A short, topical update from October 24, 2023: Secrets of the Lost Tomb returns to crowdfunding today with a 10th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter, and Daniel (@dungeondive) — owner of the original plus every expansion bar the menis, and self-confessed Lost Tomb-is-#1 evangelist — explains why he’s not backing it.
The headline reason: the new edition is 100% incompatible with the original. No upgrade pack is possible; the campaign is the whole game in roughly thirteen boxes at $350–$400 all in. Daniel already owns the perfect game (perfect for him) and doesn’t need a perfect upgrade. He’s also out of hobby-room space — games are already stacking on the floor.
What’s visible of the new version: cleaner, modern art and graphic-design (good — Daniel asked for exactly that in the masterclass), much nicer tile art (also good), but the new tiles don’t interlock like the old puzzle-shape tiles do — a quiet loss for table re-arrangement. The early signal is that the core game loop is preserved, which is encouraging given how heavily Everything Epic re-engineered Lost Station and lost what made the original work.
Daniel closes with a Kickstarter-business-model gripe: the all-in-up-front-or-never structure forces non-Discerning consumption, and he hopes some expansions stay in print long enough for buyers to dip in incrementally.
Daniel’s not backing the upgrade because he’s content with the original. Has loving an original ever made you skip a 2.0 you would otherwise have grabbed in a heartbeat?