board game review – The DorkWeb

July 3, 2020

Nemesis

How it plays:

Nemesis is a cooperative survival experience that can support up to 5 players. The premise is simple; You awake from cryosleep disoriented. You’re too groggy to recall the layout of the ship but must ensure the ship is going the right way and that things are still functioning. Oh yeah, something bad may have made its way onboard too…

At the start of the game each player is dealt two characters, from which they may keep one. Each character has their own deck of possible actions, a character specific weapon, and two items that may be acquired by completing a side objective. There’s a character for just about every generic sci-if archetype. Players are also dealt two random game objectives, one personal and one corporate. More on these in a bit.

The board, or the “ship”, is comprised of overturned hexagons that represent rooms. These rooms are connected by a spiderweb of halls, corridors, and vents. Each room also has a overturned triangular marker present. These represent modifiers to the room and can be as minuscule as literally nothing or as damning as a fire or malfunctioning piece of equipment. Each time a character moves into an unexplored room, they reveal both the function of the room they just entered in addition to any potential complications. On top of that, you didn’t forget that these spacefarers were being stalked by horrible alien monsters right? Good, because each time a player enters an unoccupied room, even if its been previously explored, they must roll to see how much noise they create and what that noise brings.

An average turn starts with the player drawing up to 5 cards. A player has two actions available. They may spend one card to move, spend whatever number of cards required to perform a room action (search for items, shower, check engines, etc.) or play a character card as an action. During their turn if they move into an unoccupied room they’ll roll the noise die and place a noise token in the hallway or corridor that corresponds with the result. If there’s already a noise token there then that player encounter an Intruder.

Intruders are the not Ridley Scott’s aliens that stowed away on your ship, and boy are they mean. There are 5 different types of Intruders that can be encountered and they each represent a different stage in the lifecycle of the alien monstrosity. Not only does each iteration of this cosmic progeny have the power to hurt and potentially kill your character, but many attacks leave behind nasty contamination. These are represented by adding a contamination card into your discard pile and reshuffling it back into your deck the next time you go to draw. These contamination cards cannot be used by your character in any way, they’re just dead weight effectively making a 5 card hand 4 if you draw the contamination. Dealing with contamination is a huge part of the game for anyone who finds themselves in combat. You’ll need to take care of them before the end of the game or risk bringing a new baby chest burster into this world just when you thought you’d survived.

Speaking of winning the game. Now’s the time to circle back to player objectives. When the first intruder is encountered, you choose one of your two objectives to keep and then discard the other. Now remember, one of these was a personal objective and the other was corporate. The idea here is that by the time the first specks of alien shit hit the fan, you can decide which of your two goals are more realistic. This may potentially lead to a player deciding that grabbing an alien carcass and bee lining it to the escape pods makes a lot more sense than leading a head on assault on the alien queen and burning down her nest. Sometimes player objectives will coincide, other times they will not. The priorities for each player is staying alive and completing their objective.

What we thought:

Well first off let me say this was a long time coming. We’ve had our eye on this game for quite some time but it was nearly impossible to get a hold of. The company that makes Nemesis, Awaken Realms, is kind of like a boutique board game company. They make real high quality stuff that people generally love, and do very limited manufacturing and releasing of their products. Needless to say, if you want a complete edition of Nemesis along with some of the expansion and kickstarter content you’re looking upwards of $400-$500. Luckily for us, while we were waiting out our local shutdown we happened to find a very functional version of Nemesis on a popular tabletop simulator game. For those of you interested in Nemesis but not looking to take out a small loan, I’m sure you can figure out the same way we managed to play.

Now, on to our actual thoughts on the game! Nemesis was both everything we wanted and while also somewhat underwhelming in the area that matters most.

Most of Nemesis is fantastic. Mechanically everything is pretty sound. Exploration feels exciting and stress inducing. Rooms are randomized and full of things to interact with. Combat is dangerous. Characters are unique and each bring their own strengths and weaknesses. It is truly a game that is more concerned with the narrative its weaving in your play session as opposed to every player feeling powerful. There’s a good chance some players will die, there’s even a pretty good chance that someone will die during that first Intruder encounter if they don’t high-tail it out of there. These are the best parts of Nemesis. Every game has the potential to surprise you or fill you with dread.

One major bone that we have to pick with Nemesis are player objectives. Really it’s more of a conversation about incentive to play the bad guy. As it stands, during the beginning of the game you get your two objectives. One corporate and one personal. Now, the corporate objective is almost always the “bad” one and vice versa for the personal objective. The thing is, almost all of the corporate objectives create a much more difficult win condition than just taking the personal objective and reasoning with the other players. Here’s a couple example “bad” objectives: Eliminate Player (1-5), Be the only survivor. Alternatively, many of the “good” objectives are super easy: Send the signal and hibernate, ensure the ship reaches earth, discover intruder weaknesses. The issue here is that there is no incentive to take the “bad” or antagonistic objective. Many times peoples “good” objectives will even overlap. We encountered this which lead to a funny situation where one person ensured the engines were working and that the ship was on track to earth. We all had slight variations on making sure we got back to earth in one piece so after his hard work we enjoyed a nice nap risk free. We all won…or no one did. I’m not sure what the solution is here, but I’ve been thinking about how assigning objective point values might help. If those antagonistic objectives are so difficult why not make them worth more points? Give a player a convincing reason to release an airlock and blast their friend into space, even if that reason is just a point or two more than the 3 schmucks who all tied because they were cooperating.

All said and done Nemesis is still one of the best survival board games we’ve played with friends and it’ll be a mainstay in our group for some time to come. Every game offers a fresh and random sci-fi horror flick for you and your friends to live out. It certainly won’t hold your hand, and you may not have a ton of legitimate reason to want to be the bad guy, but you’ll have a blast romping through an alien infested space ship with some friends.

*At the time of this writing Awaken Realms, creators of Nemesis, have successfully kickstarted the 4th expansion for Nemesis, “Lockdown”*

All images courtesy of Awaken Realms, http://awakenrealms.com/

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020

Horrified

The DorkWeb had the chance to sit down with some friends and take a stab at Horrified, a board game about a bunch of peasants rising up against monsters.

Horrified stars all of your favorite classic monsters as the villains…well almost all of them

How It Plays:

Horrified is a cooperative game that can be played alone or with up to 5. We imagine you’d have the best time with 3-4 players. The object of the game is to defeat each of the monsters in play by fulfilling specific requirements detailed on the monster’s card. Usually this involves collecting a certain number of handily color coded items and interacting in specific points on the game board. Simple enough. This is augmented by unique player characters with special abilities (like the ability to teleport…I didn’t get it either) and a monster deck that generates items on the board as well as an event that may help or hinder the players.

What We Thought:

We finished our first game of Horrified in just about an hour. That’s pretty good considering only one of us had ever played it before. There should be no problems introducing and teaching this game at your next board game night. As far as Horrified’s content goes, there’s enough there between unique characters and different monsters, and again they all play differently. The only major downsides we saw were that winning conditions and monster set-up are always the same, meaning anyone who puts enough time into this game will be able to dispatch monsters quickly and with ease. Though it must be mentioned that the miniatures, board art, and cards are genuinely fantastic. I wouldn’t go into this game expecting deep strategy and multi-hour games, but it’s certainly something I’d enjoy playing again. Purchase here

November 22, 2018November 22, 2018

Doomseeker, Megaland, and Thunderstone

Over this week, The DorkWeb had a chance to get together with some like minded friends and crack into some of the board/card games we’d gotten our hands on since GenCon.

We started out playing Megaland. This Target exclusive lands somewhere between a “city builder” and a Russian roulette style dungeon delver.

How It Plays:
Each turn characters try their luck collecting resources from the dungeon; a randomized deck of encounters. The longer your character stays in the dungeon, the greater the chance they’ll meet their doom and leave empty handed.

The resources that you collect are used as currency to purchase buildings, growing your settlement and providing valuable bonuses to your character. Some buildings are there just to generate more currency, while others can actively make you tougher.

What We Thought:

Megaland can be a lot of fun, its definitely one of those games that’s easier to get a grasp of after you’ve seen a round or two played. Megaland’s art just bleeds whacky silly fun; from the potential city buildings, to the design of the dungeon cards, and characters. One thing we did notice is that it is very easy to succeed in this game by playing it safe. One of our players never remained in the dungeon after the initial encounter, and they ended up winning the round! Aside from a shortage of incentive to put your character in increasing danger, Megaland is a whacky and dynamic ‘test-your-luck’ style builder that would be welcome at nearly anyone’s game night. Purchase here

Next up, we took a crack at Warhammer: Doomseeker. The DorkWeb had a chance to play this, albeit small-scale, while at GenCon. We couldn’t resist picking up our own copy once we got back home.

How It Plays:

Doomseeker is all about building up your Dwarf and slaying as many baddies as possible. Each player is randomly assigned a hero character and a grudge, each hero has their own unique ability and grudges serve as a special rule or objective that is meant to be kept hidden from other players. On the board you’ll find: a randomized deck of monsters increasing in difficulty and the number of players, a deck of treasures to help increase the power of your Slayer, and a ‘fate’ deck the players draw from and use these cards to influence their own or other player battles. Even after a Slayer is killed in battle, there’s a whole mechanic that allows you to bet on the other Slayer’s battles in the afterlife.

An average turn starts with the active player choosing to attack a monster. It’s at this point that every other player may try to alter the outcome of the battle in some way by playing a ‘fate’ card. These ‘fate’ cards can do anything from substantially decreasing the attacking slayers strength, to pushing them out of the way and taking the kill for yourself. A dice roll, modified by stats, will ultimately determine whether the Dwarf kills his mark or not. Additionally some enemies have special effects when they enter the battle or when they’re killed, offering incentive to kill one thing faster or just leave it be.

What We Thought:

In Doomseeker you are cast as a Slayer; slayers are Dwarves who have taken the slayer oath, much like taking the black in Game of Thrones. It means that a Dwarf is expected to go out into the world and do one thing, fight. It’s not ever a question about if the slayer falls, that’s inevitable, the question is ‘Did he die honorably?’ Now, for those unfamiliar with Warhammer this little bit of prelude information really helps frame the game up for new players. In our group we have two familiar with Warhammer lore and two who aren’t.

We’ve had the chance to play Doomseeker twice since our time with it at GenCon. The biggest difference between those two sessions were the players involvement in what was happening on the game board. Even just a quick explanation really goes a long way in getting players feeling involved and even roleplaying their characters a bit. We found Doomseeker extremely easy to pick up and play. There’s enough there to play multiple times and have a different experience each time, but it may not have as much turn-by-turn depth as some players might want. Purchase here

And that brings us to the last game of the night, Thunderstone! A friend brought this over and ensured that our night would be dominated by card games.

How It Plays:

Thunderstone is a deck and roster building dungeon delver all played out through cards. A dungeon deck is created and three monsters start on the board, this represents the three ‘levels’ in the dungeon. Somewhere in the dungeon deck there is a powerful guardian, the game comes to its end when the guardian is defeated or makes it to the first level of the dungeon.

Players are dolled out hands of basic weapons, fighters, and items that are used to make purchases or trades each turn. Characters can be upgraded or ranked up, and you’re able to supplement any weaknesses your roster has with purchased spells or items as well. Every round players will have the choice between heading into the dungeon to defeat a monster, or heading into town and making additional changes to their hand. Victory points are earned from monster kills in addition to holding certain cards when the game concludes.

What We Thought:

I think we were actually fortunate to play Thunderstone and Doomseeker back to back, because in a lot of ways they’re two distinct takes on the same kind of game. Both games offer the player a character and a horde of monsters waiting beneath a dungeon deck. Both games allow the player to customize their character by visiting a store/town and increase their ability to defeat these monsters, and both have players racing against each other to rack up the most kills.

Their differences are really where a player will prefer one game or the other. Thunderstone absolutely has more complexity to it. You’re building a roster that’s delving into the dungeon, not just one character. Now whether that means you start recruiting thieves, clerics, and supplement them with a strong armory of weapons, or maybe (like me) you prefer a small team of elite wizards bringing along a couple novice mage cronies, the choice is all yours.

This is where some of the downsides can rear their head. For instance, a new player may have a hard time grasping the different leveling paths for characters and the costs associated. Not to mention without prior knowledge of a deck builder like this, getting a ‘good enough’ hand to go into the dungeon can feel random. Despite these criticisms it’s important to note, we played this game for three and a half hours straight and almost couldn’t believe the time that’d passed when we finished our first game. We were all having a blast. Purchase here