Golem Arcana Is Ending Production Announces Harebrained Schemes
January 29, 2016 by stvitusdancern
The miniatures - electronic hybrid game Golem Arcana is coming to an end HBS (Harbrained Schemes) has announced.
The game that came out in 2014 and we previewed at Gen Con of that year is ending its run. Here is the official announcement:
"The release of Durani: Champions of the Western Wind on Jan 27th is the final product in the Golem Arcana line. After seventeen retail expansions, fourteen web exclusive products, two Living World scenario arcs, numerous short stories, a Lore Book, two League Play seasons, and expanded functionality of the core game — we have no future releases planned.
We here at HBS are devastated that we can’t continue to expand this ground-breaking game. We poured our hearts and souls, as well as millions of our dollars, into a landmark development in tabletop hybrid games.
We’re very proud of this game, with glowing reviews by everyone from Penny Arcade to Game Informer, and an Origins Award for Best Miniature Figure Rules. Unfortunately, sales have not recouped our extensive investment in software and manufacturing..."
This is sad news as I know the wonderful people of at HBS had put their heart and soul into this game and its world. We picked up the base game at Gen Con and played with it a few times here and there. It was a really cool idea, but you could not help feel that it could be played without the miniatures. Also, there were people who did not care for the style of miniatures either.
I had no problem with them and they were definitely a style of their own. It will still hold a place of honour on our game shelves. Don't feel to bad for them as they are working on the tremendous game of Battletech.
Did you ever get to play Golem Arcana?
"This is sad news as I know the wonderful people of at HBS had put their heart and soul into this game and its world..."
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Always sad to see a range end.
I’ll put my hand up and admit I wasn’t a fan of the miniature range even though I found the idea intriguing.
Don’t feel bad that you looked at the range that way. It’s clear that this game did not appeal to the masses. This is the second electronic hybrid game that I can think of within the past 5 years that has folded. I don’t think we gamers are open to that type of game.
I think you’re right. I personally don’t play TTGs for their electronical side of things, quite on the contrary actually. I use my tablet while playing since I have rulebooks, reference sheets there that I might need to reference every now and then but that’s it. Oh well, I wish HBS good luck on any future endevour!
Surprising absolutely no one.
I backed the Kickstarter, so have some of the range. I was disappointed with the pre-paints when I got them, even though they weren’t that bad, but the tiles are great. The game is actually quite fun to play, but I agree that it didn’t really work as the app took attention away from the board/minis and you would often forget to move them after the app had updated, leading to the feeling they were superfluous. The other issue was that you didn’t need to know the game rules as the app took care of it, but that just meant it was harder to get more deeply engaged tactically. I will still keep it and play it now and then. A great shame for HBS it didn’t take off more.
I am afraid this validates what I said back then.
This is not the way to do a hybrid game and yes, I understand I have no good suggestion myself, any game that can be played just by the app is not a good suggestion.
I never liked the idea of integrating electronics into a miniatures game in the first place. It just seems completely unnecessary.
I guess that depends. I play miniature games to get away from all electronical stuff. I like the real minis and terrain and don’t really want an app or some such added. I’m clearly not part of the potential market for games as Golem Arcana but I think that hybrid games generally very seldom take off.
At some point I believe we will actually get the “good” way of integrating tech and oldschool tabletop. But at this point, we’re very much in the “sticking wings on a bicycle to see if man can fly” period, and what we’re seeing is a lot of ideas that *don’t work* failing till we get the one that works. Of course it’s sad that someone’s idea and dream project fails, but like so many of those games, it was a tablet game that had minis attached to it, it was pretty much destined to fail.
If you need a computer to work out the rules then you may as well play a computer game. If the models don’t grab you for aesthetic reasons then then you are just paying extra for crap you don’t want. If you are aiming at a group that aren’t already swayed by the mass of offerings already out their then you have a really hard sell in that case. It doesn’t help that pretty much all prepaints other than AT43 have been subpar in that regards. If people don’t have the “wargaming gene” then it doesn’t matter how easy you make it to take up your game they won’t take it up. If they do though, you’re wasting money if you require them to buy extraneous product.
My opinion.
Yup I called it from day 1. Golem Arcana is competing against GW, PP, Wyrd, and the whole slew of mini games, and FFG Star Wars, and while the others do have apps, your game doesn’t come to a stop when the app crashes etc. On BBG it seems clear that the team could never keep on top of keeping the app running on the plethora of devices.
Also… the minis are crud. For what you are paying they are just plain lame, not even worth repainting.
Want a game that uses an app and is a clear success? Leaders: the Combined Game. For them the app adds gameplay typically only seen in a computer game e.g. Civ, to a game like Risk.
Also look at Exilis. Another tech supported wargame. Both that and Golem suffered from the fact that the models were not needed for the game. They were props. No added value.
Also Golem Arcana is just Mechwarrior with an app because Mechwarrior is a overly complex wargame. Most modern wargames are so simple that they fit the core rules onto 2-4 sides of a4. They were basically solving their own issue of complex rules.
And quoting Harebrained Schemes “The most recent update from the end of 2015 represents our best foot forward for supporting as many devices and operating systems as possible at that time. We recognize that as new technology is introduced into the market, with no plans for updates, the future compatibility of the app with updated devices is out of our control.”
Pretty much why it was always doomed to fail. Tech moved faster than the game.
Also to continue the app as an indy thing, the app needs a total rebuild due to licensed software, and to add new models to the game and make new tiles, you need to print the IR readable ink.
Basically they built drm into the game and it will die without proper support.
Also the problem with KS is you need to balance the discount you give to backers, vs the post sales you will lose from backers who have pledged to get everything at discount, vs trying to get player in who did not get the KS. Compare this to Kingdom Death, where after the KS there were still more and more post KS backers, Black Friday backers, and even now, people are paying full price for the game.
It is all about added value. KD has it. Other successful games have it (see Guildball which did one KS and has not relied on more to bring their expansions out).