Roger Dodger

Scythe is a game that has been designed around a series of art works. Sometimes this works, in this case it really shows its flaws. My experience with the game is that it is on rails, you don’t ever feel like you are making strategic choices each turn, but rather just making the most efficient choices. Your goal is to end the game as soon as possible, and it is more like a race than a 4X strategy game.

Saying that Scythe is a 4X, is like calling love letter a 4X, or carcassonne. Two of the four X’s are missing from scythe, the eXploring and eXtermination. The game lacks any risk, you can loose a combat and you get given a card for loosing and your Mech doesn’t get destroyed, it just goes back to your base. It doesn’t even need to be repaired.

I feel that the designer has never immersed himself in the world of Mech’s as the game mechanics surrounding the use of Mech’s is bizarre. The interaction between players is very limited in the game and only occurs in combat. Combat in the game isn’t used as a tool for expanding your empire but rather to get two of the six stars needed to end the game.

This game got a lot of hype, but delivered a mediocre pseudo 4x that feels like it was aimed at kids for its lack of risk and very limited strategy.

Trying to emulate the TV series into a board game is hard. Because the strength of the show was the story and interactions. Two big things this game doesn’t have. The issues with this game are, it is too long, you just do the same thing over and over again for 2-3 hours, there is imbalance with getting crew and weapons and there is no player interaction.

I haven’t played the 10 or so expansions for this game and maybe they fix the issues above, but looking at getting all the expansions for firefly, you would be looking at over $300 including the base game. If a game needs that many expansions, then it shows how flawed the original idea was.

If you can get the base game for $40 then go for it, but don’t expect a lot from the game, it is fairly weak with its game mechanics and you really have to ignore a lot of boring downtime to enjoy the game. Nice idea but it fails at being a fun space themed smuggler game and succeeds at being mediocre.