Pilatch

We busted this one out to fill a gap at a board gamers meetup. I’m glad we did. The gameplay is very simple and fun with few rules.

For some reason the rules state that you make three machines, which means three complete games, then count up your grand total of components at the end. That’s all fine and good, but for a game that plays this quickly, its short span is an asset to those pressed for time. You could just as easily play only one game in about ten minutes and be satisfied.

One minor flaw is that the symbols on the edges of the card are scrawny and may look very similar. So players with less keen eyesight may have trouble distinguishing between an up-arrow and a down-arrow, for instance.

Another problem is that player interaction is very limited. There is little for you to do, if nothing, until it’s your turn. Even then you only interact with the current board state. Advanced planning is often for naught as the machine can radically change between one of your turns and the next.

You’ll only really get a rise out of an opponent if you nuke some of his/her components. Otherwise your interaction with other players involves hoping they won’t alter the machine’s sequence in a way you won’t like, or praying they don’t lay more pieces than you do.

Once the machine starts working you really feel like you’re on a clock and scrambling to get as many of your components into sequence as possible. This is both great for tension, and really fleshes out the concept of the game.

The game pieces are a little wonky. I’d forgo the little damage chips in favor of a bunch of dice, like the boxes of small d6s you would buy for 40K.

When a player is knocked out s/he still has abilities that can be played on the back of the hero card. They don’t make being knocked out any better though. You’re pretty much out of decisions to make at that point, and probably will end up asking the active players which ability you should use instead of being independent.

Those are my primary gripes.

Otherwise I found that this game could be a lot of fun once you get to know a superhero that you like. The content is pretty mild on the geek spectrum, so it’s easy to present to non-hardcore gamers. There’s not a ton of setup either, like some deck-building games I’ve played. So you can start fighting pretty quickly.

Beware the bigger villains though, as you’ll probably want four people in the fight. Expect it to be more epic than casual at that point. Akash’bhuta is a good example. She… (it?)… inevitably ground down our three-hero party.