A video was made by Ramper Design at Ontabletop, and I asked an AI to make a summary article of this video in which we learned a number of interesting facts. Infinity Gets A Space Combat Game! Exploring Acheron's Fall & More With Ramper Designs! Acheron's Fall dates and teasers at last! Infinity gets a space combat game! Discover Acheron's Fall and more with Ramper Designs! Infinity, the famous science-fiction miniatures game, is taking on a new dimension with Acheron's Fall, a space combat game featuring the fleets of the various factions in the Infinity universe. This ambitious project is the brainchild of Ramper Designs, a small Spanish company that has already created Takure, a cyberpunk rugby game. In this video, the presenter of the ontabletop youtube channel talks to Axel, Ramper Designs' brand ambassador, to find out more about these two games and the upcoming crowdfunding campaign for Acheron's Fall. Axel begins by introducing Ramper Designs, a company born of founder Ramon's passion for board games. He recounts how Ramon began creating his own games, testing them at local events and evolving them into finished products. He explains that Ramper Designs is an independent company that needs the support of gamers to launch its projects. He goes on to describe Takure, the first game published by Ramper Designs. It's a futuristic rugby game that pits two teams of four players against each other in a cyberpunk universe. He emphasizes the dynamic, fast-paced and immersive nature of the game, which requires players to manage their resources, actions and reactions. He points out that Takure has had two successful Kickstarter campaigns, the first for the launch of the base game and the second for the addition of two new teams. He then goes on to talk about Acheron's Fall, the new game in preparation at Ramper Designs. It's a space combat game set in the Infinity universe, in collaboration with Infinity publisher Corvus Belli. He insists that Acheron's Fall is a game in its own right, not an adaptation of Infinity but inspired by it to create its own mechanics and atmosphere. He details the elements that make Acheron's Fall unique, such as the vectorial movement of ships, which takes inertia and gravity into account, the management of resources and personnel on board ships, and the initial effect panel, which gives information on the position and orientation of ships. He says that Acheron's Fall is a game that simulates the feeling of being a captain at the head of a space fleet, having to make strategic and tactical decisions. He concludes by announcing that Acheron's Fall will be launched on Kickstarter at the end of September 2023. He indicates that the game will feature a ship for each Infinity faction, as well as initial boxes grouping the main factions according to the Acheron's Fall timeline. He adds that there will then be expansions to add more ships and other elements to the game. He invites viewers to follow the ontabletop youtube channel to discover Takara and Acheron's Fall games, and to support the project on Kickstarter.
Leak by Ramon Perez on his discord. Ramon Perez has posted a leak showing what the game is going to look like - well, more or less, it's a prototype. He captioned it "some demos at an infinity event in Zaragoza." We should have a video very soon next week on OnTabletop: "The game is published on OTT on Tuesday. there you can see everything in full." From photo, there are a few things to note: - You have to be a bearded geek in your thirties to play. - You play on a large wargame map and not a small map with board squares like in Fleet Commander. - The fleets are modest, with 1 large ship, 1 small ship, and the last one looks average, but it's too blurry to be sure. However, there are only 2 cards on the table, so if they were ship cards there would be 2 small ones. - There are command boards for each player to manage the current mechanics. - There are certainly tokens to represent states and perhaps weapon effects. - It's played with a ruler. - The ship size is fairly standard with the rest of the market. - If the cubes are dice, it looks like you'll be playing with a dozen dice max depending on the rolls. - The blue ship on the left looks similar to the IE ships you can see in the illustrations with the 3 kinds of arms. Spoiler: Combined illustrations
The smaller ones are morat fighters, nicknamed mozzies. But I feel like at least some of the miniatures might be proxies, one looks like a SW imperial destroyer
Pew - I am out. To many years, not enough hair in the face. Honestly. At the current info-level its kinda boring. Kickstarter is also not very tempting. Its not CB so maybe they even managed it in a given timeframe ;-) but anyway: One? Ship? Ähm, another ship?
I like the focus on less ships. I tried playing fleet games and they can be fun but it feels like you lose a lot of detail that way. Hopefully focusing on few ships you have a lot of interesting choices AND lots of meaningful prep / building choices.
Finally !! Let's Play: Acheron's Fall - Starship Battles In The Infinity Universe! | Ramper Designs Gerry dives into a Let's Play of the awesome new starship battles game from Ramper Designs, Acheron's Fall! Based in the Infinity universe, you'll be taking on the role of your favourite factions in the interstellar void. Key Pictures: Spoiler: Previews
Given the length of the video I asked Bing AI to produce a summary of what was said in the video (and edited the previous post to include images). Summary of video Spoiler: video - The video presents a space combat game called Acheron's Fall, set in the universe of Infinity, a science-fiction miniatures game. - The presenter is joined by Axel, the representative of Ramper Design, the studio developing Acheron's Fall. - They explain the principles of the game, which involves managing your ship's resources, using a variety of weapons and maneuvering in space with a vector system. - They show the various elements of the game, such as ship miniatures, captains' instrument panels, weapon maps and the "EME" (not sure) panel, which indicates the direction and speed of each ship. - They begin an introductory game, where they compete with two ships each: the presenter controls a combined fleet, consisting of a cruiser and a destroyer, while Axel leads a panocean fleet, made up of a cruiser and an little ship. - They determine the activation order of their ships by randomly drawing numbered cards. - They move on to the strategic phase, where they allocate their ships' energy and personnel to the various systems: propulsion, weaponry, targeting, repair, etc. They then move on to the tactical phase. - They then move on to the tactical phase, where they move their ships according to their vector and thruster, and fire their weapons if possible. In particular, the presenter uses a heavy plasma cannon that creates a continuous jet in space. Summary of figurines: Spoiler: minis They talked about the miniatures in the video. The miniatures of the ships are made of resin and were designed by Ramper Design. They showed the different miniatures of the ships, which have a very detailed and realistic design. They also mentioned that the miniatures are available in several sizes, to suit different game scales. The miniatures are hand-painted and can be customized to suit the player's tastes. They also talked about the importance of paint in bringing ships to life and differentiating them on the battlefield. All in all, Acheron's Fall's miniatures are highly polished and offer a wide variety of choices for players.
This game looks awesome! Vector control (and weapons affecting vector), worker placement inside the ships, check and check. Looks like a really nice level of granularity. I'm all in for this one, will stash some cash for the KS right now!
Funny, people say that about Infinity too. Doesn't look dull to me at all, but then I like fleet games and find slick handling of stuff like vector inherently pleasing.
Ramper Design has made a first batch of answers to questions from the youtube video: Q: Will the production of the ships be handled by Corvus Belli or your Takkure partner? - The miniatures are not produced by Corvus, we will produce them in plastic at a company we have worked with on our last Takkure kickstarter, we made a miniature called PAN and the feedback has been very good. Q: Will the game allow team play and a small tournament format between more than 2 friends? - The game is intended for multiplayer games. 2v2, 3v3, 4v4... and many combinations of players. Q: Entonces realmente será humanidad vs ejército combinado o habrá una tercera facción (tohaa)? Y otra pregunta, quiero suponer que entonces como humanidad podrás jugar naves de todas las facciones o podrías hacer como listas de una sola facción? - The basic box is Acheron Blockade vs CA. But the formation of fleets and battle groups allows you to mix factions or make single faction groups. The idea is that you can create your battles representing any combat that happened in the history of infinity, like for example Pano vs Yujing in the neo-colonial wars. Q: Really interesting demo! Definitely a lot of potential but also shows some heavy bookkeeping. Like I'd like to play with more than 3 ships but it seems to quite difficult to manage. Are you planning on making an app to simplify this aspect of the game? - The concept of the game is to take advantage of the micromanagement of the ships to fight. We have sought a balance between difficulty and fun. If you want to play with many ships (more than 3) the options are: 1. Play multiplayer games (it's so much fun) 2. Play longer games (3 or 4 hours) We believe that simplifying the game too much would lose what makes it different. But we will take it into account.
Sounds like people are clamoring for "simplification" before trying it out... kinda typical when "beer and pretzels" gamers encounter worker placement mechanics inside other games (or anything that tracks between rounds, really). [Not that Infinity counts as beer and pretzels at all, so it's funny that Infinity fans would call for reduction towards that style.] Some people see worker-placement-style game boards and immediately freak out, claiming it's too much complexity. Complexity usually meaning it will be difficult to track and balance options. The reality is that well-designed worker placement boards are -less- difficult to track than abstract, complex games with tons of rules which are entirely inside a rulebook or your head (ie Infinity). Worker placement boards, or play cards with good iconography, keep all the options in front of you. I's all there, and your tokens tell you what you chose last round, and what your options are this round. Your choices and changes are mapped out right there: way less remembering what can follow what, or what effect a certain choice has. I can definitely understand wanting more little toy ships, but that's kind of a different scale of depth. Now adding fighter squads, that seems like an obvious choice, and surely they're already handling that too.
I added the questions, it does indeed talk about the difficulty of the mechanics but more in the sense of the heaviness that could benefit from an application, and so he was asking if this was planned, as it would make it easier to play mass battle.
Far as I can tell, the question is more geared to "can I zoom out and remove micromanagement in order to have fleet battles?". I find your entire post geared to not really understanding what micromanagement means in strategy games, and as a veteran 4x videogame player I can tell you it eventually reaches a point in which its meaning is "tedious". There is a reason we try to insert Macros everywhere, from games to computer works... And by "zooming out" & "Fleet Battles" I mean individual spaceships with their own control sheets, not "cluster several in the same zone, add wounds, manage all with a single dashboard" like GW mostly did with Apocalypse. Translation (a little freeform here, since it seems south american spanish): "So, in the end will it be Humanity Vs Combined Army, or will there be a third faction (tohaa)? <- mostly asking if it will be CA Vs Humans, or could there be Tohaa, not clear if as a third player group or an option (considering how the CA has assimilated part of the Tohaa, I think it would be a good idea to provide the Tohaa ships as able to be deployed by both sides). Another question, am I right thinking that as humanity you will be able to play with spaceships from all factions? Or would you listbuild single factions?"<- Mostly it seems to me the question is about "if I play humans, can I mix ships from all factions? Or I must make single faction lists?" May I present you the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator? sadly no longer for sale in physical format, but available in DrivethroughRPG, or in a more simplified manner (the need to discriminate impacts in six possible positions each with its own effects was quite convoluted) in the Attack Vector series of games...