Disclaimer: we played as a group of 6 so I can't speak to how these things might be different playing in smaller groups. I can see how the game would feel different playing as only two players, for example, where you might have more control over the center cards.
This game was fun and felt like it had a good concept with a lot of potential, but in its current form felt far too random, and like it needed more card choices that interact with each other to feel like a player was having a rewarding experience for having built an engine, rather than just getting lucky.
Thoughts I had:
This game was fun and felt like it had a good concept with a lot of potential, but in its current form felt far too random, and like it needed more card choices that interact with each other to feel like a player was having a rewarding experience for having built an engine, rather than just getting lucky.
Thoughts I had:
- About a quarter of the way through a game I think I had already seen every card that exists. Definitely feels like some more variety would spice up the game more. As I mentioned above, having more cards interact with each other (in ways that aren't just "you get more production" ideally) would be nice. Things like the Fabricator Belt where you get to buy an extra mech each turn etc that give you more actions definitely feel empowering since they allow the player to get more control over their game flow. More things in this vein would be great IMO.
- Since the game length is relatively short (not a bad thing), cards like Darkspace Hub feel more powerful than I think they were intended to feel. The trade-off mechanic of not being able to move it and not being able to put other cards there seems like an interesting idea in concept, but in practice there isn't much of a trade-off since you can get a couple of these and then a combo card (like Transit Hub) and win the game before you really feel the pain of not being able to stack other cards on your chosen number. Not sure if this needs to be rebalanced by tuning down darkspace hub to 3 production instead of 4 or lengthening the game time or some other balancing mechanic but this is how it felt to me at least.
- Some kind of comeback mechanic would be nice, or perhaps just buffing the amount of credits you get for giving up an action to cycle. We had a player in one game that didn't get a single credit of income through round 3 and it felt absolutely horrible. It was clear that she just got very unlucky and had literally zero agency in the game which is unfortunate and makes the game just feel like a gambling game.
- Along the same thought of needing more cards/variety in the game, I wonder if it might benefit the game for each card type to have multiple numbers it could be associated with. In a vacuum I like the strategy aspect of knowing (for example) that transit hub is an 8, so I can save my 8 slot and don't put a darkspace hub there so that later I can build a transit hub there. But at the same time, it feels like it greatly limits the replayability and variety you will see in games due to the fact that every card only has a single number it goes on. Having them either have some kind of randomization, or even just the simplicity of having half the cards of a given type be associated with one number and half with another number I think would help the health and replayability of the game dramatically in this aspect.
- I feel like a major mistake was made somewhere in figuring out turn imbalances. It seems like the devs have decided that going first is a massive advantage, as they don't get to go again after a player wins, and they also lose tiebreakers based on turn order. I feel this is the complete opposite. In our experience we all agreed that the later you go in the turn order, the more of an advantage you have. With 6 players, player 1's second round (the first income round) begins with only a single roll for potential income. Player 6's second round begins with 6 different rolls for potential income. Statistically speaking this just means that the later you go in the turn order, the higher likelihood you will have of actually being able to afford cards you want since you will have had more chances for income to come your way. If you imagine a game where Player 6 wins the game, they are the last one to go and essentially had 5 more income rolls than player 1 over the course of the game. I think a simple way to fix this would be to have dice rolls on the first round of the game. Even though instinctively it seems like it would be unfair that player 1 could be getting income when later players haven't had a chance to build anything to get income yet, this evens out pretty much immediately. By Player 1's second round they will have had 6 income rolls, and by Player 6's second round they also will have had 6 income rolls. It will be perfectly even this way. At the end of the game, no matter which player triggers the victory condition of 30 production, each player's last turn will have been with the same number of income rolls available to them.