I am a Brawler. I let the others do the deciding of the jobs we do and the lairs we raid. I just want to hit things until they die. In this particular catacomb, it was the monsters that did the hitting, it was my fellows that did the dying. They thought I was dead too. Their mistake. I may be wounded, I may have nothing left but my bare hands, but I am still…

…Unbroken.

Travel Phase 1

Preparation — Explore Step

• Spend one Effort and Time to Scout, so I know what I’m up against.
• Rolled a 2, it’s a Gibberling, 2 Health, no Armor. Shouldn’t be a problem.
• Explore: drew Misguided Dreams (5 Time/Rest) and Hobgoblin Stockpile (2 Time/Rest). Gonna rest to get 5 Effort (now 17), Time drops to 1.

Combat Phase 1

Battle Step

• Increase Time to 12, yeah baby.
• Let’s dance, Gibby. Special: It makes me gain the Panicked Condition (Reveal 1 less Encounter Card during Explore Step) for the next level. Great. Like I don’t have enough problems.
• Ungh! Spend 2 Effort, my Bare Hands cause 1 Damage. Ol’ Gibby’s got 1 hit point left.
• Ol’ Gibby rolls a 5, tries to Steal from me. Joke’s on it, I’ve got nothing to Steal.
• I use my Brawler “I’ve Seen Worse” Ability to re-roll Gibby’s combat roll, it re-rolls a 2. Now instead of losing 2 Effort, I lose just 1. Much better.
• Prepare to meet your maker, Gibby: I spend 2 Effort, oof! Gibby loses its last hit point, falls down, go boom! I hardly break a sweat.

Reward Step

• Gibby’s rewards: 1 Treasure (now 1), 2 Time (now 14), 2 Effort (now 14)
• I draw 2 Skill Cards: choice of Concentration (spend Med or Large Effort for Small Efforts) or Heroic Perseverance (spend 5 Effort to gain 1 Large effort). Yeah, Heroic Perseverance, that sounds good to me.
• At the end of Level 1, I’ve got 14 Effort, and 14 Time. Yay for me.

Hunger Step

• No food, so I lose 1 Effort (down to 13). Eating is for wimps.
• Bring on Level 2. Hoorah.

Travel Phase 2

Preparation — Exploration Step

• Hell yeah, I’m gonna Scout — spend 2 Effort and 2 Time. What you got for me, Level 2?
• Rolled a 2 — I’m up against a Cave Bear. 5 hit points. Level 2 doesn’t mess around. No Armor, at least.
• I need a better weapon, but for that I need to find some Wood, or Metal. Which means I have to Explore.
• Which means I’m going to spend 1 Effort to Orienteer, and draw 2+2 Encounter Cards. Well, 2+1 due to my Panicked Condition.
• I draw Gathering Strength, Disturbing Fetish, and Discarded Weaponry. The last one is the only one that gives me 1 Metal, so that’s the one I keep. I spend 1 Time to gain 1 Metal, but I have to commit to the next Encounter, and I can’t rest.
• To craft a Knife, I need some Medium Effort. So I Focus, spend 4 Small Effort, to gain the 1 Medium Effort I need. Now I have the ingredients I need. I spend them.
• Now I have a frickin’ Knife. Ho-ho-ho.
• Now I need to build up Effort for the fight. Explore, draw the top card, to which I am committed. It’s a card called Reaching the Shelter. It wants me to spend a Metal to gain some Effort. I don’t have Metal, so I discard it, burning 1 Time. Damn.
• Explore again — I’ll take Sickly Berries for 1 Food.
• Explore again — I’ll rest in A Safe Place, spend 3 Time to gain back 3 Effort.
• Explore again — I’ll rest in The Dark Place, Spend 2 Time to gain 2 Effort.
• Explore again — I’ll rest with the Starving Goblins, spend 3 Time to gain 3 Effort
• Down to 1 Time, whoa! Up to 13 Effort. Okay, Cave Bear — let’s rock.

Combat Phase 2

Battle Step

• I enter battle with 14 Effort, increase Time to 16.
• I stab with the Knife, spend 1 Effort — slice the Cave Bear down to 4 hit points!
• Cave Bear attacks, rolls 2, Wound! I lose one Effort.
• I stab again, spend 1 Effort — Cave Bear loses another hit point!
• I play my Heroic Perseverance, so I immediately take another Action.
• Being no dummy, I attack again! Spend one Effort, Cave Bear’s hit points down to 2!
• Cave Bear attacks, rolls a 6. Ouch! I lose 3 Effort. I use Brawler Ability Just A Scratch to reduce by 1, now lose 2 Effort
• I slash, spend 1 Effort, Cave Bear down to a single hit point!
• Cave Bear attacks, rolls a 3 — Steal! The blasted bear takes my one food!
• I deliver the killing stab, spend 1 Effort — Cave Bear drops to zero hit points!
• Before the Cave Bear dies, its Special Ability is to take one final attack, no doubt out of extreme spite. It rolls a 6, dang it all! I would lose 3 Effort, but I use my Just A Scratch Ability a final time, lose only 2 Effort.
• Cave Bear is finally dead. I am very nearly dead as well.

Reward Step

• Cave Bear rewards me with 3 Food, 2 Medium Effort.
• I draw two Skill Cards: Shadow (Ignore Warn effects, Scout better) or Improvised Armor (spend Wood or Metal to ignore Wound or Daze in combat). I take Shadow.
• I lose the Panicked Condition.

Hunger Step

• Since it’s Level 2, I need to eat 2 Food. Fortunately, the Cave Bear meat yielded 3 Food, so I eat 2.
• Status at the end of Level 2: 7 Effort, 2 Medium Effort, 16 Time, and 1 Food.

Travel Phase 3

Preparation — Exploration Step

• I need Food and Rest, in that order.
• Scouting is to darned expensive now, at Level 3, requiring 1 Cunning which I don’t have. So I won’t do it.
• Explore — A Clever Scheme, or Slithering Snake. I’ll take A Clever Scheme to gain 1 Cunning for 2 Time.
• Now that I have Cunning, I use the Shadow Skill to Ignore the 1 Time cost of Scout. And I gain 1 Effort, score!
• What am I up against in Level 3? Roll 1d6 — 4, Hobgoblin. Oh boy, it has 3 Armor as well as 4 Health. I’m going to need to either earn more Cunning, or upgrade my weapon, otherwise I don’t stand a chance.
• So let’s Explore some more — I choose Catching A Breath, gain 2 Effort for 1 Time.
• Explore again — I choose Unfortunate Adventurer, gain 1 Metal for 2 Time.
• Explore again — I choose Demolish a Tree Lair, spend 1 Medium Effort to gain 3 Wood, losing 2 Time. This is exactly what I needed.
• I have enough Resources to upgrade my Knife to a Spear, by spending 1 Wood, 1 Metal, and 1 Effort. Done.
• Now, I have a Spear. Now, I have a chance.
• I’ve still got 11 Time, so let’s rest and gain as much Effort as we can.
• Explore, draw Curious Tracks — spend 5 Time, gain 5 Effort.
• Explore again — draw Edge of Exhaustion — spend 3 Time, gain 4 Effort.
• I have 3 Time left, do I risk Ambush? Let’s roll the dice. Explore once more!
• It works — I draw Greedy Goblin, rest for 2 Time, gain 2 Effort.
• I enter combat with 19 Effort. It has to be enough.

Combat Phase 3

Battle Step

• Well met, Hobgoblin, let’s do this! I attack, spend 2 Effort, whack! Armor drops from 3 to 2.
• I use Heroic Perseverance to immediately attack again. Spend another 2 Effort, thwack! Armor drops from 2 to 1!
• Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a 2, Wound! I lose 1 Effort.
• I attack, spend 2 Effort, Whap! I break its Armor!
• Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a 4, Warn! I use my Shadow Skill to ignore Warn effects, haha!
• I attack, spend 1 Medium Effort and 1 Small Effort, kapow! I do 3 damage, Hobgoblin is down to a single Health!
• Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a 1, Miss! No effect! Fortune favors the brave!
• I lunge one final time with my Spear, spend 2 Effort, puncture the Hobgoblin’s heart, and it goes down! The Hobgoblin dies!

Reward Step

• Killing the Hobgoblin rewards me with 2 Metal, 2 Small Effort, and 3 Time. I also gain the Armored Condition.
• I draw two Skill Cards — choice of Perfect Memory (choose Encounter Card from discard pile, rather than random draw) or Weaponsmith (ignore all Disarm effects in combat, reduce cost to craft weapons).
• Since I have already upgraded to an Advanced Weapon, I’ll choose Perfect Memory. I can use Perfect Memory four times, once for each level, so I place 4 cubes on it.

Hunger Step

• Level 3, I need to eat 3 Food, but I have only 1 Food.
• I eat my 1 Food, then lose 4 Effort for the 2 required Food I am unable to eat. Hunger sucks.
• Status update as I enter level 4: 8 Small Effort, 1 Medium Effort, 22 Time, 2 Metal, 1 Treasure. I’ve got Armor with that will let me ignore 2 hits, Shadow that lets me ignore Warn effects in combat, Heroic Perseverance to immediately take an 1 extra action, and Perfect Memory with 4 uses to choose an Encounter card of my choosing from the discard pile.
• It’s now or never.

Travel Phase 4

Preparation — Exploration Steps

• My goal is simple: find high Rest Value Encounter cards to build up as much Effort as possible. Here we go.
• Explore, use Perfect Memory — remove a cube from the card. I find Curious Tracks (5 Rest Value) in the Encounter discard pile. Spend 5 Time to earn 5 Effort.
• Explore again, use another charge of Perfect Memory — remove cube # 2 from the card. I find Misguided Dream (5 Rest Value), spend another 5 time to gain another 5 Effort.
• Explore again, use Perfect Memory — remove cube # 3 from the card. I find Edge of Exhaustion (3 Rest Value), spend 3 Time to max out at 21 Effort!
• Explore again, use Perfect Memory a final time, remove the last cube from the card, and discard the Perfect Memory card. I find Glowing Embers, spend 1 Wood to earn 2 Medium Effort. Lose 3 Time. Still have 7 Time, so let’s go on. I need Food.
• Explore again — I find A Look Ahead, spend 1 Effort to get +3 cards next Exploration.
• Explore again — I choose Chasing Rodents, spend 2 Effort to gain 1 Food.
• Explore again — I find Salvation for a Price (2 Rest Value), spend 2 Time.
• Explore again — I find Spearfishing, spend 1 Metal, gain 2 Food, spend 2 Time
• I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s find out what my final adversary will be.
• Status going into my final battle: 20 Small Effort, 3 Medium Effort, 1 Metal, 1 Wood, 3 Food, 1 Treasure. It’s going to have to be enough.

Combat Phase 4

Battle Step

• Roll 1 d6, get a 4 — I’m fighting a Troll with 13 Hit Points! Special: Troll heals 1 Wound before each of its turns. Great. Just great.
• I attack! Spend 1 Medium and 1 Small Effort, wham! I deal 3 hit points of damage to the Troll! It’s down to 10 health. I use Brawler Ability Power Through to spend 2 Effort to increase damage by 1, Troll goes down to 9 Health!
• I use Heroic Perseverance to immediately take another attack. Spend 1 Medium and 1 Small Effort, pow! I deal 3 more damage, troll drops to 6 Health! I use Power Through again, spend 2 effort to increase attack power by 1, Troll drops to 5 Health!
• Troll heals 1 Wound, rises to 6 Health. Drat. Troll attacks! Rolls a 1, Wound. My Armor causes the Troll’s attack to bounce off. Remove one cube from Armored Condition card.
• My turn, spend 1 Medium Effort and 1 Small Effort to cause 3 damage, plus Power Through to increase attack by 1, bam! Troll is down to 2 Health!
• Troll Heals 1 Wound, now at 3 Health. Troll attacks, rolls a 5, Daze, I lose 2 Effort. I’m down to 10 Effort.
• My turn, I spend 2 Effort, deal 2 Damage, use my final Power Through, I deal 3 damage…KABLAM!
• THE TROLL DROPS TO ZERO HEALTH!
• I HAVE KILLED THE TROLL!!!

Reward Step

• No Reward Step for Level 4 monster.

Hunger Step

• I need to eat 4 Food. I have 3 Food, which I eat, I lose 2 Effort for the one required Food that I was not able to eat. I finish the game with 6 Effort.

End of Game Score:

0 Cunning

1 Metal = 3 points

1 Wood = 2 points

0 Food

1 Treasure = 10 points

0 Medium Effort

0 Large Effort

Total Score = 15 points (Survivor)

I emerge from the catacombs, blinking in the harsh but welcome sunlight. I killed four monsters. I exacted revenge for my fallen comrades. Against all odds, I went through hell, I am still alive, and I am still…

…Unbroken.

I am a Sage. I told my team that it was a bad idea to enter this lair, but as usual, they didn’t listen to me. Sometimes I wonder why they want me on the team. Against my better judgment, we entered the lair, we got ambushed, and now they are all dead. I guess the monsters figured I wasn’t worth the effort to slaughter along with the others. I may not be very strong or very fast, but I still have my wits about me. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make them pay for what they did to me and my team. My will remains…

…Unbroken.

Travel Phase 1

Preparation Step

1. I start with 7 Time, and 13 Effort. I spend to scout what infernal creature stalks me. It turns out to be a Feral Hyena.
2. It has 4 Health, but no Armor (fortunately). However, it will use up too much Effort to beat it to death with my bare hands. I need a weapon. How to find one? I must go exploring.

Exploration — Decision — Preparation — Exploration Steps

1. I draw the top two Encounter cards: Sickly Berries will give me one Food in exchange for one Effort. Or I can Catch A Breath to gain two Effort. Both will cost me one Time. What to do?
2. I’m going to need that Food, so I discard Catching A Breath. I spend one Effort (now I’m down to 11) to pick some Sickly Berries.
3. My Sage Travel Action, once per turn on Level 1, is to have a Dangerous Idea. I roll 1d6, if the result is greater than the current level (1), I earn one Time. I will try that now.
4. I roll a three! Got one Time back (back up to starting Time of 7)
5. I decide to spend four Effort to Focus, and gain one Medium Effort. If I can scrounge some Metal while Exploring, I can combine the Metal and Medium Effort to fashion a Knife. This will greatly increase the odds of my survival against that Feral Hyena that’s on my trail.
6. I also decide to spend one more Effort (now down to six) to Orienteer, which will allow me to draw +2 cards the next time I explore.
7. I’m also going to use my Sage Ability to Memorize — this will allow me to choose +1 Encounter card to interact with, on a later Exploration action.
8. Here we go, exploring. I draw four Encounter cards: Hobgoblin Stockpile, Juicy Bats, Abandoned Hovel and Wrecking is Hungry Work. The first two, I don’t have the Resources to exploit, so I discard those. Now it’s a choice between Abandoned Hovel (spend one Effort to gain one Cunning, at the cost of one Time) and Wrecking is Hungry Work (spend one Food to gain two Wood and two Effort, but at the cost of three Time).
9. I’m choosing to do the latter Encounter card. I spend one food to earn two Wood (I now have two), and two Effort (now up to seven). However, my Time drops to four.
10. I take a chance on Dangerous Idea again, roll 1d6…bad luck, I roll a one! My Time drops to three!
11. I know that by pressing my luck I’m risking an Ambush by the Feral Hyena, but I have no choice, I need to explore more to get at least one more Wood, or a Metal. With three Wood, I will have enough Resources to upgrade my weapon to a Club. With Metal, I can upgrade to a Knife. Let’s hope this works out for me!
12. Because I used my Sage Memorize ability in my last Explore Action, I am committed to using the Encounter card that I didn’t use last time, Abandoned Hovel. I spend one Effort (now down to five) to earn one Cunning (up to 1). My Time drops to two. Two Time, five Effort. Things are not looking good for me.
13. Explore again. I choose Secluded Crevice, spend one Wood to gain four Effort, at the cost of one Time. At this point, my Effort was getting dangerously low. This comes in the nick of time. Speaking of Time, mine has dropped to one! But my Effort is back up to nine. I have one Wood left.

Combat Phase 1

Battle Step

1. At the start of the Battle Step, my Time increases to the evil 2 mark of 12. Whew, I needed that!
2. If I had at least one Food, I could trick the Feral Hyena. But I spent that Food to earn Wood earlier, and I parlayed the Wood to earn Effort. So there’s that. But now I have to face a Feral Hyena with my Bare Hands, as I have not been able to find resources to craft a weapon.
3. On the other hand, it’s a good thing I don’t have any Food, because if I did, the Feral Hyena’s Special Ability would kick in — it would gain one extra attack before combat, and would get +1 to all of its combat rolls. I say a silent prayer of thanks for small favors.
4. I confront the Feral Hyena! I spend two Effort, hit! Feral Hyena’s Health drops from four to three!
5. Feral Hyena rolls five on 1d6: Warn Action, I lose two Time, I’m down to 10 Time.
6. My next attack, I expend two Effort, hit! Feral Hyena’s Health drops to two!
7. Feral Hyena rolls four on a d6, hits me! I lose one Effort (down to six)
8. I attack again, spend two Effort to cause one more damage to Feral Hyena, it’s down to one Health point! I have four Effort remaining — I just might survive this battle!
9. Feral Hyena rolls another four on the d6, ouch, hits me! I lose another Effort, I’m down to three!
10. My final attack, I spend two effort to strike the Feral Hyena dead!
11. Feral Hyena goes down, but I expended eight Effort in the battle.

Reward Step

1. I get two Food and four Effort as reward for defeating the Feral Hyena. My Food increases to two, and my Effort increases to five.
2. I also get to draw two Skill cards, and keep one. I get a choice of Outdoorsman (spend Resources to gain more Resources), or Resistant (in combat, instead of gaining a Condition, I gain one Effort, and subtract 1 from the combat Action roll).
3. I choose to keep the Resistant Skill.

Hunger Step

1. I must eat one Food per the current level, which is one. So I eat one Food (down to one). I gain one Effort as a result, now up to six.
2. I’ve made it to Level 2 — just barely. I have six Effort, one Food, one Wood, one Cunning, one Medium Effort, and 10 Time. I still have just my Bare Hands as a weapon. Things could be better.
3. But at least I’m not dead. Yet.

Travel Phase 2

Preparation Step

1. At Level 2, the costs for Scouting to reveal a Monster double, to two Time and two Effort. I’ve got quite a bit of the former, but very little of the latter. I think I’ll hold off on Scouting until I can gain a little more Effort.
2. I will, however, spend that extra one Effort to Orienteer, to nab +2 cards in my next Explore Action. I’m down to five Effort.
3. Here we go, Exploring. I draw 2+2 Encounter cards: Bed of Moss (gain four Effort), Disturbing Fetish (gain one Treasure), Deformed Tree (gain two Wood), and Raw Hunting Trophies (gain two Food).
4. I discard Bed of Moss because I don’t have the right Resources, and Raw Hunting Trophies because I already have one Food. I choose Deformed Tree — I will have to spend two Effort (down to three), but I gain enough Wood to upgrade my weapon to a Club! I spend one Time (down to nine)
5. I spend my three Wood, plus one Effort and one Time, to gain a Club. I’m down to two Effort, though, so I need to Rest, trade in some of my eight Time for some additional Effort
6. I Explore, draw two cards. Both have a Time Value of one, which means by Resting, I gain only one Effort, while losing one Time.
7. I Explore again, drawing two cards. I select Wooden Debris, Time Value of four, it ups my Effort to eight!
8. With my Time down to three, I Explore one more time. I choose Slimy Yet Satisfying, I gain one Food, at the expense of two Time. I am down to just one Time left. No more options: I now have to fight the Level 2 monster that I was not able to Scout in advance.

Combat Phase 2

Battle Step

1. I roll 1d6 to find out my Level 2 adversary: I roll a one, it’s an Abomination! No Armor, but six Health! I do have the Resources to trick it, but doing so would earn me no reward. I’m going to fight!
2. I attack first, and I expend one Medium Effort, plus one small Effort, to bash the Abomination’s head in for three Health damage! It’s down to three Health points. I’m starting to feel like I have a chance.
3. Abomination’s turn to attack, rolls 1d6, gets a six: Curse! I gain a Cursed Condition for the next Level. However, I get to play my Resistant Skill, so I ignore the Cursed Condition. I gain one Effort, and subtract 1 from the Abomination’s combat roll. Instead of a six, it rolls a five: Rend! I gain a Weakened Condition for the next level. Unfortunately, I can only use my Resistant Skill once per monster turn, so I have to accept this Weakened Condition.
4. My turn, I spend one Effort, cause one damage! Abomination down to two Health.
5. Abomination’s turn, rolls a five! I get another Weakened Condition , which has no effect since I already gained that condition earlier.
6. I swing my Club, one more damage to the monster, it’s down to one Health!
7. The monster rolls a three, I lose one Effort, I’m down to four.
8. One last swing of my Club, thud! The Monster dies!

Reward Step

1. I get one Medium Effort, two Effort, one Treasure, and one Wood as Reward for defeating the Abomination.
2. I draw two more Skill Cards: Stoic (reduce food requirement by 1, but no longer gain Effort), or Tinker (use Wood and Metal interchangeably). Stoic is very attractive as it will allow me to conserve Food. I decide to take Stoic.
3. Status Update: I have 16 Time, one Cunning, one Wood, Two Food, one Treasure, seven Effort, and one Medium Effort.

Hunger Step

1. I now have to spend two Food, since this is Level 2.
2. However, my Stoic Skill reduces my Food requirement from two to. only one.
3. I spend the one Food, now down to one.

Travel Phase 3

Preparation Step

1. It will now cost me one Cunning and one Time to Scout and spy the Level 3 Monster. Fortunately, I have these Resources, so I spend them (Cunning drops to zero, Time drops to 15)
2. Roll 1d6, get a four: Hobgoblin. Yikes, this will be a real challenge. The Hobgoblin has three Armor, which I will need to pierce before I can start doing damage to his four Health. In addition, the Hobgoblin is immune to my Resistant Skill. I have got my work cut out for me.
3. I need to either upgrade my Club, or acquire some Medium Effort (currently I have just one) to have any hope of piercing the Hobgoblin’s Armor.
4. Much as I don’t like the idea, I need to seriously consider using trickery against the Hobgoblin. It would cost one Cunning, which I currently don’t have, and I would need to downgrade my weapon.
5. My Sage General Action is Tome Knowledge: spend two Effort to gain one Cunning. I decide to do it…as a backup plan, in case my Explorations yield no Wood or Metal to upgrade my Club.
6. I spend two Effort, I gain one Cunning.
7. I spend one extra Effort to Orienteer (+2 Encounter cards)
8. I explore, drawing four Encounter cards: Blind Trader (spend one Treasure to earn two Wood + two Effort), Step Ledge (spend two Effort for two Cunning), Makeshift Shelter (spend one Wood, gain one Large Effort), and Slimy Yet Satisfying (one Food).
9. I keep the first Encounter card, Blind Trader, and discard the next three. I spend my one Treasure (down to zero), to gain two Wood (up to three) and two Effort (up to seven). It takes two Time (down to 13).
10. I now have enough Resources to upgrade my Club to a Maul, so I spend three Wood, two Effort and two Time to do so!
11. Now I need to Rest as much as I can to build up my Effort enough to stand a chance of defeating the Hobgoblin.
12. Explore, draw two cards: Trapped Shrine (two Rest Value), and Valuable Information (one Rest Value). I’ll rest in the Trapped Shrine, losing two Time but gaining two Effort.
13. I’ll Explore again: both Encounter cards are worth two Rest. I gain two more Effort, Time drops to seven.
14. I can still afford to Explore and Rest: Effort rises to 11, Time drops to five.
15. One more Explore: I choose Catching a Breath, Trade one Time for two Effort. Sweet. I now have 13 Effort.

Battle Phase 3

Combat Step

1. At the start of the Combat Step, my Time rises to 19.
2. I believe that I am as ready as I will ever be to face the Hobgoblin. I turn to confront the brute.
3. I strike first with my Maul, spending two Effort to do two damage to its Armor; his Armor is down to one point!
4. Hobgoblin rolls a four, Warn — I lose one Time (down to 18)
5. I swing my Maul, spend one Effort to bash through the Hobgoblin’s Armor, and I punch through! My next attack will cause Health damage!
6. Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a six, crap! He downgrades my Maul to Bare Hands for two turns! This is not good!
7. My 1st attack turn with Bare Hands, I spend two Effort, deal one damage, Hobgoblin is down to three Health!
8. Hobgoblin’s attack, rolls a five, double crap! Hobgoblin ignores my next attack!
9. My second attack with base hands, I spend two Effort (down to seven), I would have done one Health damage but the Hobgoblin ignores my attack.
10. Hobgoblin strikes, rolls another six! I still have to use Bare Hands for two more combat turns! Triple crap!
11. My third attack with Bare Hands, spend two Effort, deal one damage — Hobgoblin is down to two Health!
12. Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a five — this is really unbelievable. It get to ignore my next attack once again!
13. My fourth attack with Bare Hands, spend two Effort, Hobgoblin ignores it. I am down to three Effort.
14. Hobgoblin attacks, rolls a four, finally I catch a break, I only lose one Time, down to 17.
15. Finally, I can strike with my Maul once again, I spend one Medium Effort and two Effort (down to one!) to do four Health Damage. However, my Weakened Condition kicks in to reduce my damage by one so down to three damage to the monster. It has just two Health remaining, so I kill it!
16. Whack! The Hobgoblin crumbles to the ground!

Reward Step

1. The battle against the Hobgoblin has cost me dearly. My Effort has dropped to one.
2. Some small good news, I may now discard the Weakened Condition.
3. My rewards for slaying the Hobgoblin: two Metal, two Effort (up to three), three Time (up to 20). I gain an Armored Condition, which will allow me to ignore the next two Wound Conditions I would suffer. Nice!
4. I now draw two Skill Cards and select Wrecker (ignore Defend effects in combat, if I break Armor I gain an extra attack).

Hunger Step

1. Level 3, I need to spend three minus one Food (due to my Stoic Skill). I only have one Food, so I eat that one, and spend one small Effort for the one Food I didn’t get to eat. I’m down to two Effort.
2. Status Update after three Levels: 20 Time, one Cunning, two Metal, and two Effort. Plus Armored Condition, and Wrecker, Stoic and Resistant Skills.

Travel Phase 4

Preparation Step

1. I have some extra Time, and I am critically low on Effort, as that battle with the Hobgoblin nearly finished me off, as well. So as I Explore Level 4, I’ll be focused on Resting and doing Encounters that raise my Effort level.
2. I Explore — find a Hunger Pangs Card (two Rest Value), gain two Effort.
3. Explore again — find a Rusted Cage card (four Rest Value), gain four Effort.
4. Explore again — find A Safe Place (three Rest Value), gain three Effort.
5. Explore again — find Hobgoblin Stockpile (two Rest Value), gain two Effort.
6. Explore again — find Misguided Dreams (five Rest Value), gain five Effort. I’m down to four Time.
7. One more Explore — find Humbling Kobold (two Rest Value), gain two Effort. Down to two Time, up to 20 effort.
8. Final General Action: I spend four Effort (down to 16) to acquire one Medium Effort. This will allow me to make a more powerful attack in the upcoming combat.

Battle Phase 4

Combat Step

1. Now that I’m at the Level 4 Battle, I remove the cube from the Time Tracker.
2. Roll 1d6 to find out my Level 4 opponent: a Basilisk! 1 Armor, but 12 Health. Also, it causes me to immediately gain the Paralyzed Condition.
3. The Paralysis Condition directs me to place one token on it. I must now roll 1d6 — if the result is less than or equal to the number of tokens on the card, I become paralyzed and skip my turn. I roll 1d6, get a six! I’m not paralyzed for this turn.
4. My first attack, I spend one Effort to bash through the Basilisk’s one Armor, and I punch through! Subsequent attacks will cause Health damage.
5. Because I broke Armor in my last attack, my Wrecker Skill allows me to immediately attack again. Paralysis check, I roll a three — not Paralyzed this turn! I spend one Medium Effort and two Effort to cause 4 Wounds to the Basilisk, Health down to eight!
6. Basilisk attacks, rolls a 1, I would gain one wound, except my Armor causes the attack to glance off me! I remove a Token from my Armored Condition card.
7. My next attack, first Paralysis check: I roll a one, crap! I’m paralyzed this turn!
8. Basilisk attacks, rolls a five, which is a Steal, lose one Food, or three Effort if no Food (which I don’t have any). I lose three Effort! Down to 11 Effort.
9. My next attack, first Paralysis check: I roll a two, not Paralyzed! I spend three Effort, cause three damage! Basilisk is down to five Health.
10. Basilisk attacks, rolls a 1, the Wound glances off my Armor again! My Armor is exhausted, but it has served its purpose!
11. My next attack, Paralysis check: I roll a four, not Paralyzed! I spend three Effort to do three damage, Basilisk is down to two Health! I’m down to five Effort! This is coming down to the wire.
12. Basilisk attacks, rolls a six, Wound! Lose three Effort, plus one Paralysis cube! I’m down to two Effort!
13. My attack, Paralysis check: I need to roll three or better to avoid Paralysis! I roll a three! I spend one Effort, I do one damage. Basilisk is down to 1 Health, but I am down to one Effort!

14. Basilisk attacks: rolls a 2: +1 Paralysis, now three tokens on the Paralysis card.

• My attack, Paralysis Check: I roll a four, I’m not Paralyzed. But I expend my last Effort to do one damage to the Basilisk…I kill the infernal beast!

16. At the same moment, my Effort hits zero, and I expire.

As I crumple to the ground, breathing my last breath, I die with the satisfaction that I was able to kill a Basilisk! I may not have escaped the Catacombs with my life, but I go to my death feeling that I was able to exact vengeance for my fallen comrades. Even in death, my defiant spirit remains…

…Unbroken.

EDIT: Some rules clarifications and commentts from the designer of Unbroken, Artem Safarov:

• The Character Abilities (e.g. Dangerous Idea, Memorize) are not usable once per round. You get a number of uses equal to the level you’re starting (1 for Level 1, etc.). Each use of any of the abilities expends one of your uses. So you could not use Memorize after already using Dangerous Idea on Level 1.
• You can decide to use Memorize ability AFTER you reveal the cards in Exploration — don’t need to make that choice before you reveal.
• You could not have used Dangerous Idea again on Level 1 as you have spent your 1 use.
• When fighting the Abomination — when rolling to get a Condition you already have (Weakened) — you should have re-rolled that instead of ignoring it.
• When you activated your Wrecker skill fighting the Basilisk to get the extra attack — you didn’t have to roll for Paralysis as it was still the same turn and you already rolled for Paralysis.
• You do not die when your Effort reaches 0. You die when you need to spend Effort and can’t. This would still result in a loss (even with your Stoic skill you still had to eat 3 Food and had none.
• Thanks for crafting the PnP and taking the time to write up your playthrough. Very entertaining! Hope you are enjoying the game.

I am a Huntress. We entered a lair. My party was ambushed, my fellows are gone. I am the only survivor, and I am nearly dead. Armed with just my wits and my bare hands, I must now find a way out of this place, with my life.

Travel Phase 1

Preparation Step

1. I used my Huntress Travel Action, Lay of the Land, to look at the top five cards of the Encounter deck. I can only do this once per turn for now, so I need to use this wisely.
2. I see that in my next Encounter, I will be able to scavenge some metal from the remains of an Unfortunate Adventurer. That metal will come in handy.
3. I spend four Small Effort to use the Focus general action, which gains me one Medium Effort. That, plus the metal I hope to scavenge, will allow me to craft a knife.

1. I spend one more Small Effort, plus one more of my precious Time, to use the Scout Action. This reveals my current enemy: a Shrieking Fungus. Now I know what I must fight on this level.

Exploration Step

1. I choose to Explore, encountering the remains of the Unfortunate Adventurer I spotted earlier. It takes me two Time, but I manage to pry some rusted metal from his skeletal death grip.
2. Now I may choose to rest or use the metal to craft a knife. I don’t stand much of a chance with my bare hands, so instead of resting, I spend two Time to craft a knife.
3. But I am running out of time. If I allow my Time to reach zero, the Shrieking Fungus on my trail will ambush me, and get a +2 to all combat rolls against me.

Decision Step

1. I decide to prepare a little more. I spend two Small Effort to gain one Food. I’ll need it if I somehow manage to survive the fight.
2. I’ve got six Effort, and two Time left. I could chance an Encounter and rest, which would gain back a little Effort. But it might reduce my Time to zero, exposing me to an Ambush. I can’t risk it.

Combat Phase 1

Battle Step

1. Start of the combat phase, I get to increase my Time to the Level 2 mark — so I start the fight with 12 Time instead of just two. Whew — I’m going to need it.

1. Steeling myself, newly-crafted knife in hand, I stand up to confront the Shrieking Fungus. I got lucky — it has just three Health and no Armor. If I get even more lucky, I just might be able to defeat it within three combat turns. Let’s see how this goes.
2. I get to attack first! I spend one Effort, and deal the monster one. damage, it’s down to two Health!
3. Monster’ s turn — it rolls a two, which is a Warn Attack, causing me to lose two Time. I’m down to ten.
4. My second attack — I slash again with my knife! The monster has just one Health left!
5. Monster’s 2nd attack, it rolls another two! I lose another two Time, I’m down to eight.
6. My final attack: I slash the monster dead!

Reward Step

1. My reward for victory in combat: one Food, one Cunning, and three Effort (back up to six).
2. In addition, I get to pull the top two cards from the Skill pile, keep one and discard the other.

1. I decide to gain a Resistant Skill. It will protect me from contracting a negative condition, like Paranoid, Panicked or Crippled, in my next combat. If I survive long enough to fight, that is.

Hunger Step

1. Now I have to eat Food equal to the current Level (1). Told you that Food I acquired earlier would come in handy. I’m not going to starve. For the moment.
2. I have one Food left.

Travel Phase 2

It seems I am more capable now — I can use my Character Actions twice in this phase, instead of just once. That’s good for me.

As useful as my knife was, my goal for Level 2 is to upgrade it, which means I’m going to need more Metal, some Wood, and some Medium Effort — all things I have none of right now.

This won’t be easy.

Preparation Step

1. My Huntress Lay of the Land ability served me well last time, so I’ll use that again now. I take a peek at the top five cards of the Encounter deck.
2. First two cards — useless. I’ll use the opportunity to rest. Next two cards — one will allow me to trade my Cunning for two Medium Effort. That sounds useful. Bad news: no Wood or Metal to be found. This means no chance to upgrade my knife anytime soon. I might have to change my strategy to Trickery rather than Combat for the Level 2 Monster.
3. Speaking of the Level 2 Monster, I use Scout (spending two Effort and two Time) to find out what it is.

1. It turns out to be a Goblin, with one Armor and three Health. It will have vicious effects if I allow it to Ambush me. It would be easier for me to trick it — but I wouldn’t earn any reward for doing so. This will be a tough choice.

Decision Step

1. I decide to Explore, but before I do, I spend one extra Effort (now down to 5) to orienteer, which allows me to reveal four Encounter. cards rather than two.
2. I keep a card that allows me to reveal +3 Encounter cards in my next Explore action. It burns one Time, though, but I desperately need to find some Wood and Metal to upgrade my knife.
3. No luck exploring. Best I could do was to spend one Effort to acquire one Food, so now I have two Food. Since it looks like I will have to fight a goblin with a knife, I’m going to need all the nourishment I can get — assuming I survive the battle.

Combat Phase

1. I confront the Goblin! I spend one Cunning and One Effort to break through its Armor!
2. The Goblin wounds me! I lose on Effort. Uh-oh — I’m down to two Effort.
3. I hit again, the Goblin is down to two Health points!
4. With my last ounce of strength, I swing — but I miss!
5. That last swing was too much for me — my Effort drops to zero.

I fall to the ground. My vision goes dim. The last thing I see is the Goblin, moving in to finish me off. I go to my death, knowing that I have failed to exact revenge for my fallen comrades. Knowing only failure and despair.

Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to be a steely-eyed missile man. I never thought I’d find a game that would let me live out my childhood dream. In my never-ending quest for hidden gems from the bargain bin, I came across Apollo XIII. Released in 2015, original MSRP $39.99, now available for $15. At rank 7,400, boardgamegeek doesn’t seem to like it. Inexpensive and unloved by most, it is a perfect candidate for my list of hidden gems.

Apollo XIII is a story-driven co-op game for 2–5 players, and the box estimates a play time of 45–75 minutes. For the first few plays, I would expect the game to end much sooner than that, mainly because of all the mission-failing and dying you’re going to be doing. This may be a family-weight game, but it’s not an easy game. Expect to replay the game with adjusted strategies a few times until you find success. But if you’re into the theme (and if you buy this game, I must assume you are), and you play the game the way it’s meant to be played, there’s a high probability that you’ll have a lot of fun along the way.

I have played this game three times so far: once solo, and twice with my daughter. We have not won yet. The furthest we have gotten is the “D” stage, and the stages go to “G”. But in our experience, as soon as we finish a game, we have the strong desire to reset and start again. At least for our family, this game has quickly become our current favorite. Even as I write this, I’m wondering why I’m spending time writing this review when I could be starting up another Apollo XIII mission and trying out a different strategy, in the hopes of having a better outcome.

Why do we like it so much? First of all, we love the delicious tension that the game manages to create through its effective design.

Mission Control Board

Opening the box, the first component that caught my eye was the game board designed to look like NASA Mission Control, where the ground flight crew worked to monitor and the save the lives of the three Apollo XIII astronauts. The top half has Stress level and Body Health status monitors for Mission Commander Jim Lovell, LEM Pilot Fred Haise, and CSM Pilot Jack Swigert. To the right of those are status monitors for the Rocket, and Mission Control itself. Underneath those are Flight and Energy statuses, which if you manage to build up, you can later spend to lessen or eliminate
negative effects. Finally, the lower third of the board is the overall Mission Status meter. This will increase each time an astronaut stress/health meter, rocket or mission control meter rises over a certain critical level. You use the included white wooden cubes to keep track of each of the various statuses.

Hourglass Timer

If the Mission Status reaches orange, you must use the included sand hourglass timer to give yourselves just one minute of real time to make a decision of what action to take on your turn. If the Mission Status goes into the red area, you will now have just 30 seconds to decide on actions or forfeit! Finally, if your turn ends with the Mission Status in the Mission Failed area on the lower right of the board, then the astronauts have lost their lives, and Apollo XIII goes hurtling out of control, lost in the depths of space. Personally, my daughter and I really loved the unique mechanic of using the timer. It really helped to give us an idea of what it feels like to make critical decisions under time pressure, with little room for error. Just as it was for the three astronauts, and for Mission Control. This timed element led to a lot of yelling and frantic looking through cards, and potentially hasty decisions. Most of all, it was just great fun. This is part of what I meant earlier when I said that if you play this game the way it’s meant to be played, you can have great fun with it.

Story Cards

The game has seven Story Event cards that you arrange in an oval that stretches from the included cardboard Earth token, to the cardboard Moon token.

By the way, I read a review that criticized the included Earth and Moon tokens as essentially useless. While they serve no mechanical or functional purpose, in my opinion they do serve a great thematic purpose. Personally, I felt my pulse quicken with excitement each time I arrange those cardboard pieces on the table. So I would submit that people who consider these useless pieces of cardboard are probably not into the theme of this game. Which I would then question, why did you buy this game in the first place? The name and the box art make it very clear what this game is going to be all about.

In any event, these Story Event cards, marked “A” through “G”, correspond to seven pivotal events in the story of the Apollo XIII mission. Underneath each Story Event card, you set up a deck of Story Cards marked with the same letter as the respective Story Event card above it. These Story Decks provide more details and fascinating trivia around that particular phase in the Apollo XIII mission. For example, there’s a card that relates the famous story of original Command Module pilot Ken Mattingly being replaced at the last minute by backup CM pilot Jack Swigert, due to fears that Mattingly had been exposed to German Measles. This last minute replacement caused conflict and stress to the other two crew members, stresses which are reflected in the game’s mechanics. The game provides some variability in that each Story Deck is shuffled to relate certain events in a random order, within that phase of the Story.

But within each Story Deck is a pivotal Event card. Once that pivotal event card is drawn, the effects of that event must be resolved, and now players draw Story cards from the next Story Event deck. And so on, from pivotal Event transitioning to next Story Deck, until you successfully bring our brave astronauts home (note: I have not achieved this yet).

One criticism I have read leveled is that “the game is on rails,” or feels like “the game is playing you,” rather than you playing the game (whatever that means). To those critiques, I reply — this is a story-driven game! Of course it’s on rails! This game is not designed as a modular choose-your-own-adventure, with vignettes that can work when revealed at any point in the story. If that’s what you’re looking for, play Eldritch Horror instead — an excellent game of mini-stories, by the way.

Apollo XIII is a game that, at least initially, is designed to tell the whole story of this fateful space mission in order, from beginning to end. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense for the landing to come before the takeoff, or for the solution to a crisis event to come before the crisis itself. Another complaint I read had to do with certain cards having instructions to put it back into the deck if another event card had not yet been drawn. Again, I consider this part of the game’s (initially) linear-story driven mechanic. At least for the first few games, the rules recommend that you play the story in order, and true to the actual events. Once you’ve mastered those, the game comes with variant Event cards that presumably make the game more challenging (I haven’t tried them yet).

Player Cards

Another major element of this game is the Player Cards. You shuffle the Player Card deck, then each player draws a starting hand of seven cards. You have a general hand limit of ten cards, although some cards grant a temporary bonus to your hand limit. The Player Cards have specific abilities printed on them that are one way to counteract the negative effects brought on by the Story Cards — although crucially, not the only way (more on this later). Many Player Cards are marked with a letter, indicating that the card’s positive ability can only be played if you are currently within the part of the story that matches that letter. So, for example, if the crew’s stress level rises because they are on national TV (Story Deck “B”), you could play a Player Card marked “B” that features a crew member telling jokes to get them all to relax, thus lowering their stress level.

I really like card games that feature multi-use cards (*cough* 51st State *cough*), and this game has that feature in spades. Playing a Player Card directly for its printed ability is actually very rare, because it requires that you have a card in your hand with a letter that matches the letter of the current Story Card. If you limit your card play to hanging on to your Player Cards until the right moment in the story, you will lose, and lose badly. Fortunately, this game provides a range of other opportunities to make your Player Cards useful:

1. Play your card for its printed ability (very rare)

2. Place your card to the left of the game board. Limited to cards with a letter matching the current Story Card. Accumulating two of these will allow you to lower one status meter by two places, or two status meters by one step (except for the main Mission Status).

3. Place your card to the right of the game board. Must be a card whose letter does *not* match the current Story Card, or a card with no letter at all. Accumulating three of these will allow you to lower one status meter by two steps, or two status meters by one step (except for the main Mission Status).

4. Discard any Player Card to gain an extra action on your turn. The extra action must be different from any earlier action already taken on your turn.

One thing we are learning is that hoarding Player Cards is a surefire way to early disaster. You must maximize the use of your available Player Cards on each turn, yet also decide which cards to hang on to as they might turn out to be useful for later in the game. It’s elements like these that make this game more strategically complex and satisfying than might seem apparent on first, second or even third play. So use your cards, use them wisely, and don’t hang on to them for too long.

NASA Tokens

One final game element is the NASA tokens. In the co-op version of this game, only one side of the tokens is used. The game rules provide a competitive variant in which the tokens are used to determine which player scored the most points in the game (we haven’t tried this variant yet). If you manage to lower any status below the critical level during your turn, you earn a NASA token. The benefit of the NASA token is that you may spend it to take an action during another player’s turn. For example, if you have a card that can be combined with another player’s card to have a greater positive effect, this would be an ideal use of the NASA token. Another use would be to help out your teammate by playing a card from your hand that can positively affect the current Story, in case they lack a relevant card in their hand.

Game Flow and Available Actions

The game flow is easy to learn, and easy to teach. Included in the box are five handy gameplay summary and reference cards. On each player’s turn, you:

1. Draw a Story Card.
2. Resolve any negative status updates.
3. Draw a Player Card, add it to your hand.
4. Take one of the available Actions:
4a. Play a Player Card (must match current Story letter)
4b. Move one status cube.
4c. Place a Player Card to the left of the game board (must match current Story letter)
4d. Place a Player Card to the right of the game board (must not match current Story letter, or have no letter)
4e. Draw another Player Card.

These are the basics of a player turn in Apollo XIII. However, what we are discovering is that you must figure out ways to maximize the number of extra actions you take on your turn. As mentioned earlier, you can discard a Player Card to take one extra action, one that is different from any previous action you took. So if earlier you placed a Player Card beside the board, your extra action must consist of something different, like pushing a cube, drawing another Story Card, or playing a card. You must also make sure to acquire and make good use of NASA tokens, as playing these to take actions when it’s not your turn is critical to success. This is a true cooperative game in that players must communicate and coordinate their available cards to achieve success. Beneath the seemingly simple menu of available actions lie more complex strategies that wait for you to discover and employ.

Components

The production value on this game is a little uneven. On the positive side, the cards themselves have a substantial, premium, linen feel to them. They feel thicker and take more effort to shuffle than standard playing cards, to my hands. The board feels adequately solid, the cardboard tokens feel solid and thick enough to be unlikely to warp. The white wooden cubes are…just that, white wooden cubes. They get the job done.

The NASA Apollo XIII logo on the back of the Player Cards is bright and adds to the flavor.

On the negative side, the Story and Player cards are not designed in an appealing way, in my opinion. They are text-heavy, without good use of white space or creative typography. The card art uses a mix of hand-drawn line art, and NASA archival photographs. The archive photography is very cool and adds to the flavor, but at the same time I feel that it could have been enhanced by adding color and extra glitz to the presentation. That said, these are relatively minor quibbles that do not detract greatly from the fun gameplay.

Summing Up

Apollo XIII is a great family-weight game that can provide lots of addictive fun, if you’re into the theme and you play it correctly. Accept that the game is designed to tell a story. Read and savor the flavor text on each Story and Player card. Collaborate with each other the way the astronauts needed to. Use your wits and ingenuity to maximize the number and types of actions you take on your turn, they way the astronauts had to use their wits and ingenuity to figure out how to solve seemingly hopeless problems and get home. Use the NASA tokens at crucial points to take extra actions outside of your turn. Look for opportunities to pair your cards up with your teammates’. Use the timer to add tension and fun to your decision-making when the Mission Status is in the orange or red areas. If you play this game the way it’s meant to be played, you’re sure to enjoy it. Even if you fail a bunch of missions on the way to success.

PROS:

- Easy to learn, easy to teach, card driven game mechanics with low luck factor
- True cooperative gameplay that will lead to lots of fun yelling and cool tense moments
- Challenging; will keep you coming back for more to devise and uncover different strategies for success
- I’m no rocket scientist, but the theme is great (lol)
- Inexpensive; lots of game bang for not a lot of bucks

CONS:

- Component quality is a little bit underwhelming
- Cards are text-heavy, with a sometimes uninspiring mix of (admittedly still cool) archival pictures and lackluster line art
- (but then again, you’re getting a lot of game for a great price, so quit your whining!)

Verdict, after three plays (with more to come): Apollo XIII is a certified hidden gem!

I purchased Starship Merchants because the 1920’s pulp sci-fi, Tom Swift-y art style caught my eye. More significantly for my hurting wallet, it was on sale for just under ten bucks. Improbably, this inexpensive, humble, unassuming little space game has quickly become a family favorite. My daughter will choose to play this over games that cost 4–5 times as much. My son, who usually only plays Pandemic, was charmed by this game as well.

Starship Merchants is a space-faring economic simulation game for 2–4 players. You are the CEO of a fledgling space mining and transport company. You start out with 15 million credits (sounds like a lot, but trust me, it’s not), a couple of ore deposits, and not much else. You must use your wits, ingenuity and business acumen to grow your company into a multi-million credit space cargo fleet. Along the way, you’ll have to fend off cutthroat competitors who won’t think twice about stealing your upgrades, mines, ore deposits, and job opportunities out from under you, if given half the chance.

At a high level, the game is pretty straightforward to outline. You have to buy ships, upgrade them, explore mines for ore deposits, fill your cargo holds, take on missions to various destinations, and make a profit by selling ore and completing missions each time around the board. First player to 100 million credits can trigger the end game. Or if you think you need a few more runs in the Belt to secure victory, you can play on until 150 million credits, after which the final turn must be declared. Hey, all good things have to end sometime. The player with the most credits at the end of the game, wins.

The game board has four areas, which correspond to four distinct phases of play: the Shipyard, the Market, The Belt, and Space Dock.

The Shipyard

Each business cycle starts here. The main actions in The Shipyard are buying ships to add to your fleet, and paying off your ship loans, if any (more on this in a bit). Eventually you will have the means and technological advancement to buy a fancy Mark III or Mark IV model, with oodles of energy and ample cargo space. But at the start of the game, all you can afford is a humble Mark I. You have a choice of a Scout (slightly cheaper), or a Tug (slightly more expensive). Scouts have more energy but less cargo capacity — more well-suited to completing missions than hauling ore deposits. Tugs have less energy but more cargo space; these workhorses will form the backbone of your less glamorous, but presumably profitable, mining operation.

You also choose how to acquire your ships: do you purchase them outright, or do you lease them? Paying full price means you pay less for your ships in the long run, but you’ll have fewer credits in the short term to buy potentially game-changing ship upgrades. Whereas, taking out a loan will give you more credits-on-hand to buy upgrades, but you’ll end up paying 1.5 times the full price of each ship, which can really add up if you suddenly have to pay off loans on multiple ships. Running up and paying off massive loans on each of my ships was how I lost (badly) to my daughter (188 million credits) and son (166 million credits) in our last game (I ended up with just 79 million credits).

Ships going obsolete is another strategic element, one that this game reportedly shares with far more complex 18XX games (I haven’t played one of those yet, so I wouldn’t know). Once a player buys a Mark III ship, everyone’s Mark I ships become obsolete. Same thing when someone buys the first Mark IV, the Mark II’s go obsolete. Obsolete ships can finish any mining hauls or mission runs they are currently on, but once they get to the dock, they are decommissioned and out of service. Deciding the most advantageous moment to cause your opponents’ ships to become obsolete can be a pivotal strategic choice in this game.

The Market

Once you’re done with Shipyard actions, your next stop is The Market. Here, you can purchase components to upgrade your ships — from widgets that grant more energy or cargo capacity, to widgets that make it easier and cheaper to explore mines and acquire ore deposits. You might also have the chance to hire pilots who grant bonuses for delivering certain types of cargo, bonuses for delivering no cargo, discounts for purchasing upgrades, discounts for exploring mines, or similar advantages. The upgrades and pilots you equip can greatly determine your specific strategy, so make sure to read and understand the effects of each and play accordingly.

I should mention here that the descriptions of some ship upgrades and pilot effects can be confusing, as they are not very clearly explained in the included rule book. Fortunately, the designers provided an FAQ that really helps to clarify these items.

In the Market, you also have the option of purchasing a Refinery. Refineries provide a bonus from each ore deposit of a certain type that you deliver. So if you have explored and found a lot of Ice-9 ore, for example, you would do well to purchase an Ice-9 Refinery, which will grant you an extra million credits for each Ice-9 deposit you deliver.

The final action you can perform in The Market is to claim a mine. Explored mines are added in your play area, which is called Local Space. Mines start out unclaimed, so even if they are in your local space, opponents can snatch them from your local space if they have enough energy to do so. To prevent other players from filching the mines in your local space, you may spend six million credits to stake your claim on that mine. Once a mine has been claimed, no other player can take it away from you. Ore from claimed mines are also worth more when your ships unload them at the Space Dock.

The Belt

The Belt is where most of the action takes place. Here is where you send your starships to do runs. You may load ore deposits from local space, or known space (the circular area at the center of the board) into your ships’ cargo holds. You may spend energy to explore for more mines from which to pick up new ore deposits. If you have enough energy, you can steal ore deposits from your opponents’ local space. And you can choose to accept a mission to travel to various destinations, if the price is right and it works in your favor. Each of your ships may complete one run per turn, so if you have multiple ships in your fleet, you will want to spend multiple turns in The Belt, until all of your ships have completed their runs.

Space Dock

Once all of your ships have completed their runs in The Belt, it’s time to head to Space Dock. Here, you will unload your cargo and get handsomely rewarded for each ore deposit you deliver, and each mission to a destination that you have successfully completed. Once you tally up all of your profits, including any bonuses and multipliers provided by destinations, pilots and refineries, you draw the funds from the bank, then head off to the Shipyard, where your next business cycle will commence.

Choices

At heart, Starship Merchants is a medium-weight economic engine-building game, with a bit of pick-up-and-deliver thrown in for flavor. Winning the game comes down to making a series of choices about how to spend your hard-earned credits, that should (ideally) enhance your earning efficiency and make you even more credits. The game provides many interesting investment choices. Starting in the Shipyard: should I buy ships outright, or lease? I’ve played both ways — won the game without any loans, and lost the game with loans, badly, for what that’s worth. Also, should I buy a ship every time I stop at the Shipyard, or should I hold off until the next turn?

At the Market, available upgrade choices are randomly determined by the two Market cards that are face up when you arrive. You can swap out one market card for free once per turn, but after that you either purchase or pass. Upgrades can add significant capabilities to your ships that can shape your play choices. For example, I once hired a pilot who gave me a discount on the amount of energy required to steal ore deposits from another player’s local space. You can bet that I was stealing ore from my kids left and right in that game! Another choice is the purchase of a Refinery. In our first two-player game, I eventually ended up buying Refineries for all three types of ore, but in a three- or four-player game, it will be harder to buy them all.

In the Belt, each ship has a limited amount of energy and cargo space, and these are the commodities that you will find yourself spending in this phase of the game. It costs one energy to load one ore deposit in a ship’s cargo hold, two energy to explore for more mines, three energy to steal an ore deposit from another player’s local space. Deciding how to spend your limited energy reserves provides a deliciously crunchy decision space. Mission cards provide another option — each mission costs from one to five energy, with variable rewards. Judicious budgeting and expenditure of energy can earn you big bucks once you get to Space Dock.

As mentioned earlier, once any player reaches 100 million credits, they have the option to declare the Final Run. Deciding the right moment to declare the Final Run is potentially the make-or-break choice in the game. For example, in our last game, my son was the first player to hit the 100 million credit milestone, but looking at his sister’s current cash hoard and heavily-laden cargo ships, he realized that she would defeat him once she arrived at Space Dock and got paid. He decided to wait and make a few final runs in the Belt before declaring the Final Run. In the end it didn’t matter, because his sister still ended up besting him. But the Final Run choice could be they key to victory in most games.

Flaws, not Dealbreakers

Starship Merchants has two rather pronounced issues. The first is that in our experience, it plays significantly longer than the 90 minutes printed on the box. Each time our family has played, we have gone around 2.5 hours or more. Some might feel that the game overstays its welcome, but in our experience, games have remained tense and enjoyable all the way to the end, despite the longer than expected playing time.

The second issue is confusing text on certain upgrade and pilot cards and items that the rule book does a poor job of clarifying, if at all. The worst example in my onion is the Ore Scanner, whose corrected action explanation is “Explore with 1 redraw to find the named ore type.” Even this corrected version is hopelessly convoluted, and the rule book does not provide an explanation of each upgrade card or pilot effect. This was provided in a separate document, not included in the box. Once you print out or consult the Card Clarification and include it in the box, the issue is greatly alleviated.

Bottom line

Starship Merchants is a solid business simulation with a unique classic space theme. If you’re willing to look beyond its minor flaws, you can have a lot of fun with this game, racing each other to build the most profitable interstellar shipping fleet.

PROS:

- Mid-weight economic efficiency engine builder with fun, easy-to-teach gameplay
- A wide variety of choices means many different paths to victory
- Inexpensive; lots of gaming bang for not a lot of bucks
- Unique, eye-catching pulp sci-fi art style and theme

CONS:

• Plays significantly longer than 90 minutes
  - Certain ship upgrade cards effects are confusing
  - Included rule book is vague in some spots, and fails to explain key elements
  - Extra FAQ required to address rule book and card confusion

Note: After I published this review on BGG, I got a response from Tom Lehmann, who co-designed this lovely, hidden gem of a game.

51st State is a medium-weight strategy game for 1–4 players (yes, solo play rules are included, for when your gaming group bails on you) that plays in about 60–90 minutes. This post-apocalyptic game was first released in 2010 to little acclaim. Undaunted, the designer took the same system and built another game, Imperial Settlers, with a lighter theme, that became a success. That allowed the designer to revisit and refine his earlier 51st State design by re-releasing it in 2016, as a Master Set, with two expansions (Winter and New Era) included in the box. So there is a lot of thought, craft, history and most importantly, brilliant game play inside this box.

In 51st State, America is a barren, post-apocalyptic land. There is no central government, no organized society. Think Mad Max — when we first played it, we had the soundtrack to Mad Max: Fury Road playing in the background to provide the proper ambiance. Players take on the role of one of four Factions vying to unite the various communities and roving bands into their Faction in this harsh, hard-scrabble new world, and achieve dominance as the 51st State. The cards represent Locations that your scouts have discovered in the world, and that could potentially be added to increase your state’s economy. One cool thing about this game is that you can use the cards in different ways.

1) You can BUILD a card, which means you add that Location to your Faction’s state. That Location will then generate benefits for your state every turn, in the form of resources (like fuel, iron, bricks, and guns), extra features, and actions.

2) If you don’t have the construction resources to build a Location, you might still be able to strike a DEAL with that card. You will still earn benefits from that card each round.

3) Sometimes, you will need a lot of resources in a hurry. If you already have some locations built and added to your state, you might decide that the time has come to burn down a Location that has outlived its usefulness — this is a harsh world, after all. In that case, you can RAZE a Location to gain a lot of resources all at once.

4) No post-apocalyptic game would be complete without the ability to inflict hurt on your rival factions. If you have enough guns and goons, you can RAZE your opponents’ Locations, thus depriving your rivals of resources, and taking them for yourself. Beware, they can and will do the same to you.

5) Another way that you can exploit your rivals is by placing one of your workers on their Production cards, thus using your rivals’ resources for your benefit. Less violent, but still an unwelcome development.

This game provides no less than seven options of actions that players can perform during the Action phase, so there is a lot of opportunity to develop your unique winning strategy. Each Faction has different strengths and weaknesses that force you to change your play style depending on the Faction you’re playing. For example, the Merchants Faction excels at striking deals, while the Mutants Faction is low on construction resources, but has a lot of guns to raze your locations.

Once a Faction reaches 25 Victory Points, that triggers the end game sequence. The Faction with the most Locations and Victory Points at the end of the game wins. In our first game, my daughter defeated me in a close, tense match, 43–41. Grrr, now I can’t wait to take my revenge!

Bottom line: this is a satisfyingly crunchy, medium-weight, card driven strategy game with a nice range of mechanics: Area Control, Worker Placement, and Economic Engine-Building. The included rules do a pretty good job of explaining game flow. Just don’t mind the oddly forced attempts at humor within. In about 30 minutes, my daughter and I went from not knowing what we were doing, to being fully absorbed and entertained by this well-designed, polished, and reasonably-priced gem of a game.

If you read H. P. Lovecraft or play Call of Cthulhu RPGs, you’ll notice that a big part of why this stuff scares you, is that the horrors start out small, then slowly, gradually build to an overwhelming crescendo of terror. A dream here. A ritual there. Strange goings-on reported in the newspapers. A trail of clues that needs to be investigated, tracked down, which eventually, inevitably, leads to horrific discoveries and encounters with unspeakable…things.

When my college gaming group and I played Masks of Nyarlathotep, our campaign was spread out over a series of several weekends. We battled cultists in New York, a djinn in Cairo, various lesser creatures in other places around the world. An encounter with even just one Old One was enough to drive two player characters instantly insane. To my mind, a proper Mythos story or game takes time to develop. Fear grows.

Not so with Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu. In this game, things are very bad right from the start, and just keep getting worse from there. There are at least a dozen cultists doing bad cultist things all over the five fictional New England towns in this game. Over a typical 30–45 minute game, players will encounter not just one, but up to six Old Ones (encountering the seventh one, big ol’ Cthulhu himself, results in an instant loss). The unrelenting stress and tension of the original Pandemic game is ratcheted up to eleven in RoC.

Far from being Cthulhu Lite, this game is like a Cthulhu speed date. It’s all the worst parts of the Mythos crammed into a sub-one hour play time. It’s a Lovecraft story if it were directed by Michael Bay. BOOM, three more cultists! KA-BLAM, a Shoggoth appears! KA-POW, an Evil Stirs card! KA-BOOM, an Awakening Ritual! FRA-TWASK, does any of this make any sense at all? I don’t have any idea, all I know is that WE HAVE TO DESTROY THAT SHOGGOTH NOW NOW NOW! It’s a sensory overload, wall of sound, over the top, unrelentingly pressure-filled confrontation with the Brotherhood.

At times the experience is a little too much to take. The last time we played, my head felt like a coke can being crushed in the hands of Nyarlathotep himself. As soon as the game ended, it was a huge relief to play a nice, relaxing game of Clank!

This is a sick worker placement game. Not just in the sense that it is about a sickening yet undeniably glamorous and enthralling subject — the race to build the first atomic bomb. Not just in the slang sense that this game is sick — amazing, cool or awesome, which I certainly think it is. Primarily I think the game designers have a sick sense of humor, as shown in how they subvert the eurogame trope of players serenely building their most efficient economic engine toward a victory goal — in this worker placement game, you can totally bomb the living crap out of each other. It’s like a huge boatload of in-your-face ameritrash PvP player interaction just decided to belly-flop in the middle of an idyllic eurogame nirvana.

Some years ago, I read a novel called Los Alamos, by Joseph Kanon. In that novel, an intelligence officer is sent to Los Alamos, New Mexico, site of the ultra-secret Manhattan Project, to investigate whether a murder committed near the base is a crime of passion, or somehow connected to the US military’s clandestine efforts to build the atom bomb. I loved the feel and the flavor of that novel. Which is probably why I’m so drawn to the theme of The Manhattan Project board game.

The Game

Each player takes the role of an unspecified nation-state, in a desperate arms race against other unnamed nation-states (The Nations expansion allows you to play as actual countries) to be the first to design and build The Bomb, and become the world’s first global nuclear superpower.

At the start of the game, shuffle the Bomb Deck and reveal X + 1 Bomb Cards, where X = the number of players in the game. Building bombs is the only way to score victory points, so your goal is to build enough high-value nukes before your rivals do. These are the first available atomic bomb designs, and also your first strategic choice: do you focus on building small bombs, or big bombs? Small bombs are easier to design and build, but score fewer victory points, so you’ll need to make more of them, which will require more time. Big bombs require far more resources to design and build, but just a couple of those could win the game. This opens up potential for last minute, come-from-behind, snatching victory from the edge of defeat scenarios.

The Setup

The main board is attractively designed to evoke a cork board from a WWII-era munitions factory. The board is divided into different sections where each player can place workers to generate various resources. Each section is marked with thematic, easy-to-read icons that clearly outline what input is required, and what output will be generated.

• Construction — place a worker here to construct a building (factory, mine, university, reactor or enrichment plant) on your player board.
• Mines — place workers here to construct yellowcake, a raw material for uranium and plutonium.
• Universities — place workers here to generate more highly skilled workers like engineers and scientists.
• Design Bomb — place a scientist and engineer together here to acquire a bomb design.
• Factories — place workers here to construct fighters/bombers, or earn money.
• Reactor and Enrichment Plant — combine scientists and yellowcake to output Plutonium, or scientists, yellowcake and money to output Uranium. Both of these are required to construct different types of bombs.

In addition, there’s the Building Row across the top of the main board. Buildings are available here for purchase and installation to your player board, where you can start building up even more resources. Costs for the buildings are printed at the top of each space, increasing in cost from left to right. As a building is purchased, the entire row slides left, and a new building is drawn from the building deck to take its place in the most rightmost (most expensive) space. It’s a nifty mechanic that reminds me of the Civil Action Card Row in Through The Ages, which slides left each turn, causing Civil Actions Cards to become cheaper to purchase, denoting how technological advancements become cheaper and more easily available as time passes.

The main board also has the Plutonium and Uranium Tracks to keep track of each player’s stockpile of those resources. There’s also the ominous Spy Track — more on that later.

All Work And All Play

At its core, a turn in The Manhattan Project consists of either placing workers, or retrieving workers. If you choose to place workers, you get to place exactly one worker on the Main Board (part 1), then place as many workers as you can on buildings that you have constructed on your Player Board (part 2). If you have no more workers to place (because they’re all, you know, working), then you must retrieve them all back from the Main Board and the Player Board. On a turn where you choose to retrieve workers, that’s the only action you can take for that turn.

From Small Beginnings Come Great (and Terrible) Things

Each player starts with four humble laborers. In the early game, you have to focus on acquiring skilled workers (engineers and scientists), yellowcake, and the cash to fund your fledgling nuclear program. Once you have at least one engineer and once scientist, you can acquire your first bomb design. Typically, a bomb will require multiple scientists and engineers, plus some fissile material — either uranium or plutonium.

Once a player acquires a bomb design, a mini-game of hidden card drafting takes place. The player who acquired the bomb design takes all the face up bomb cards, secretly chooses a bomb to build, then passes the other bomb cards to the next player. Each player takes turns secretly choosing bombs to construct. The first player will end up with the last bomb card, thus gaining the advantage of two bombs to work on, instead of just one. Once each player has selected their bomb designs, the secret is over. The selected bomb cards are placed face up near each player’s board. I like this mechanic because it mirrors what happens in reality; once it becomes known that a nation is working on a bomb, it usually becomes public knowledge what type of bomb is being constructed.

Acquiring a bomb design tends to make your strategy come into sharp focus around your needs. If you’re building a uranium bomb, you will want to focus on uranium production. If a plutonium bomb is your goal, you will redirect your production efforts in that direction.

Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair

This game could have stopped at giving players the ability to build the most efficient economic and nuclear production engines, and it would have been a fine game. It’s the ability to attack your enemies, steal their resources, and destroy their means of production that pushes this game to another level.

Attack your enemies: you can build fighters and bombers, either on the main board or by constructing the right factories. Fighters allow you to establish air superiority over your enemies by destroying their fighters. Once all enemy fighters have been downed, your bombers can swoop in and damage enemy buildings. Damage to buildings is devastating, because it disables that building until the damage is repaired. Building repairs are prohibitively expensive and time consuming. In practice, in three games I have played, once a player’s buildings are damaged, odds are good that they won’t get repaired again.

Steal their resources: on the main board you can activate a Spy Track that allows you to place your workers on your opponents’ buildings, using their facilities to benefit your nuclear program.

There is more, like how you can sacrifice one of your plutonium bombs to a bomb test, which will cause a drop in your current point total, but will increase the value of future bombs you build. That’s if an opponent doesn’t race past you to victory first.

But let me end with this thought: this is a game where smooth, refined mechanics reinforce theme, and theme blends well with solid mechanics. If the admittedly non-PC subject matter doesn’t bother you, The Manhattan Project is a fun hybrid worker placement game — one in which you can bomb the stuffing out of each other.

Other writings you might like:

A Comparative Review of Clank!

How I learned to stop worrying and love Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Game Review: The Quest for El Dorado

There’s a lot going on in Clank!, which our family played last night for the first time. Spoiler alert: we had a blast, and we will play this again very soon.

The Game

You play a dungeon thief, and your goal is to compete with other thieves to delve as deep as you dare into a dungeon to nab artifacts and treasure. The one who gets in, gets the most cool stuff (victory points), and gets out alive, wins the game. However, there is a complication: this dungeon is the lair of a dragon who is none too thrilled about you taking her pretty things. If you make too much noise down there, the dragon will find you and roast your behind. So don’t make noise, don’t overstay your welcome, and make sure to have most points at the end of the game to win. That’s Clank!

Starting Deck and Resources

Each player starts with the same 10 low-level cards. Each card will generate one or more of the following resources:

Skill — used to acquire new cards to upgrade your deck. Analogous to Ascension’s Runes or Star Realms’ Trade.

Swords — used to fight monsters in the Dungeon Row. Just like Ascension’s Power or Star Realms’ Combat

Boots — used to move around the dungeon. Closest analogy to my mind are the Expedition Cards that allow you to move across the board in Quest for El Dorado.

Dungeon Row and Reserve Cards

The top six cards of the Dungeon Deck are dealt face up to form the Dungeon Row, which is just like Hero Realms’ Market Row, Star Realms’ Trade Row, Ascension’s Center Row, or the Hogwarts Deck in Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. You use Skill to purchase upgraded cards from the Dungeon Row, and/or use Swords to vanquish monsters from the Dungeon Row to gain the benefits listed on the Monster card. While purchasing cards from the dungeon/center/market/trade row is a standard feature of all deck builders I’ve played, the ability to fight monsters that appear in the row I have only seen in Ascension.

(That said, I haven’t played either Marvel’s Legendary or the DC Deck Building game, so for all I know, those games let you beat on bad guys in the center row as well. Let me know in the comments.)

The Reserve cards are a row of slightly upgraded cards that are a decent default Skill purchase if you can’t afford cards in the Dungeon Row. This is most similar to the Mystics, Heavy Infantry and Cultists cards in Ascension. Reserve cards are comprised of Mercenaries who provide Swords (like Heavy Infantry in Ascension), Explore cards which provide Skill and Boots, Secret Tomes that provide victory points at the end of the game (but nothing else, thus cluttering up your deck during play), and the ever-present Goblin that you can always fight if there are no more interesting/attractive opponents in the Dungeon Row (reminiscent of the Cultists in Ascension).

The Game Board

Here’s where Clank! starts to differentiate itself from other deck builders. It has a game board that represents your path down into the dragon’s dungeon. The only other deck builder I’ve played with a game board is Quest for El Dorado. The game board really does add extra strategy to the game. Do you take a direct path to a single chosen Artifact, then hightail it out of there as fast as possible? Or do you burgle as many rooms as possible, earn enough gold to buy a backpack or two, and spend extra time collecting multiple Artifacts, even though this exposes you to more time underground, and greater risk of death by dragon attack?

While the Artifacts are placed in designated rooms (the further from the entrance and harder to reach, the higher value the Artifact), the Major and Minor Treasures are randomly assigned to rooms at the start of each game. This adds an element of randomness that increases the game’s replay value, since players won’t know where the more valuable treasures are located in a given game session.

Also on the game board: health counters for 1–4 players (similar to Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle), the Clank! cube area, and a mechanic called the Rage Track.

The Clank Cubes, Dragon Bag, and Rage Track

The eponymous and clever Clank! mechanism is what makes the game unique. Each player has a set of Clank! cubes. When you draw Stumble cards into your hand, or when other players tattle on you, or play other cards with that increase the noise you make…you must add one or more of your player-color Clank! cubes to the Clank! area. The more noise you make, the more time you spend in the dragon’s lair, the more of your color Clank! cubes will accumulate in that Clank! area.

When a card with a Dragon Attacks! symbol is drawn from the Dungeon Deck, the dragon — um — attacks. When this happens, all players’ cubes in the Clank! area are placed inside the Dragon Bag that Renegade Studios thoughtfully included in the box, unlike some other game companies (*cough* FFG *cough* Arkham Horror: The Card Game), and players draw the number of cubes indicated by the dragon’s current position on the Rage Track. The Rage Track mechanic reminds me of the Infection Rate in Pandemic, or the water level meter in Forbidden Island, in that game events cause the track to gradually advance, which increases the likelihood that one or more players will get damaged or knocked out by dragon attacks. The Rage Track really ratchets up tension as the game progresses.

In the early game, the Dragon Bag is filled with more black (neutral) cubes than player-color cubes, which means there is a lower probability of a player’s cube being pulled and that player suffering damage. But here’s the clever bit: as they are pulled from the bag, those neutral cubes are set aside. As the game goes on and players make more noise, more player cubes are added to the Dragon Bag. The more time you spend in the dragon’s lair, the greater the chance that you will be roasted by dragon’s breath. It’s a genius mechanic that, along with the steadily advancing Rage Track, amp up your sense of urgency to achieve your objective and get the heck out of Dodge, fast!

Impressions

When a game tries to implement too many different mechanics, there’s potential for creating an over-complicated, bloated mess that’s hard to teach and takes forever to play. This is even more true of deck builders, whose primary appeal is pick-up-and-play simplicity. There’s a reason why Ascension (2010) and Star Realms (2014) remain popular years later: accessibility and direct, no-nonsense playability.

Which makes it even more impressive that Clank! harmoniously blends all of these elements into a light, brisk-playing, family-weight package with enough crunchy strategy and variability to keep more “serious” gamers entertained as well.

A very good deck builder

At its core, Clank! is a very good deck builder. The Dungeon cards provide a wide variety of upgrade options to purchase, challenging monsters to conquer, and treasures to collect. The card special abilities provide meaningful in-game benefits (or penalties!). Unlike the base game of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, Clank! thoughtfully provides cards that allow you to cull unwanted cards from your deck.

On top of this strong deck builder foundation, they added a double-sided (easy map on one side, harder on the other) game board with the brilliant Rage Track and Clank! Area mechanics, for a sense of pulse-pounding tension that rivals the Doom Track in FFG’s Eldritch Horror. The paths on the game board require strategy and planning to navigate, tempting you to press your luck while simultaneously managing your health level, treasures, and likelihood that you’ll make it out alive to enjoy the spoils of your labors.

Earlier I compared Clank! to Reiner Knizia’s Quest for El Dorado, which was a nominee for 2017 Spiel des Jahres. As good as that game is, Clank! is better. It is more ambitious, and succeeds at most of what it tries to do.

Bottom line: Clank! is a solid deck builder with a dungeon game board that adds strategy, and clever Clank! and Rage Track mechanics that increase tension and fun. I can’t wait to try the 2017 follow up, Clank! In! Space!

I’ve loved The X-Files since the early 90’s. I was the admin of the Philippine X-Files Mailing List. I could quote you my favorite Mulderisms and Scullyisms. I could describe from memory my favorite scenes from “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” (season 3, episode 20) and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” (season 3, episode 4). So when got the email that The X-Files: Deep State was up for pre-order, I was ready.

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. This game is nothing at all like the incredible X-Files game developed by Hyperbole Studio in 1998. Compared to that worthy effort, that really captured the feel and flavor of the TV show, The X-Files: Deep State is hot garbage.

This is a generic hidden object game. “Investigation” of crime scenes consists of searching for objects matching a list. These objects are not evidence, they are simply random objects, hidden within the scene. To break the monotony, sometimes you get a jigsaw puzzle whose jumbled pieces you have to rearrange to reveal the “clue”. It’s all so stultifyingly dull.

Supposedly your “moral choices” affect the game play. But the choices are overly simplistic, such as “be the good cop” or “play the bad cop.”

Worse, all the usual “freemium” tricks are employed to full effect. Don’t want to wait for the completely artificial 60 seconds for that crime lab analysis to come through? Click here to rush the results, only $500 game bucks. Oh, out of game bucks? You can purchase some for the low, low price of $4.99.

Ugh.

Bottom line: this is a generic hidden object game, filled with in-app purchase hooks and artificial wait times, that has been lightly skinned to be vaguely reminiscent of The X-Files. It’s a naked cash grab. It is not even remotely worthy of the excellent season 11 revival of the show.