests were started with no winners announced, no news at all, in fact, since, like...over a year ago? I saw one bad review on YouTube by some large fellow who needed a shave, but otherwise, praise (conditional at times, but praise nontheless) abounded! Poor support? Poor marketing? What? Hey, why didn't anyone announce a winner of the fanfic contest?

And, more important, what (if anything) can the fan base do to turn this around?

Dang it, I want an expansion that I can use my Chairman Hiro token on! :/

-J-

Oh, yeah. And Merry Christmas!

Praise abounded? Where?

Go re-read those reviews on BGG again - I think you'll find opinions were pretty split. And for an FFG game, that's not great.

Personally I think It's a great game. And I hope we get more Android.
I think if FFG made an expansion that add a game style that started the game with a definitive Murder that it would really crank up the sales.
From reading forums and review it seems that many people were expecting/wanting this.

Even though I think it's awesome as is, I think this idea would be good for Android. Then it would have something for everyone.

I really want an expansion that add more Detectives.

It's weird; everyone I've mentioned the game to in real life really likes it, but on the Internet you can't talk about it without someone jumping in to declare how awful and broken they think it is (hi Chris!)

Which is not an uncommon occurrence in general, sadly, but Android is even more polarizing than most; I'm not in a position to judge what the overall balance of opinion is, but I get the definite sense that the force of the split response did make a lot of people hesitant to buy it, even if they might've really enjoyed it.

Hey, all.

I guess I hadn't seen the degree of polarization...more just conversations with fellow game enthusiasts, either in person or on the net.

My guess is that some folks may have felt bent out of shape over the game because they were expecting a role-playing game in a box, but instead got a mover/builder mechanic with a "take THAT!" card game aspect.

Me, I liked it...but some gamers WANT things their way...well, who knows?

I'll just keep praising it, & hope we get some more pronouncements from teh officials at FFG on the subject.

I think for the most part Fantasy Flight currently is busy with other projects. You can see how they update that they have been working on other properties and picking up properties from Alderac. Overall, I think that Android is really attractive... in reality ive been wanting this game for well over half a year before getting it this past christmas as a gift from my wife.

Now that i have it, i cant wait to play it on friday. I know itll be high on the totem pole in terms of learning but we have a whole slew of time to burn anyways. I'm not entirely sure if the marketing was bad as much as it wasnt put out there more. The Youtube video on it clearly talks about how the designer came up with the concept of the game on a ride to Origins (i thinks). This leads me to believe that while the game was spontanious in design the concept for a good game is still there / here. Besides players that only live within games like Descent, Dominion, and so forth dont like to explore out side of their comfort realm. you really need a group of gamers at heart that are down to be willing to crack open a game and just game. Not people that get stuck within one single game and all others are "garbage, crap, could have been better"

I hope it doesnt get discontinued and later it gets re brought back.

Good points, Krazy.

Bleached: I was originall going by the ratings on Amazon.com. True, only 3 reviews, but still...

Time to get cracking!

Joker said:

Hear! Hear! That token needs to feel the love too!

Joker said:

I'm a fan, but:

(1) The rulebook is very poorly organized and very large. And because it's competitive, it's necessary for everyone at the table to have an equal grasp of the rules. (Unlike a complicated co-op game, you can't just rely on a guru to walk you through it.) As a result you either have to resign yourself to spending 1-2 hours reviewing the rules before you play each time. Or you need to play frequently enough that the complex rules aren't forgotten between games. But it's simultaneously a lengthy game in its own right, so both frequent playing and tacking on an extra 1-2 hours of rule review are unappealing options for lots of people.

(2) Strategies for victory can be very unclear even after you've read the rulebook because so many of the rules are actually found on the cards. Once again, frequently playing of a rather lengthy game are required to get familiar enough with the game to really start mastering any kind of strategy for it. Most people don't have the insight to REALIZE the game offers a richer and more complex strategy than their first couple play-thrus would indicate.

(3) The game was sold as a murder-solving game set in a Blade Runner-esque setting. They delivered on the milieu; but the murder-solving mechanic (as is oft lamented) feels like a suspect-framing mechanic. I think the mechanic works fine, but it didn't deliver what a lot of people (including me) felt we had been promised.

(4) The game has a sweet spot for the number of players it requires. It's not quite as limiting as Diplomacy's "you must have exactly 7 players for this game to work right" reality, but we've found that 3 player play is not rewarding compared to 4-5 players. And the number of times we've laid Android aside because we had less than 4 players or more than 5 players is not insignificant.

(5) It's really easy for 1-2 players to end up in a position of "I can no longer win this game" with 1-2 hours of play left. That's really not much fun. (This can be partially fixed by adding a mechanic for removing hits from a suspect, because the #1 way to end up in a no-win scenario is to watch helplessly as your suspect gets assassinated. But this also creates game balance problems.)

That, in a nutshell, is what went wrong with the game.

To make some comparisons:

It requires just as much set-up as Arkham Horror, but I have to spend 10x longer explaining the rules to new players because we can't effectively explain the rules as we go along.

It's very comparable to Twilight Imperium in terms of rule complexity and set-up time, but when a new player finishes as game of Twilight Imperium they can usually identify the tactical or strategic mistakes they made and see a clear solution for how they can "play better next time" (thus motivating them to try again). Android is not without strategy, but it's buried so deep that first time players may be more likely to see nothing but chaos and a random outcome without any idea of how they could do better the next time around.

I'm not convinced that this game is "on it's way out" just because it was part of the Christmas sale...........so was the Starcraft expansion, and I was under the impression that it sold very well beforehand because it was near universally praised.