My Personal Holy Grail... Found at Last? (Bios: Megafauna x2)

Professor Henry Jones: Elsa never really believed in the grail. She thought she'd found a prize.
Indiana Jones: And what did you find, Dad?
Professor Henry Jones: Me? Illumination. 

- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

 

Reflections on Perfection

So, a few years back (edit: Holy Schnikes! It was EIGHT years ago. Time flies.) I wrote this blog entry on the idea of the perfect (Euro) game:

The Perfect Game

For those who can't be bothered to follow the link, in it I expounded on the elements that, to me, made up the perfect (Euro-style) game. Note: I love wargames as well, but the "perfect" wargame and the perfect Euro-style/designer game would be quite different, so in this entry, whenever I type "perfect game", substitute mentally "perfect Euro/designer game".

Eight years after writing that entry, thirteen years after rebooting my boardgaming hobby by buying Settlers of Catan and thirty-odd years after developing a keen interest in boardgaming in the first place, I've finally found a game that satisfies (to varying degrees) every criteria I set for choosing the perfect game.

Amazingly, the game is one I hadn't expected to be more than a passing interest - a curiosity or a niche game. It just goes to show that you often find things in the last place you look (a truism - but that's another discussion).

What's the game that matches all my "perfect game" criteria?

Bios: Megafauna

Is this the perfect game for everyone? No, not at all. In fact, were I to choose criteria that to me would define the best possible game for the largest possible audience, it would be a game much different than Bios: Megafauna.

But, by the criteria I first wrote down eight years ago and on reviewing them, largely still feel right today, I've found my "Holy Grail".

Before I go too far off the deep end, I do want to caution the reader that I am a self-confessed enthusiastic dilettante. I will often get really quite enthusiastic about something, engage with it with a laser-like focus for a few weeks or months, then gradually lose interest. I don't "drop" the interest, and I seldom lose fondness for it, it's just that I'll spend less time obsessing about it.

So, I've learned to try to temper my enthusiasm for something with the need for "sober second thought". I will need to play Bios: Megafauna at least a dozen more times to better test its limits and breaking points. I'm sure, in time, some wrinkles will appear in its radiant countenance. But for the moment, I'm pretty smitten. Thus, take what I've written with a grain of salt.

To the review and the criteria I've set for the perfect game.

Evolution and Me

Bios: Megafauna is a reworking of Phil Eklund's American Megafauna, a game which I've been interested in for some time but have never found an owner or anyone interested enough in playing to actively hunt down a copy on eBay to buy.

I've always been fascinated by the arms race of evolution - the survival of the fittest and the jaw-droppingly vast time periods, geographical changes and sheer biomass involved. Why were there once Sabretooth Tigers? Why did they die out? Are wooly mammoths the ancestors of elephants (A: no, not really - their genus is extinct). What on earth is a Terror Bird? How on earth would land animals ever manage to grow to over 30 tonnes? And how does something hunt something that weighs 30 tonnes?

These sorts of questions and their answers are fascinating to me. Since re-entering the boardgaming hobby again in 1999, I've cast about for a game which captures this fascination in a playable but scientifically respectful way. By "scientifically respectful" - I mean that the game doesn't have to be bang on with the science - a simulation -, but an effort to be accurate and a sort of "if you squint it still looks right" effect is desired.

The Proto-Evolutionaries

One of the first I came across was Evo, but while cute and entertaining, hard science it ain't. Later I found WildLife, which I still quite enjoy and think is a bit of a overlooked gem - the science isn't too bad, but for game balance reasons, you can only really play it best with four or six people, which is sometimes a hard number to hit in my gaming group. For my young son, I picked up Trias, but it was also somewhat light on the science, and didn't really satisfy on a "mutate the individual creature level". I also bought Dominant Species with high hopes and, while it also is a well designed game (it also has a few faults for me) I find that it largely abstracts the finer details of evolution, the physiology of individual species and genera, which is of interest to me, and it also has some scoring/randomness issues which I find somewhat problematic.

I put American Megafauna on my wishlist before Dominant Species was in development, and even after buying and playing Dominant Species, it remained on my list. I loved High Frontier, also from Phil Eklund, and it remains one of my top five games. When I heard that Bios: Megafauna was in the pipeline, I was interested, but I didn't order a copy because I didn't think anyone in my weekly playing group would be into it. When I already had WildLife and Dominant Species, neither of which generally hits the table unless I pick it, it was hard to justify buying another evolution-based game that was based on harder science than either.

To my surprise, a fellow gaming group member, Agent Easy, bought it a few weeks ago. I knew he was mildly interested in American Megafauna, but I didn't think he was keen enough to pick it up. "Well," I thought, "here's my chance to try it. It should be good to play once."

Entering the Presence of the Grail

Agent Easy pulled out the game box. To be honest, the cover, while glossy and relatively professional looking, is a little hokey. A velociraptor holding a bow, pulling an arrow out of a quiver with its other hand, reflected in the eye of some sort of reptilian? I know it's the Sierra Madre Games logo and all, but come on.

The board is sturdy, if a little gaudy - it looks very Illustrator-drawn (if you've used Illustrator or similar DTP programs, you know what I mean) - lots of hard edges and geometrical shapes. The colours are a little garish and there's a proliferation of different typefaces (at least seven or eight, by my count) which give it a bit of a uneven appearance, as if another "pass" would've smoothed it into a more coherent-looking whole.

In play, it's actually a little mis-sized - the roadrunner DNA tracks (more on that later) are a little too big and the actual play spaces are a little too small. The board feels small, but actually there is room for everything - as long as you don't mind tiny point sizes.

Overall, it's very functional, if a little unattractive. To paraphrase a movie about a Archaelogist/Fortune Hunter who is on a quest for his own grail, "Truly this is the gameboard of a scientist."

The cards are very nice, good cardstock and quite well designed in general; they are clear, with excellent icons and illustrations. The wooden "creature" pieces (creeples?) are excellently cut and coloured, with surprisingly sharp detail. As representation of the various genotypes, they're great.

Seeing the Light

I had read the rules earlier in the day. Having heard what a simulation American Megafauna was supposed to be, I was expecting a much heavier ruleset. Although the terminology is dense (Eklund coins his own term for genetic characteristics that help one catch prey or avoid being caught as prey - "Roadrunner DNA" - you know, like the Warner Brothers cartoon, with Wile E. Coyote always chasing the Roadrunner? Eh? Eh?) with terms like genotype, speciation, dentition, genome, biome and orogeny sprinkled throughout the rulebook, the actual mechanics, once you get past the fancy names, aren't that difficult at all. Others have describe the game turn in more detail, but simply put, you choose one of four (or six, if you're using the optional living rules additions) actions, carry out the consquences of that action, and then pass play to the next player.

The original actions are buy a card from a shared display of five (or ten, if you're using the living rules "two display" variant) which starts a new genotype or mutates one of your existing species - and then resolve an event on the card which replaces the one you bought; resize, which makes a species bigger or smaller, allowing it to develop (or lose) attributes and hunt or avoid being hunted by other creatures; acculturate a species, which gives a species advanced, primitive human-like abilities which enable it to survive more readily in wider types of environments (and also banks VPs) and expand, which allows you to add additional figures of a species to the board, or alternatively add a new species which inherits some of the genetic traits of the parent species.

The actions added in the living rules are Roadrunner action which permits a player to put two genes (the currency of the game) on one of the first cards in the display row and develop or improve a roadrunner DNA trait. This was apparently added largely as a fix for the possible start-game condition where a player might be surrounded by impassible marine biomes and consequently find it impossible to expand. The last added action is Genetic Drift a way for a player to steal genes from the player with the most genes... a sort of evolutionary rob from the rich to give to the poor scheme that I suspect Eklund added as a balancing feature to avoid a situation when someone might hoard genes and not release them back into circulation (genes are zero-sum).

I would be remiss to mention the little nuggets of scientific facts footnoted or sidenoted throughout the rules. These are catnip for me - I just can't get enough.

Struck by the Chixulub Bolide

Gameplay turned out to be fast, actually much faster than I had expected. We blew through a game, including a brief rules explanation, in just over 90 minutes. I immediately wanted to play again; everything was falling into place. We played again immediately. The second game was a little longer at 110 minutes,(people, knowing what to look for and what to avoid, took a more time to consider their moves) but just as enjoyable for me. Decisions are challenging but not paralyzing, you can directly affect other players in a competitive, predatory or somewhat parasitic way, and the theme permeates the entire game in a positive, constructive way, instead of interfering with or slowing down game play.

So, how does Bios Megafauna satisfy my Perfect Game criteria?

1. PLAYING TIME: Playable in 60-90 minutes – 120 minutes at absolute outside. The game can be finished in 90 minutes. Slightly shorter or longer games are also possible, depending on variants used (we used the two display variant) and gaming group play style. My gaming group seemed to "get it".


2. PLAYER LIMIT: Playable by 2-6 players, and scales well at all player numbers. To be fair, this game does not play with 5 or 6 players, so it doesn't quite meet this criteria completely. However it does have a solo option, and 2, 3 or 4 players seem quite playable. Call it a partial match?


3. DOWNTIME: Has low levels of downtime and low amounts of “move paralysis” – that is, the number of action options available to a player during any given turn or turn phase should be neither so numerous nor so complex as to be daunting. With some groups, the dreaded analysis paralysis (AP) might set in, but the chance of this happening compared to, say, Tikal, is much, much less. I never felt like I was "waiting" for my turn - I was always engaged in what was going on.


4. BUILDING: Involves “building” in some way – creating and improving on something, so that you end the game with something “better” than you started. For example – more money, better city, more powerful character. The game is about evolving - the most biological way of building possible. On top of building more "fit" creatures, over-specialized creatures can be wiped out by extinction events, letting you/forcing you to build another creature suited for the new reality.


5. CONFLICT: Involves “conflict” in some way – either actual fighting or economic/qualitative/quantitative competition. Survival of the fittest, baby! If your creatures can't compete, they won't thrive.
   


6. NOT TOO RANDOM: Minimizes randomness – players should never feel as though the luck of the die/draw is the only factor in success. Some have pointed to the events as causing too much randomness. I didn't experience this. Careful play and anticipation of catastrophe will reward a player who diversifies and doesn't put all of her genotypes in one basket.
   


7. SOCIAL INTERACTION: Involves enough player interaction that a social atmosphere is created, while avoiding interaction which otherwise slows down the game. There was much discussion and amusement over comparing and describing the creatures being created - long-necked elephantoid creatures with beaks and tusks, or super-speedy, horse sized raptor-creatures who could sing to each other and relied on adrenal glands for bursts of speed.


8. EASY TO TRACK: Minimizes calculation or the need for extensive record/bookkeeping – i.e. everything is at your fingertips or in front of you and does not have to be closely tracked by a complex process. Points are simple - tiles you've won from the tarpit, cards you've put in your fossil record, and creature meeples on the board.


9. SCREW YOUR NEIGHBOUR: Gives the opportunity for “screw your neighbour” tactics – a way to play to thwart the plans of others, but in a manner that is otherwise avoidable by careful play and not overly frustrating. All the time - snatching a juicy biome or buying a card at exactly the right moment was a constant feature of our games. You can even go so far as to purposefully out compete an opponent's species.


10. DOWN BUT NOT OUT: A mechanic for dealing with the possibility of being knocked out of the game – that is, if someone is in a losing position, there is a way to fight back if carefully played. There is a specific mechanic for a player whose species have all become extinct - Lazarus Player, which actually occurred. The player involved came back to win the game! The living rules also added the genetic drift rule, which seems to level the playing field. In addition, extinction catastrophes can easily take out a species which has become over-specialized, allowing other players to take over those biomes.


11. LEADER REWARDS: A mechanic to address the standard “kill the leader” situation that rewards being in the lead without making being the leader unstoppable. The leader gets a substantial share of the tar-pit. I can't immediately think of other aspects, but a method to specifically "kill the leader" seems like it would be trickier in this game.


12. VICTORY CONDITIONS: A victory condition track (victory points or score) which permits the fun of being able to see how roughly how close other players are to each other (fostering competition) while maintaining some element of surprise. Players can see how many tiles are received from the tar pit each round. Genotypes can be bought and buried in the fossil record, lending some element of surprise .


13. THEME/FEEL: Game has a strong and interesting theme that is colourful but also relates to the game mechanic without bogging down the game. Execution of the mechanics of the game and the theme should mesh well at all levels. It should “feel” right. Yes, yes, YES. In spades.
    


14. REPLAYABILITY: Game should have enough “depth” that it can be played more than once – conversely, it could be simple enough that complex strategies are possible (like chess or bridge) even given relatively simple rules. Not sure yet, but the random placement of starting biomes, the random assortment of cards, the random occurrence of events and the very variable consequences of player interaction while competing for specific biomes and configurations of biomes (which, as noted, are determined randomly) make this one look like it could have really long "legs".

Wow. Just wow. Depending on how you count, a game which hits 14 out of 14 points (13 if you dock it marks for being 1-4 players instead of 2-6). Amazing. Whereas some of the games which have come closest before had 10 or 12 points satisfied, this one has 13.

I'm really excited about playing this one again. I'm not sure if the novelty of the 108 mutation cards and 144 tiles will wear off, or if I'll tire of imagining sail-backed bipedal giraffes with disembowling claws or massive underground communities of tool-using insectivore lizards with wings.

I've played (euro) games which were more fun. I've played games which were more satisfying on an intellectual level. I've played games which felt more clever from a game-design point of view. But seldom have all of these factors come together for me so cohesively in a single game.

Taking it on Faith

There may not be any such thing as a "perfect game", but Phil Eklund has managed to make something which, for my money, is a close as anyone has gotten.

Once again, and I want to make this abundantly clear, it won't be perfect for everyone. Some people will be put off by the technical jargon. Others will find the mutation mechanic and the long strings of letters to be confusing. Still others might dislike the idea of a random event potentially smashing their carefully created empire of hyper-specialized critters into bone fragments and dust, or having their marine animals find their seas dry up around them.

Now that I've found Bios Megafauna, will I stop looking for the Perfect Game? Nope. Not by a long shot. But isn't that the beauty of unobtainable perfection?

For the moment, I'll be sitting back and enjoying this little gem. It deserves the attention.

Marcus Brody: The search for the Grail is the search for the divine in all of us. But if you want facts, Indy, I've none to give you. At my age, I'm prepared to take a few things on faith.

Spite upon spite (High Frontier, Quarriors x2)

The four of us (Kozure, Shemp, Pablo and I) started with an intro game of High Frontier. Knowing that it's a difficult game, Kozure thought a learning game involving just trying to build a factory on mars would be a good idea to ease Pablo into the system (although, as Shemp aptly pointed out in our email correspondence leading up to the game, "not good" is a very generous description of our skill level with High Frontier). What is it about this game that is so challenging? Every time I play, I spin around in circles accumulating fuel endlessly only to realize that I could have launched much earlier. This game was no exception... I had forgotten how the air break leading to Mars worked, so I was trying to come up with a rocket that could get to the planet and still pay the landing costs. Anyway, Kozure got off to an early lead with a mission to drop of the robonaut he needed to build the factory. I was behind him ( once again wasting my time refueling at a nearby planet, not realizing it would be unnecessary due to the air breaking). Kozure essentially lost his lead by blowing up while going through a danger zone.

Then, out of nowhere comes Shemp with all the parts required for the refinery and successfully lands. Shemp for the win!

Pablo seemed willing to play again. We'll see.

Next up, we played 2 games of Quarriors, the new dice building game from Wiz-Kids.

Quarriors is a game that follows much of the Dominion model... Draw a hand (of dice, in this case), see what you can play from your hand and purchase one die from the center. The fact that the dice represent creatures and that there is much inherent randomness gives the game a very distinctly chaotic and light feel, but for a 1/2 hour game it's fun. I've personally been playing this quite a lot with my eight year old son and having a great time of it. The variety of creatures is very good because they very cleverly include several variant creatures and spells for use with each dice. There are synergies to be found between the dice, which is fun, but since it's a dice game you never know whether the combinations you are shooting for will really pan out.

Anyway, for the record Pablo won one of the games. He was very proud, because it was his first win at WAGS. I think I shed a tear of pride.

Brain asplodin' (Yomi, High Frontier, Dixit)

Kozure, in one of his more sadistic choices, decided to foist upon our inexperienced group a game of High Frontier, WITH EXPANSION. Shemp prepared the room in case of brain asplosion.

Yomi

Kozure and I started with a quick game of Yomi. I played Grave, and got off to an excellent start... succeeding to land every blow I attempted. Kozure fought back to parity and we stayed close until we were both in the low 30s health-wise. That was when I landed the big mega attack for 45 damage, and that was all she wrote...

High Frontier

High Frontier is a challenging game. It's not the rules, though those can be challenging as well, it's that in order to get a succesful mission you have to get the math *just* right. You need to get the right parts that line up with the mission you plan to undertake, then make sure your rocket isn't overburdened by all that tech, then launch it into space and hope you brought along enough fuel to get to where you where wanting to go. Getting this right requires much calculating and recalculating... you can't get it wrong or you waste 30-60 minutes finding out. This is why brains asplode. It's also why I was fearing the expansion.

It turns out the expansion isn't so bad after all. The main addition, besides the expanded map, is a greater array of parts required to build your space rocket (previously, all that was available were thrusters, robonauts and refineries). Now, these same main elements are supplemented with reactors, radiators and generators. Some parts are interdependent, for example a particular reactor might need a level 2 radiator. It works, and provides more interesting combinations and possibilities without being too complex. This part works very nicely in my opinion.

There are other additions, such as politics, environments, glitches, etc. These had a very mild impact on our game, so it's hard to say if they were any good. My first impression is that they are not worth the overhead, but that could be just because of the way our session played out.

I have a feeling that the expanded game is really just the whole game the designer wanted to publish, before he was convinced that it would be too complicated. The whole experience feels more fleshed out, and I for one liked it better this way. Complexity be damned!

We didn't manage to finish the game. I managed to pull together a combination of equipment that gave me a heavy, high thrust ship. I flew to Mars and built my first factory and decommissioned everything. I then built the same rocket and went to the nearest M planet that I could explore, which was on the expansion board (technically, the closest planet is Hartha but Kozure would be getting there before me).

I think it happened to all of us, but in the confusion of trying to assemble these complicated ships parts kept getting left behind. In my case, I showed up at said M planet and realized I forgot the device that allowed me a re-roll in case of failure (odds where 50-50 of success without it). I did succeed, but if I had failed the whole mission would have gone down the toilet because there was 0 fuel left after I got there.

High Frontier is a fun, but very challenging game. Mechanically, it feels like it could use further development, but regardless it's quite an intriguing and immersive challenge. It's definitely right up there in terms of games I know I will remember when I look back someday.

Dixit

Just as we were packing up, Kozure pulled out Dixit so we could take a look. I suggested we play a round or two, just to see how it plays. It was the perfect relaxing type of game to follow High Frontier so we went with it and played out the whole game.

Dixit is the Spiel de Jares winning party game. Players are dealt a hand of cards depicting surreal images and each round a the acting player needs to select one and come up with a clue based on the image. All the other players must select a card from their hand that they feel also matches the clue, and all selected cards are mixed together. Points are then awarded based on how many people select the active player's card. As is often the case with these types of games, the acting player must select a clue that is neither too obvious or too obscure because there are no points awarded to the acting player if everyone or no one gets it right.

The images are quite nice and evocative, and the process of inventing descriptive clues for the images is fun. Ultimately, it's just an apples 2 apples clone, but a little more cerebral and involving more creativity.

Rocket science is hard (High Frontier)

A few weeks ago, we played High Frontier. This was my second play, but Kozure and Bharmer have played 3-4 times now and Shemp was playing for the first time.

Shemp struggled through the game in much the same way I did the first time out. I came in thinking that it would be much easier this time but I had a hard time getting started anyway. The game simply requires such precise planning that it's hard to wrap your head around when you are not sure what's going on.

I was playing the group that gave a bonus to thrust, so I took the solar sails and went to Mercury. I had forgotten that it was necessary to exceed the planet's rating to land/ take off for free and had to really be creative when I got there to avoid wasting the whole trip. I did manage it, though (I had a second thruster). I developed a better thruster and things became much easier. I managed a second factory, a first for me. Meanwhile, Kozure had a tragic accident and lost all his early progress to an explosion. Bharmer similarly suffered an explosion and suffered a setback, but his was later. Thanks to being explosion free, I managed to beat the more experienced players by a few points (otherwise, I am sure I would have been a distant third).

High Frontiers was much more enjoyable this time. The early game feels kind of pointlessly lengthy (lots of purchasing/ reselling just to get water supplies up), which is a bit irritating in a game that is so long. It also still feels like the dramatic drop in game difficulty once advanced techs are developed could have been softened somewhat. From Kozure's description of the advanced game, there is a bit more granularity to the progress in that version, so it could be a case of seeing the concessions made to simplify the system. Either way, it continues to be a very intriguing game that I look forward to playing again.

Crowns, Glory and NERDS!!! (Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory, High Frontier)

I've neglected the blog for a few weeks, so I'll play catch-up on our last two gaming sessions.

Two weeks ago, we added the "Crown and Glory" expansion to Warrior Knights and last week we played a game that is so obviously and joyfully nerdy that it's almost cool: High Frontier.

Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory

We've played and enjoyed Warrior Knights a couple of times already, and I've been surprised at how much the "flaws" I had read about the game didn't bother me. Specifically, many people complain that the game's title is misleading and the lack of combat is disappointing. Personally I liked the mix of politics, religion and territory control that the game offered and felt the lessening of combat was a fair trade-off for the additional facets the game offered. Still, there were a few issues that bothered me somewhat. The two biggest ones were the movement limits and the anti-climactic endgame. Actually, the two are related... The lack of movement ability makes the endgame predictable under some circumstances. This means the winner can be obvious going into the last turn and the last little while can be kind of boring.

The new expansion introduces new elements that address both these issues and more. For the movement issue, a new action card allows a player to refresh and re-use an exhausted noble. For the endgame issue, hidden missions are dealt out at the beginning of the game and points are awarded for completing the objective at the end. Both these additions work very well and I wouldn't want to play the game again without them.

Other additions: Technology can be researched and developed. The mercenaries have a few special units that confer powers to the controlling noble. The mercenary track comes into play more frequently due to a tweaked rule. Town levies and fortifications have been added. All good, in my opinion. Tech is probably my favorite due to the special powers they confer and the impact that can have on the game.

The final addition is the "King" variant which grants one player the title of "King" partway through the game. This title comes with a considerable army, an advantage in gaining influence... and a huge target on your head. Suddenly, all players are out to get you to prevent you from getting the bonus influence (and to get it themselves). It's an interesting way to focus attention and keep the game from being a free-for-all. This aspect of our first play through was disappointing because the "quick game" suggested setup is too short. The game ends the turn after someone becomes the King.

In our game, I took a slight lead early and grabbed the title of King. Kozure was doing a great job of generally matching my influence totals but doing it in such a way to not attract attention. Shemp was struggling with the all the new options and had a hard time focussing his strategy. On the last turn of the game, Kozure was banned from the assembly by me and Shemp, and I took to the field with my new kingly army. My lead in influence was not great, but it didn't seem likely that anyone could catch-up. I made a mistake trying to steal a kingdom from Kozure and he exploited it... taking one of mine on his turn while I was on the road. This had the double whammy effect of losing me an influence and making me fail my secret objective. Kozure had met his goal and the game ended with a Kozurian victory. The missions had their intended effect, the last turn was NOT boring!

High Frontier

High Frontier was designed by someone who is clearly passionate about scientific space exploration. And someone nerdy. Definitely nerdy. It's about building rockets out of futuristic technologies and going out to space to explore/ research and claim planets. The map is fantastic. It's a depiction of the solar system and further galaxies and planets, and the routes to get there. A large number of 'futuristic technologies" actually researched for space travel are depicted in the available components for rocket construction. The cards feature little sketch diagrams with explanations of the way these things should work. It's all crazy and geeky and somehow awesome.

But how does it play? Well, I'm not sure. I played the game for 4 hours or so and still didn't really understand all that was going on. This is odd, because there doesn't APPEAR to be anything complicated in the rules, but the tolerances are low and it all felt somewhat opaque. You have to accumulate water tokens to purchase rocket thrusters, robonauts and factories and send them to space. The thrusters are necessary to fly, but the robonauts and factories are necessary to settle a planet. What initially makes the game hard is that you have to build your ship out of parts, and the parts have a certain weight. The better engines are heavy. Getting to where you want to go means balancing fuel capacity, fuel consumption, weight and trajectory... all the while making sure you have enough to get back! Planning your route felt a little like Power Grid to me. Lots of calculating and recalculating... only here if you get it wrong you are stuck floating back from space (this happened to BHarmer at least once). The destinations are laid out such that there are precious few, if any, easy routes. Very precise calculating is necessary. This works for simulating space travel but it's somewhat taxing in a game. Over the course of the game it's possible to develop technologies which make the game suddenly significantly easier. We may have been playing wrong, but it felt to me fairly heavy handed how dramatically the game shifts once a player has one of those advanced components. Once I developed one myself I was quite surprised how all my difficult number crunching became unnecessary. Does this mean the game is all about who gets that first tech? Hard to say... I still think we were doing something wrong. There is also a concept of producing tech from an established colony and selling it back to earth which I never did understand.

My first reaction is that the theme is executed brilliantly, the map is fantastic and the abstraction of scientific info into a playable game fascinating BUT the gameplay itself is frustrating. Is it really possible that the player that gets a particular thruster has THAT great of an advantage over the others? Are we correct that there are only a few viable early game planets? Does the first player to develop an advanced tech have such an advantage that they will automatically win the game?

I continuously felt like I was missing something. Like something wasn't quite adding up. How can the game possibly work with 4-5 players if the viable options are so few? We'll have to explore this one further, if only to see how the whole thing gels together. I confess I didn't really enjoy our first game, but I find the game fascinating nonetheless. I really WANT to like it. The map alone makes me want to OWN it. I find it mind boggling that what we played was the SIMPLE game and that an ADVANCED game ships with it right in the box!