OrcaCon wrapped up a few weeks ago, and I was so lucky to play many different games and meet so many different people!
So many play tests!
My favorite part about going to conventions is seeing all of the new content. People’s first games, experienced designers trying to sell their products, and exciting experiments with lots of broken goodness. Here are a few of my favorite play tests from the convention. (Side note: I play tested my own game L’Oracle de la Revolution and played the quick-start for Root: The RPG, but both of those sessions fit better in Part 3 of this review. Head over there to read about those games.)
For All Mankind – Doug Beyers and Julia Drachman
For All Mankind is a competitive board game for 2 to 4 players based on colonizing the solar system. Doug and Julia were there to do the demonstrations, and they were both super friendly people! We weren’t able to get enough for a full table, so both Doug and Julia hopped in to give us an example of play. Of course Julia ended up winning, but I was super close and the game felt very competitive.
The general game structure is fairly similar to classic games like Settlers of Catan or Monopoly. Players will spend resources to acquire territory, which in turn generates more resources, with which they purchase more territory, rinse and repeat. For All Mankind sets itself apart by the addition of many different ways to spend your resources and a brilliant board mechanic. Players can spend resources to purchase Research Projects (which allow a player to ignore or change some rules of the game for themselves) or Espionage Cards (which grant powerful one-time-use abilities) in order to gain an advantage in the race to gain more territory. Also, instead of a static board like Catan, the solar system of planets in For All Mankind constantly rotate around the board! Each planet has its own track, and its own speed of motion. This ensures that each game and even each turn are fundamentally different from the previous one.
The pacing and structure of the game felt incredibly satisfying. The Espionage Cards, the rotation of the board, and the Nukes (instantly remove one person’s territory) mean that the structure of the game is constantly shifting around. It heavily rewards the ability to strategize on the fly, and update your strategies as the situation changes. The game is at a point where I would probably buy a copy as it was, but Doug and Julia are continuing to make improvements and tweaks to make the game feel awesome. If you want to follow their work, you can head over to their instagram page for regular updates.
Finity – by Tony Mullen
Finity was on public demo Friday afternoon, being demonstrated by the game’s designer Tony Mullen. The game Finity is a self-described “algorithmic strategy game” and is competitive between 2-4 players. Tony is a professor of computer science, and developed this game as a way of representing certain CS concepts as a board game. He certainly tried his best to explain state machines and regex to me, but I appreciate his enthusiasm for the topic even if I was not the best student. The game on display was entirely made from 3D printed components. This made some of the pieces not fit perfectly in the space they needed to go, but overall was probably much more effective than a foam or cardboard setup would have been.
The overall display of the game is impressive and looks exceptionally complicated. After Tony started explaining the game to me however, it started to feel simpler and more coherent. The board is made up tessellating hexagons, and each hexagon has empty “bridges” that link between the hexagons. There are posts in the center of each hexagon, with a massive black and white tower in the middle hex. The goal of the game is pretty simple: create a path from your starting post to the middle hexagon. You do this by placing down black and white arrows in the empty “bridges,” and you must follow the arrows in the order defined by the black/white tower in the center. The order of the tower is randomized, and so you will never have the same game twice. That’s where the simplicity ends. Actually playing the game was incredibly complex, strategic, and (once I understood some of the more nuanced rules) surprisingly satisfying. You can turn arrows around, remove arrows, move your starting peg, destroy your opponent’s work, and use blockers to prevent your opponent from continuing their work. So many options, so many strategies, and I only played one game!
The game is deeply satisfying when you get a functioning strategy, and the objectives are simple enough to be reasonably understandable and achievable. The rules still feel unedited, and there are a lot of tweaks and balancing that will likely need to happen before the game feels polished, but the substance of the game feels competitive and strategic enough to be re-playable and engaging. If you want to find more information, you can visit the author’s page at www.finitygame.com.
Potions and Puppies – Loot & Lute Games
Loot and Lute games were on-site all weekend demoing their game Potions and Puppies. This game is adorable! Even without the final art it feels fun and family friendly, and the theme is a wonderful balance between the slightly darker themes of the Pugmire setting and the goofiness of the Dungeons and Doggos webcomic.
Potions and Puppies is a game that plays out the first scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. You and your puppy pals have just stolen the ancient relic from the depths of this ruin, and the guardian monster is chasing you out of the cave. You have to get past all of the deadly obstacles before you get caught by the monster. Getting past an obstacle requires that you craft the correct potion, and you likely don’t know all of the recipes right away. In order to achieve their escape, each puppy has different powers that can be activated using the magic crystals you find in the temple. Some puppies can hunt for specific potion recipes, some can gather extra magic crystals, and some can knock back the monster to give the group more time. Through the combination of cleverness and luck, hopefully your doggos will escape the cave before they get caught by the monster.
The game was enjoyable, and the story we told between each other was silly and fun. There doesn’t feel like a lot of strategy and planning is required, so for the more tactical gamer this probably isn’t the right game. It is simple enough for a party game, and it’s cooperative which makes it even more accessible. This is a great beginner game, and is adorable enough to bring in a lot of people who normally wouldn’t be excited about a fantasy board game. If you want to learn more about the game, you can subscribe to the mailing list over at http://www.lootandlute.com/.
The Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance Game – Twogether Studios
Twogether studios, the duo of Jenn Ellis and Keith Baker, were in site running play tests for the new Adventure Zone card game. The game is a cooperative D&D inspired card game where the players overcome a set of challenges to retrieve a relic. I have been a fan of The Adventure Zone since January of 2015, and seeing the world of the McElroy family be brought into a card game was extremely exciting for me. I had already put in my pre-order for the game, and I am happy with my decision after playing the game.
The win condition of the game to defeat two of the three decks of challenge cards. These decks come in three different flavors: the Villains, the Relic, and the Location. In order to defeat a card, you must roll a custom dice (a d20 with 1-6 on the sides, with a critical fail and a critical hit spot) and add your Strength to the result. If you meet or exceed the challenge rating of the card, you defeat it and remove it from the deck. Once two of the three decks are empty, you win!
The really unique part of the game is the heavy emphasis on story elements. There are cards and abilities that grant you mechanical bonuses for providing in-fiction descriptions of some of the cards. For example, our group came upon an ogre kitchen and had to make our way past the ogres inside. The story prompt is “If you describe what the ogres are cooking, gain +1 strength.” Our rogue was the one attempting to overcome the challenge, and she described the succulent smells of onions and garlic, and the big sauté pan with the wonderful smells coming from it. She ended up overcoming the challenge, and instead of defeating the ogres we discussed the finer points of culinary cuisine and complimented their work. The ogres were so happy that we liked the food, that they stood aside and let us pass! These kind of interactions feed off of the story prompts, and the game does a wonderful job of spurring the imagination and bringing the fictional narrative to the forefront.
We were playing in a group of 5, and the designers made it clear that they hadn’t play tested with 5 people before. Even so, the game felt exceptionally challenging but not impossible. Of the three tables in our session I believe only our table won the game, and it was a close affair. The system as a whole felt good, though the mechanics were sometimes complicated enough for us to forget about the fictional narrative we were trying to tell. It sounds like the designers are still working diligently on expanding the game, and moving forward from the solid foundation I experienced can only bring good things. In the end, I am happy with my choice to pre-order the game and excited to try the final version. You can find more information about this game at theadventurezonegame.com.