Review: Sub Terra

Game Name:	Sub Terra	Published Year:	2017
Game Publisher:	Inside the Box Board Games LLP (ITB)	Player Scale:	1-6
Game Designer:	Tim Pinder	Run Time:	45-90 min

What seems to be a small cave expedition with your group of friends for a nice Sunday activity turns out a bit different from what you expected. You find yourselves cut off from the entry point and you need to find another exit before your torches run out of power. But that is not your only problem, you find, quite soon, that something else lives deep inside this cave and is not very friendly...

Welcome to Sub Terra, in this survival horror co-op game, you'll be exploring a cave system laying out tiles and trying to survive a multitude of dangers while you all try to make it alive to the exit.

How it plays

Gameplay is quite simple, starting from the player with the first player token, all cavers will take actions, then if any horror is in play it will move towards the closest caver. Next, you draw a card from the hazard deck and resolve it and finally you pass the first player token to the next player. You'll play a certain number of rounds like this until either you're all unconscious or you escape the cave.

[caption id="attachment_1842" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Game setup[/caption]

While setting up the game you will place the exit tile between the last six tiles in the exploration stack, so you have a bit of control on where and when is going to be placed at the end. The tiles are beautifully illustrated and the iconography is easy to identify while playing. The first time a tile is drawn, some of them will represent a potential threat, but it won't trigger until a matching hazard card gets drawn.

 

[caption id="attachment_1832" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Character mats and meeples[/caption]

 

All players have 2 action points they can use in any combination they want from the action list. Some of the actions need to use both points some only use one. You can always try to exert yourself for a third action point, but you will roll for a skill check, if you fail you'll get a wound. Appart from the common actions, all characters have a special ability/action each, there are 8 different characters in the game, each useful in its own way and making for different combinations.

 

[caption id="attachment_1834" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Hazard cards[/caption]

 

The hazard deck is what is going to make your adventure a horror story and acts as your timer for the game. Depending on the number of players or difficulty chosen you'll form the deck with a different amount of cards. There are 5 different kind of hazards: tremors that might hurt you anywhere you are, deadly gas that will stay active in all gas tiles until the next hazard card gets drawn, cave-ins and floods that are very dangerous if you are in one of the tiles where it happens and will make more difficult to move around the cave system. And last but not least the horrors, that will hunt your group down. If you run out of cards, not everything is lost you still have a small chance to make it out running in the darkness, every caver still inside the cave will have to do a skill check if you succeed then you have an extra turn but if you fail, you're dead.

There are different winning thresholds. Gold if everybody makes it out, silver if one caver is left behind or bronze if two cavers are left to the horrors. If 3 or more cavers didn't make it in time then the game is lost for the whole group. And believe me, you'll need to cooperate and organize quite well to make it out alive.

Opinion

The game is easy to play and is taught in a few minutes. It plays quite fast too, with 6 cavers we are playing in around 45-60 min per game now and it's got that addictive factor of one more game because the game is hard and really fun to play, it invites you to keep trying. It took us a few games until only 4/6 cavers made it out, though we had pretty good attempts that almost made it.

Even though the box says Sub Terra plays from 1 to 6 players, you'll need to play with a minimum of 4 cavers, but is not a difficult task as is very easy to keep track of their abilities and their life points. It plays very well solo and in any number of players, though after numerous games in my group we believe the game shines with 6 cavers in play, you have more abilities to deal with the cave, but at least 4 have to make it to the exit.



Production quality is excellent, sturdy cardboard, gorgeous art, and very easy iconography.  Tiles are easily identifiable and once activated the hazard on them the tokens will mark it and differentiate over the ones not active yet. Replayability is very high, as the cave tiles are randomized and the order and number of different hazards are different in every game. There are also a couple of expansions on the way if you still feel like you need more game.

The game also comes with a few extra perks, like a tile holder and the tiles have spots that light up with UV light, same as the die. It makes as a great experience to play it in the dark with a cave soundtrack in the background.

The good: The game plays fast and is hard, a victory will feel like one. Production quality. Simple mechanics makes for a light game that is really fun to play.

The bad: If a player gets stranded and get knocked unconscious early in the game it might be left behind, and makes for a boring game for that person if nobody comes rescue you. with 4 cavers we've found out for this to happen more often as only half of the group has to make it out.

You might also like: Burgle Bros, Pandemic

That's it for Sub Terra review folks!

If you feel adventurous enough I highly recommend it and watch out for the horrors hidden in the darkness...

Review: Statecraft

Game Name:	Statecraft	Published Year:	2016
Game Publisher:	Inside The Box Boardgames (ITB)	Player Scale:	2 – 6
Game Designer:	Peter Blenkhan	Run Time:	30 – 90 minutes

In Statecraft, players are leaders of their own political Factions as they compete to build their manifestos, gain the vote of the fickle supporters and navigate the world's ever-changing and turbulent political, economic and natural landscape.  If that sounds a little dry, dangerously educational and informed, wait, just wait, because Statecraft explodes from the table with vibrant graphic pop art, a sardonic smile and tongue firmly and securely in cheek.  Be warned though, there is a good chance you will learn something playing this game, whilst having a cracking time.

Statecraft is a tableau building game with a very clever and highly variable hand management system at its core.  The tableau you’ll be building is that of your Faction of Politicians and its Manifesto of Policy cards.  Each faction has a Leader which is randomly assigned at the start of the game, and from there you will grow your party to include Junior and Senior Politicians with a broader range of specialisms which will allow you to make use of and play a greater range of Policy cards, all of which you need to alter your ideologies and attract those all-important Supporters.

In your turn, you’ll play cards from your hand, and with them you’ll either adjust your Ideology Tracker, recruit new Politicians or poach Supporters from your opponents, and you can do as much of this as you have cards, most of which are Policy cards.  These cards are, I think one of the game's defining features for two reasons:

[caption id="attachment_1465" align="alignnone" width="961"] A whole pile of Policy cards[/caption]

One, each card has four varying and different uses, being split in two with almost opposing policies which affect your Ideologies and Budget differently by whether a player chooses to Announce or Denounce a policy; Announcing a policy will add to your Ideologies and Denouncing will do the opposite.  This mechanic deftly handles the thematic issue of ideology; by not reducing political persuasions to a binary Left or Right, instead, it creates a more complex map of how each/any policy resonates with supporters.  In short, real life politics aren’t black or white, and so neither is Statecraft (literally).

The second great thing about these cards is the intellectual and emotional effect that radiates from the game and the thinking it forces a player to do off the table.  How I personally feel about ‘Immigration Quotas’ and ‘Voluntary Military Service’ is pulled into question, sure I want Authoritarianism score to increase but do I morally agree with playing this card?  I continually feel the need to try and build a fictional utopia, and assess the policies I play accordingly, I quite enjoy declaring that I am Denouncing ‘Data Trawling’ and for a moment I feel like I am doing something good, and just, and right – if only in a card game.

 

[gallery ids="1460,1461,1462" type="rectangular" orderby="rand"]

It isn’t all Policies though, within the same deck are Action cards, adding a Take-That element to the game with cards like ‘Assassinate’ (particularly nasty) and ‘Slander Opponent’ (also very nasty).  To further mix things up you’ll add some Event Cards to this deck – these are purple backed so you’ll be able to see and anticipate them before they are drawn.  These cards – and sometimes they are Emergencies – have an immediate effect on all players, and may cause extra issues for the current Incumbent player (the player in the lead) – which makes for a great catch up mechanic too – occasionally, these Incumbent effects can really stiff the lead player, and in particularly close games this can be quite vexing.

Statecraft has ten individual Scenarios for you to play, many of which hinge on gaining the most supporters, however; each is different, they all have a variety of end and win conditions, and some even have additional special rules.  Further to this, each scenario will make use of a different number of the Supporter deck, meaning the demographic landscape of each game changes too.  Upon reading the rule book the game boasts 200,000 permutations, and that’s before you take into account player count and play styles.  From what is a pretty compact box you’ll get a great many games from Statecraft before you start seeing repetition.  One of the issues with Statecraft stems from this variability, some games can be over very quickly – even with larger player counts if one player is able to win supporters early it can result in a short-lived one-horse race – which can be a little frustrating if you’d planned/hoped it would be a cornerstone game of your game night.  Likewise, the games can be drawn-out battle of attrition “The Promise of Culture” for example has the winner being the player with the greatest Budget deficit at the end of eight turns, and just like real life, it turns out it is really easy to spend loads of money meaning these games sometimes feel like they lack complex choices.

[caption id="attachment_1466" align="alignnone" width="961"] Supporters[/caption]

Statecraft looks great on the table, the graphic pop art really differentiates itself from most other games, and visually it draws you, and anybody nearby in, simply because of how charming it all looks when it’s laid out – which, in a two player game is an impressively small footprint for such a “big” game.  Stagecraft really wins with the graphic design too, brilliantly clear and concise iconography streamlines the mechanical complexity making the game very easy to get to grips with quickly.

[caption id="attachment_1463" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Statecraft at the Wednesday night Board Meetings[/caption]

You can play Statecraft just as a game, looking only at the symbols, colours and numbers, it’ll look real nice, and you’ll enjoy it and have fun, there will be a winner and losers.  Satisfied with a good game you’ll put it back on your shelf for another time and that will be that.  However, as with most games, Statecraft rewards engaged play; you’ll enjoy the challenge and the puzzle if all you do is adjust the “yellow track” when you “play” that card.  But, the game will be enjoyed far more if you pay attention to the details, invest and create a narrative for yourself.

 

The Good:

A clever, thought-provoking (and funny) game.

Mechanical and thematic balance.

Massive replayability

Vibrant artwork and colour pallet

 

The Bad:

Event cards can really sting the leader

Take-That actions can be very aggressive

“Unpredictable” gameplay length

Poor box insert

A big pot of Game Jam

This is where it all begins, and like a good story teller, we don’t begin our story at the beginning (there will, no doubt; be flash-backs at a later date), but we do begin with a pretty significant gaming event at the beginning of 2017: a Game Jam, hosted and held at the ITB Board Games HQ in very central London.

“Hold the dice!  What is a game jam?” I imagine you may be thinking.

Well, you know what a “Jamming Session” is don’t you? Just like the band you had with your mates back in school, a jam requires no preparation or planning; simply the willingness to get together, have fun create something that didn’t exist before you started.  Simply replace the guitars, drums, and keyboard with meeples, blank playing cards and reams and reams of paper.  And that, is a Game Jam.

And that is exactly what we did.  My cohort; Bren, and I left the grey, rainy Midlands

[caption id="attachment_31" align="alignright" width="300"] Bren and I, Outside Inside the Box[/caption]

behind and drove all the way down and into the grey London arriving - 2 hours early as we were expecting traffic in the centre of London – at the understated HQ of Inside the Box Board Games.  We chilled, chatted to ITB Head Honcho and Statecraft designer Peter Blenkharn, while he set up and of course we perused their game collection.

 

The Game Jam Game: Cerebrum

The day got underway at 12, with around 20 plus would-be-designers all ready to get stuck into the jam.  Bren and I joined up with another pair of bearded fellows (Team name, therefore, was of course: The 4 Bearded Geniuses)

[caption id="attachment_32" align="alignleft" width="225"] The meeting of the Four Bearded Geniuses[/caption]

The brief was simple:

2-6 players,

Not solely card game

45-90 mins,

High replayability

Fun

 

And the theme: Artificial Intelligence.

Go!

6 hours later, along with all the other teams, we had a game: Cerebrum; an abstract, tile placement, resource management game about tech companies trying to build AI that they could sell, but control.

At this point in the day, you stop building and start playing other team’s games, and each game was scored (1-5) on some key criteria Fun, Replay-ability, Theme/Mechanics etc.

I stayed with our game and guided people through it (and lost every single time!!).

[caption id="attachment_34" align="alignright" width="300"] A play through with another team[/caption]

Between each play, the other 3 bearded geniuses would return get some feedback and we’d tweak the game ever so slightly.  But, Cerebrum worked, it worked pretty well, and if nothing else we had enjoyed creating it, meeting other designers and generally had a great, interesting day.

However; as it turned out other teams enjoyed playing.

They enjoyed playing it more than they enjoyed playing the other games.

They enjoyed playing it the most.

The 4 Bearded Geniuses won the first ever ITB Game Jam.

[caption id="attachment_35" align="alignleft" width="300"] A blurry winner's photo[/caption]

We won the public vote, so we’ll each be receiving a copy of ITB’s Statecraft.  The judge's vote will happen at some point soon, where the winner of that we receive a fully art worked-up version of their game.

So fingers crossed.

After that of course; the sky is the limit.

The Making of a Game Jam Game:

What worked well?

In a word; talking.  We talked a lot about ideas, mechanics, and themes.  We discussed games we had played and how we begged, borrowed and stole from games we liked or had played.  Talking.  We talked so much we ate into our ‘build time’ massively.  We wrote lists of mechanical systems we could use, buzz words, component and games parts, at one point we drew up a decision tree to help us work out what type of game we were going to make and how the theme of AI would be in it.

 

The other thing that worked very well was our team dynamic; Bren, Tino, Graham, and yours truly gelled really quite nicely.  How does this help you ahead of an upcoming Game Jam?  Well, much like a chain only being as strong as its weakest link, an orchestra only works, when everyone works together (and this is the metaphor I’m trying to get to).  This is what to look out for when picking your team (please note I know next to nothing about orchestras, other than Ludovico Einaudi is awesome and seeing him live at Blenheim Palace was a real lifetime highlight):

Percussion (Tino), kept us in check and on point, gave us the meter to work to and when we drifted from the theme, he pulled us back in.

Brass (Brendan), gave us some of the big impact pieces – the concentric circular board layout for example.

Strings (Graham), did most of the work, both physical – cutting cards up, writing stuff down, and the mental, he did a lot of the maths and everyone bounced their ideas off him.

Composer (Me), I asked a lot of questions.  How are we going to do that?  What will that mean?  Let’s park that for a minute and think about…I also wave my hands around wildly when talking.

To have an awesome, potentially winning team, these are the type of people you want to work with.

 

What didn’t work so well?

Planning; we didn’t really plan our time very well, but then even if had I doubt any of us would have paid any attention to the clock in any event. – but we could have avoided a big stress and rush had at least one of us been paying attention.

What I would do differently next time?

I would take some more stationary – yes loads was provided, but like a good resource management game, you may find yourself with that precious sharpie when you need it.  So I’ll be taking a range of felt tips, multi coloured sharpies, a few pencils and a ruler next time.

I’d try and spend more time meeting and talking to other people, I did some, but nowhere near enough.  I could even be tempted to have a few business cards made up; just name, contact details and what I’m working on/status of designs.  If you’re looking for play testers for your game, or you are due to release a Kickstarter project soon, definitely do this.

Also, some biscuits.  Talking about games over a coffee needs some biscuits.

Will there be a next time?

Real life allowing; you bet.  Building a game under those conditions is a fabulous experience, and if you’re interested in game design you should try and find one, and failing that, talk to your local gaming shop/café about maybe putting one on.

 

Have you been to a game jam?  How would you advise someone attending an upcoming event?

Thanks for reading folks.

 

ITB’s Sub Terra designer by Tim Pinder is currently live on Kickstarter, and it’s already fully funded so head on over if you want to get in on some of that action.  Statecraft by Peter Blenkharn successfully funded last year and will be available very soon.  Check their website for more details and keep an eye out for future event’s they’ll no doubt be hosting.