Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Folklore The Affliction. Problems and Solutions (Part 1.)

 Folklore...

...the Affliction' update:



It's been a long time (months!) between posts. 

In my 'cheap organizer solution' post for Folklore the Affliction, I had ended with a cryptic '...while exploring all the boxes and fitting everything together I discovered a BIG PROBLEM (To be continued)' and then never wrote a follow-up!

However a Gmail notification let me know that an anonymous comment had asked, '...to be continued, when?' and that has spurred me into this post - an update on the problem and then another post on my experience with the game. 

What was the big problem? In this post I'll address one problem, and in the next some gameplay challenges that I encountered.

'Affliction' indeed...

As you can tell in the organizer post, I was really enjoying finding a way to store the game, and I managed to get everything together in one box - the base game box. As is usual for me, as I played through the game I had been checking BGG and Reddit posts for information about the game - rules clarifications and such - and I came across posts about a mould issue with the Fall of the Spire expansion. In short, some of the boxes for the expansion were found to have mould, which kicked off a number of issues for the publisher and the Kickstarter. 

I checked my boxes, and sure enough, I had been 'afflicted' with mould in both the Fall of the Spire expansion and the core game box. A bit difficult to see in these images, but there it is!




 'No problem!' I thought - this mould is not harmful, and it can be removed. On reflection though I decided they had to go. I live in a country that can get very, VERY humid in summer and all my boxes are stored packed closely together in a cupboard which is not air-conditioned. Was the amount of mould excessive? Maybe, maybe not, but in the end I wasn't comfortable with the situation, so I binned both boxes.

I sent a polite email to the publisher asking about a replacement box, but didn't hear anything back. That was a shame - I know they had done the right thing when this issue was discovered by communicating with their backers - so I had hoped for some response. I know they have also had problems with their website over the months and again, there is some concern now that they have gone out of business. (Which I truly hope is not the case! This is an excellent game.) We are now several years past the release, so it also wouldn't be surprising if there were no replacement boxes available.

Unfortunately, getting the original boxes also proved to be difficult on ebay as well. If you can find an empty box, it can be about 20~30 USD, with another 20 USD for shipping. As much as I like the game, that doesn't make sense for me so (for now) all my Folklore materials are in the Dark Tales box.

I'll keep an eye out for a cheap box by haunting the usual places, but I'm not getting my hopes up. For now, everything fits into a mould-free box, and that is OK with me.

See you next time, when I provide an update on how the game has been to play, and approaches to house rules that have significantly improved my enjoyment of the excellent title.

Bye for now and thanks for reading.

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