Episode 13 - Mansions of Madness: There's an App for That

In this episode Al and Hannah examine the app driven dungeon crawler / co-op adventure Mansions of Madness. As big fans of the Arkham Horror universe and Call of Cthulhu TTRPG we were very excited to get to grips with this one. 

We look a the game itself and how it plays, the integration with the app and as always how well it plays with two. 

Apologies for the sound quality, we've been having some audio gremlins and we will be back to our normal standard next episode - thank you for bearing with us!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone. Just Elle here with a quick note to apologize about the sound quality on this episode and the previous one. We basically had a few audio gremlins that were causing our mics to glitch a little bit and causing a little bit of distortion. We were left in the position where we either had to just sort of miss a couple of uploads or upload these episodes with slightly lower sound quality. I've done my best to clear them up. Please be rest assured that from our next episode next month, which we will be using to review Arc Nova, normal service will resume. We fix the audio issues, and thank you for keeping with us. Enjoy the episode. I'm Al Simpson, and as ever, I'm joined by my co-host, my lovely wife, and my player too, Hannah Kelly.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

So today we are looking at Mansions of Madness by Fantasy Flight Games, one of their many games in the Arkham Horror universe. So Lovecraft, basically, of which there are several, and they have a sort of a mash of the franchise at this point of various different takes on Arkham Horror and the Arkham universe and Lovecraft's universe that they've they've put across. But Mansions of Madness in its essence is a dungeon crawler, really. It's your typical sort of people on a map where you move around, you take actions, you interact with the world. Where it differs from most normal dungeon crawlers is it's not your typical sort of power fantasy where you've got all these heroes squishing loads of enemies. Instead, you are investigators trying to uncover some insidious secret around your about your surroundings. And while there is combat, it's not necessarily sort of the main uh focus of the game, like in you would have in something like Descent or Gloomhaven or anything like that, from your other dungeon crawlers that we've sort of covered. Um how gameplay works is you take on the role of an investigator. Um those investigators, they all have different uh stats, so they've got a basically two health bars, if you will, which are your um regular health and your sanity. Because if anybody has had any uh engagement with the Arkham Universe, you'll know before, going insane and the concept of horror and and and losing your grip on sanity is a uh a calling card of all these games. Uh and they also have stat sort of attributes around how good they are at various things, so things like observation, strength, um, and they are your mechanisms for which you interact with the game and its various mechanisms. The gameplay is uh played on a modular map, and on each investigator's turn, they have two actions. Those actions are can be used for a whole breadth of different things, from moving around the map to attacking monsters to using items that you have to uh uncovering sort of search tokens and things like that on the map.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Investigating the world.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, investigating the world, for want of a better term. Where this differs from every other ball game that we've covered and from most ball games on the market is it is app driven. So it basically requires a device to play with. I wouldn't recommend doing it on a phone because it'd be too small, so you ideally need a either a laptop or a tablet or something like that in order to play the game. The app is free, you don't have to pay any more for it. But what the app does is it basically directs the entirety of gameplay. So it it lays out the map for you. As you uncover new rooms, it will tell you what tiles to put down, it controls the movement and actions of monsters, attracts all their hit points, and around that is a huge amount of governance around sort of storytelling, and you whenever you do anything in the world, you you basically click something on the app to say you've done it, it will tell you what happens. It will tell you what it will tell you what uh checks to make. So when you check an attribute, you roll dice. I think they I think they're d4s. There might be d4. I I can't remember. They're not d6s, I know that much. Um special dice that you roll to get a number of successors, and then you put those into the app and it will then tell you what what happens with the number of successes that you've made. Uh, combat, for instance, if you attack a creature, it'll ask you what you're attacking with, so whether one of the weapons that you have, or attacking unharmed, or with a spell, and then again it will tell you what to test and do it all for you as such. Um because of that, it's actually an incredibly easy game to teach because the app handles most of it. Basically, you need to sit down with somebody, tell them the basic premise, and you are away and playing within minutes. Gameplay takes uh core of it takes the course over an indeterminate number of turns. Um, there is on every scenario that you play, and in the core box, there's four scenarios. Every scenario you play basically has a hidden timer underneath it. The game doesn't tell you how long you've got. Um and whenever you finish your turn, it goes over to something called the mythos phase, and basically bad things happen in the mythos phase in in general. Um but those bad things tend to snowball and get a lot worse the longer you take in the game. So there is a time limit, and before long it will start to get uh basically unsurvivable if you don't do what you need to do.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Difficulty ramps up very, very quickly. So if you if you weren't aware that you come in towards the end of the scenario or you were running out of time, it makes it very, very aware of that. Yeah. By spawning lots of monsters or just straight up setting fire to things or doing horrible things to you.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

So gameplay runs anywhere from I would say an hour and a half to the longest scenario I see, which we haven't actually attempted, takes somewhere in the region of four to four and a half hours.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Um the more players you have, the longer that will take. The longer that will take.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah. I have when you start up a scenario, it actually gives you a time window estimate, and I have found those to be pretty much bang on accurate for two players. So I shudder to think what would happen if you had five people around the table. Um I think with some of the longer scenarios, you are inclined you are encouraged to save your game, so do it over multiple sessions, which you can do on the app, and then you basically just got to replicate what where you got up to when you bring the game back out. But it's it's one of those that's difficult to judge. But at a minimum, I think the quickest scenarios are about an hour and 20 minutes, down, an hour and a half. I picked this up very, very, very excited because I if you've listened to any of our previous podcasts, I think mine and Hannah's first real board gaming love was Arkham Horror 2nd edition. Um I Love Me a Good Dungeon Crawler. I Love Me Some Miniatures, and I love the Arkham Horror universe.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

So much so I think he's read Everything by Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I have read Everything by Lovecraft, yes. I haven't read much of the sort of extended universe, the people that carried on Robert E. Howard, etc., but most of the core Lovecraft stuff I have read. Um so yeah, needless to say, I was I was very keen and very excited on this one. I thought that, oh, this is gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

I also think it's well liked in a community. You know, there are a lot of people who there are people that we know that really like it and play it, um, and and it is well rated and and well, you know, reviewed in general. Um and I think we were really, really hyped for it as a result, and perhaps yeah, yeah. Maybe expectations were too high.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Perhaps, yeah. I mean we'll get we'll get into that in a bit, but I mean I I think from a from a a general spoiler of loads, I'm not super keen on this one, but I I think I'd like to go into into why.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So I mean I I think that's probably enough preamble. Shall we get into the review itself? Because I think we've both got quite a lot to say on this one.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, absolutely. So we start off by looking at the ball game um on a on a general category, it's just how it plays in general, and before we move on to our two-player specific uh rating. So the first one we've got is components. So I'm gonna start by talking about just the box to begin with and the components that come with it, and then perhaps we'll get onto the app later. Um, but your the box is I mean it's pretty standard, it's a modular map, all well made, comes with miniatures, makes Al happy.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I'll go to that a bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Um, what I will say about the miniatures is that um uh we don't there's a lot of games we play and we haven't got painted miniatures where I feel this actually could probably benefit from it. Some of the characters aren't easily discernible from the pictures on the box, and so it's a bit confusing. Um what I do like is that under each of the monsters you've got like a little place where you can slot their chip in so you can see what they are and what their initiative and their not an initiative the horror rating.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

The vague check rating, I probably.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah, so and that that makes it quite nice and quite easy when you're dealing with a lot of monsters. It's definitely a boardhog. A table hog, sorry. Yeah, it takes up a huge amount of space on the table. Um, and you've got lots of chips and things to mark various things on the map, all which are very needed and very sort of you know average, like they're they're they're decently made.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Sand and fantasy fine chips for everything.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Um so from that perspective and the box content, it's fairly reasonable. You've obviously got points to make about the miniatures.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yes, I do. Yeah. Um yeah, the miniatures are crap. Yeah, I thought I'd say that. I they're just not very well made. None of them look particularly cool. They particularly the character miniatures I have an issue with because uh without a picture guide of who who is who, a lot of them there's no discernible way to tell who is who from the the the card art that you get on your character and the miniature.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Like they it's just uh and that makes it really difficult when you're playing because you don't necessarily I've moved other people and forgotten where I am and they're just not hugely discernible.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Um also note for if you are buying this, all of the miniatures come detached from their bases. So uh unless you are a modelling enthusiast and happen to have some poly cement in your collection, you will probably go out have to go out to buy some because uh none of them kind of stick into their bases without the glue. Um which again is just a bit of a surprise as you know, usually when you get miniatures nowadays, unless you're going into the classic sort of Warhammer sprues and you know making the models yourself. Um I wasn't really expecting that.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Um either put it in the box or just meet them.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, yeah, just it's seemed odd. Um they do break all the time when you put them away because most of them are fastened to their bases either with a tiny little sort of plastic pen underneath one of their feet, or in some cases not nothing at all, so you just have to poly cement them to the base. Um and they do they do come off quite often just from the nature of packing it away. Um so again, if you did want to avoid that, you might want to think about a storage solution for the miniatures separately so they didn't get broken off all the time. Um the rest of them, yeah, as you said, is pretty standard fair. Um as with a lot of fancy flight games. I have this issue with the scent as well. There's a lot of very small fiddly cards, um particularly for all the the items, etc. They're all very, very small, very tiny. Um so a little bit of a faff to shuffle, and you you end up you end up with a lot of piles of cards on the table because they're all sort of different, all do different things.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

And I think that adds to the nature of it being table hog, so it's not just a modular map that expands out as you play, as you uncover new rooms, it's actually your your player area becomes a lot bigger, and it becomes important because uh, so for example, you're horroring your damage cards, you flip them face up, yeah, and then you can flip them over. So some of them won't actually do anything, and it becomes really important to separate those out because actually at other points you'll be saying, well, flip two of your choice face up, so you need to know which ones are which, and then when you've got a lot of modular map plus all these items, because we understand why they made them small, yeah, but it's just fiddly, very fiddly, it takes up a huge amount of room, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Um, and you do find yourself sort of reaching over quite far to get things you end up with a bit of chaos happening.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yes. Um it does get a plus one from me because it's got a surprise Benedict Cumberbatch on the box.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Looking at it earlier, and it's definitely a spitting image at the end of the Benedict Cumberbatch like not as Cthulhu, unfortunately, that would be cool. Um the art is okay, serviceable, it's very much on par with the rest of the the Arkham Horror stuff.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Well, actually, no, I would disagree with that. So if you take like Arkham Horror 2nd edition or even um the card game, I don't think the art that there isn't much room for art.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

No, true, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Um and actually one of the things about Lovecraft and the universe is that that it that it is frightening and terrifying and very gothic and it's there, I feel it, but you know, perhaps not to the same extent as some of the other things that they've they've done.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Because your cards are so small and everything's so busy.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

At the miniatures of crap, which we should should do some of the heavy lifting on the art side, but unfortunately it doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Um we get then on then on to the the app?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yes, let's talk about the app because that is a component. Obviously, it doesn't come in the box as such, so you just download it for free if you wanted to fiddle about with it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Um so what I've been asking myself over the last few days is well what does it what is it that the app because I was really excited at the idea of playing with an app, and we have played with an app before, so we've played like the Descent and we've used an app in order to make it like a cooperative experience rather than a competitive experience, and that I really enjoyed, and that I think didn't improve on gameplay in the same way that this does.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So I kept thinking to myself, well, what is it that the app brings? And I think for me, fundamentally, it is because it's such a bald hog and a table hog that they've put a lot of the elements that you would ordinarily have cards to do into the app. So for example, if you're trying to convey the passage of time or the increasing intensity, you would have a deck that you would turn over that would make things more complicated. Well it's strip that out and it's put it into an app.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

So we understand their reason for doing it.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

There are other games that do it and they do it with cards or with other mechanics.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

And I think I think I prefer that. Uh that's a preference thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, I mean I think I'm gonna talk about the app a lot more when we come to scoring up for fun, because I think I think that's why I'm gonna talk about the actual mechanics of the game and w where where I perhaps have issues.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

The other issue that I have with it is the app feels slightly unfinished. There are a couple of functions in the app, so for example, a back button.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

There's no undo. There's no undo. So if you make a mistake and you misclick, you can actually scupper your entire game that you've been playing for too long.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

I don't I don't really know that you could, but there is an element of undoing and having to consciously work around it. Whereas actually all that happened is we forgot that the investigator turn ended and we took an extra turn and air for opened a room and you know. So it's our fault, it's a player error, but also But that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

You player errors will happen.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yeah, and they happen all the time, and we recon stuff all the time, like oh shit, I shouldn't have done that, and then you then you go back and try and recon it. Whereas I think it doesn't allow you to do that, and that's a really small thing that I think fundamentally changes it.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Because there's so many moving parts behind the scenes, particularly with the ramping up of intensity. If, for example, you you had a break and you took two investigator turns by accident, you're actually really scuppering the scenario that you're playing. Um I mean, from a presentation point of view, the app's really cool. When I first started up, I was like, oh, this looks amazing. Yeah, it was pretty exciting. There was a little bit of backstory. Yeah, and that that that that side of things I can't fault at all. So I I do agree with you that it misses some functionality, um, mainly an undo function because yeah, if you make a mistake, you know, it yeah, you could it's a co-operative game, you play the game, you just kind of move on, but at the same time, as like if you tried to play it honestly, you can really mess up your game.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Okay, I mean I I think I'll save the rest of my thoughts on the app for later on.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Happy to take a look.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

But from a composed perspective, I have scored it a four.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Yeah, so I scored it five. Um and I think mainly it's to do with the app for me. Um, and perhaps we'll we'll get on to m more of that later, but I think the app is what probably lets it down for me.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Fine, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Um so then our next category is complexity. So as always, we don't rec uh we don't score at high for being complex and low for being simple, or vice versa. It's more about how does the complexity suit the game.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Um we also talk about things like analysis paralysis, arguing over rules, those sorts of things, so how clear and transparent that is.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

What do you reckon then? I found this quite hard to rate.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I I didn't. I found this one quite easy. I think I think the crux of it for me is the app integration. I think the app integration makes what would be a very complex, quite heavy, cooperative game into one that's actually from in terms of play engagement and how you what you need to know about the game quite a light experience.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Um, but I don't think that is a good thing. The reason I don't think it is a good thing is so much of the game is is is driven by the app that your actions feel very, very muted and the decision space feels very very muted. Because everything I mean I I I will come back to this because it's one of my core issues with the game, but once you played it a few times, you realize that to complete the scenarios you have to do very specific things in a very specific timely fashion. And if you step outside of the box, you will fail. So it's very on rails in that sense. It gives you the illusion of choice, but that choice is not actually there, and that player agency is not actually there. If you want to win. If you want to just have a have a laugh, you know, go go and do whatever. But it feels very, very restrictive. Um I think the simplification of the way your actions work and how you interact with environments, basically just click on things, do things, skill checks. Makes what appears to be a very sprawling, very deep experience actually quite you're just rolling some dice.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Shallow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Um everything boils down to checking one of your skills and rolling dice, and that that's essentially the game. Choosing where to move, choosing what to click on, and testing your skills. There are extra elements like the puzzles and what have you, um, which I think add actually a needless level of complexity for certain people, because one of the rules of the game is you you you sometimes encounter things where it'll create a puzzle on the app. Some of these are like sliding puzzles or unscrambling a picture or something like that. You are not rules as written, as far as I understand, particularly because of mechanics that can come in later with going insane, etc. You're not supposed to be able to collude on those. So the player whose turn it is is the person that takes it and does it. And not everybody's good at all these kind of puzzles. You can get somebody around the table who just ends up having a terrible time because they can't do these puzzles, then earning the ire of the other people around the table because. So that's almost level. Yes, it's cool in the colours, but it is cool. It it just it in practice, in practicality, it detracts from the experience instead of adding to it, and again just adds a weird level of complexity that shouldn't be there where it's lacking in so many others.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah, so my thoughts eventually when I finally got there were similar to yours in that to teach the game what you can actually do, it's really quite simple and really quite straightforward, but the game is complicated and the game is hard, and I don't have an issue with hard, and again we'll probably touch on this later. No, um, and doomed to fail new. You know, but it's it it it's it's not the rules that make it complicated or difficult, and for me that was the issue.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

It was it was hard and difficult because you have to crack the code beneath that.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah, but again, the yeah, that that that at the core is my main issue with mansions of madness. My main issue with mansions of madness is it requires metagaming, it requires you to understand the mechanics of a scenario and play those mechanics behind the scenes and remember them. And remember not just play the game.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Even if you want to win. And again, I'll get on to why that is so much of an issue because winning is not an issue for me in cooperative games. I like.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

He loses all the time.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

I like to win, but it's not that it's about it's about having fun.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

And it's about the reward.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, um, yeah, it doesn't feel good to actually crack it in the end. It's about the emergence storytelling. We just talked about that in our recent episode on Nemesis and how that's so fun. But this is not that that yeah, again, I've got to zip it and save it for the fun because I think it all fits in there. Um but from complexity, I mean one of the advantages of it is you can crack it out and you could teach it to pretty much anybody. Yeah. Because it it's so app driven that if you if you want a bunch of non non heavy ball gamers that you know are curious about having a dungeon exp dungeon crawl experience or something, this this would be ideal because you can you all you need to do is have. say these you've got two turns two actions a turn these are your actions although I think it's very frustrating for a lot of people. Yeah I imagine it would be but you know you can still teach it really simply and really easily.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

And there's some really cool concepts as well that come out of it as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah. So that's bumped it up a little bit for me. So I've settled on a four for this one as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Huh yeah me as well yeah four. Okay so our next category is shelf life.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

And I think And value for money and value for money.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

So I don't know how much we play for it. I don't know how much these bosses go for. I think it's about 60 I think he says um what I would say is the game each of the scenarios within the game is meant to and has been designed for you to play several times. It is no one is going to win the first time round unless you have some mad fluke of luck. So therefore replayability has been built into it at its sort of design level to a point.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That's why I've just paused I'm like okay well how I'll do it to you yeah I mean you've got four scenarios in the box. The thing is these scenarios are almost basically like a puzzle that you need to crack.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And once you understand what it is you need to do and because it is so on rails that if you fail to do any of those things in the right order at the right time you will lose there's no room for experimentation there's no room for going thinking outside the box there's no room for doing anything different which means once you've completed a scenario the pull to go back and replay it is less than zero for me. It's almost like playing a sort of campaign legacy game it's a more mystery game isn't it in some ways. In some ways yeah I think the issue for me then is a£60 thereabouts price point worth it for something that is so finite and this might be a personal thing but for me no it's not um because I think everything in this it sells itself on oh you know we shuffle things round when you replay the scenarios and things will change. They don't what they mean is they want you to buy a load of expansions and then it'll take some of the expansion monsters and put them in there instead that for me is not replayability.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

I mean they do so I mean the first expansion for example the layout of the house changed I mean it didn't really change the first scenario by the way we already downplayed with any sorry yeah yeah yeah first first scenario and when that first happened I was like oh it's different I got really excited and again yeah but then that was it there was only two and perhaps maybe that's me being uh greedy in terms of what I want for my content but I think it then set my expectations again what future scenarios are going to look like and future playthroughs of that and therefore it fell a little bit short for me. You've also got what six characters maybe more than that six or eight. I think I think it's yeah it's eight one of the things that so you you do have a lot of you know options in terms of which characters you pick um what I would probably say though is that you do to a certain extent need to pick your characters according to the scenario that you've got because again those those will have specific functions you will have somebody who will go off and perhaps kill monsters for example or you might have somebody who's there very good at lore making you know checks for puzzles and things but realistically none of them are very survivable. None of their additional abilities have a huge amount of impact on gameplay so to a certain extent it all becomes a bit of a moot point.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Yeah I think there's a huge lack of like difference in the the characters. I think they don't make a huge amount of of difference.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

And therefore there are two or three that are the best that invariably we want to pick every time.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah pretty much yeah yeah um yeah I don't think there's enough there's enough difference between them because again you can start to see oh there's some re if they were very very different and played very differently you'd see some replayability of playing the same scenario with different people.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah if you could get different conclusions if you could go about things in a different way so you can massacre everything I mean that's a bad idea it's Alcamora it's a terrible idea but for example or somebody who was very strategic in thinking and perhaps managed to think their way out of things but that's just not the case because you've got a prescripted or a prescribed way of solving puzzle.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

And there's not enough difference between them I mean I think back to uh the descent and other fantasy flight dungeon crawler as a point of comparison. And the characters in that play so very differently.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

That there's an appeal to going and playing the same thing again with different characters because it's it's a very different experience. Not so in this.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

No.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

They don't even come with sort of their own equipment. I didn't mention this in the rules but when you start a scenario the game deals out equipment to you and that equipment won't always be the same so well. No no it does it does change. It does change. The starting items do change.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

They do change a little bit but they're still roughly the same. And if you so for if you don't have it on you to start with quite often you can loot it in the encounter so actually your global equipment tends to be very static.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah but they they the characters they're not prescribed characters they basically dish them all out to the players and you decide to split them up amongst you however you like um so again there's not even that flavour of sort of a a character coming with something like they do in Arkham Horror.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah it's really random so I will take the lucky rabbit's foot because I fancy it um there's no sort of thematic rival reason to why these people have these things on it which is cool and that's fine but equally when you're dealing with such a thematic universe who are very differentiated in terms of their backstory it kind of feels a bit of a swing in the miss. Yeah just sort of bolts on for the sake of it almost I mean personally I want the nun with a Tommy gun.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I don't even think she exists she does Mark Amara She does Yeah I mean anyway going back to sort of shelf lap and value for money I just I I think at its core it is a I put it very much akin to a video game if you are the kind of person that will play a narrative Dark Souls narrative well no because that's good a fairly average narrative driven single player game over and over again then I can see you being fine with that. But aside from that I don't think there's a lot of shelf life there unless you're willing to shout out hundreds and hundreds of pounds on endless expansions.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

But because it is app driven is there user created content?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

There is there is and people do rave about that so your mileage may you may get a lot of mileage with it from that. I I do know that there's a programme that somebody's created to create scenarios for it and there's a lot of content for it. So I mean we've not delved into into that but there's you can tell we're not fans and therefore probably but I I don't think we should review user creative no no I I'm not and I'm not talking about doing that I'm just saying that in terms of value for money it isn't just a one shot and you're done.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Like there are other options and there is more to it if that's if that's your flavour. Yep um so yeah I put it two okay so I scored it seven okay so I do think that there is a lot of replayability in it I mean value for money meh sixty quid probably on the high side but I do think there is a lot of replayability and yes that's not for us because of the way it works but I I do think yeah it's it has that's been built with that in mind so okay I strongly disagree I respect your right to disagree do not but I just don't think it's there.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah I do not think the replayability is there okay let's talk about fun.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

So having just said that there is a lot of replayability in this game whether you would want to or not it's an entirely different matter. Okay fair enough so at case in point um we have a couple of rules which is we will have to play a game at least six or seven times before we would ever review it and also unless we know it in our bones we want to play it just before we review it. Yeah we've had this schedule for review for quite some time but we could not bring ourselves to play another game to play another game in order to review it. And I I think says a huge amount about extremely yeah but I also think there is a caveat here that this is a well loved game and this is very much about us.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Watch all content on this podcast is this is our opinion but yes I appreciate that you're saying that we might be going very much against the grain with our opinions.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

And so I kinda want to talk a little bit about why we don't find find it fun versus why other people might find it fun.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah okay fair enough but you go. Okay so I've I've touched upon my fundamental issue with the game and that is that it is less a game it is more a puzzle to be solved I find that there's very little game here apart from rolling some dice. Yeah it it's making some choices of rolling some dice but you quickly find out as you play and you repeatedly fail the scenario that there is one route to victory in that scenario and not only is there one route to victory things have to go your way you have to do things in time and you have to do things in a specific order. And it then becomes just an exercise in memory like oh we need to go here do that do that and you go this way I'll go that way or no we need to stay together. Yeah and for the most part there's an awful lot of stuff you can interact with and do on the map from my experience a lot of it is just fluff.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

It just gives you uh clue tokens so clue tokens mean that when you roll a dice if you don't get success sometimes you'll get a clue token symbol which means you can spend a clue to upgrade it. It also gives you extra actions to unlock puzzles for example so it gives you more chances if you will.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Yeah basically there are often pivotal moments in the game that if you fail and you don't know that you cannot fail you will fail the whole scenario and in amongst all this is this repetitive mythos bad stuff happening phase which very quickly ramps up to a level of I can only describe random bullshit that I've never seen in a game before. It just you you get to a point where you're just no matter what you do you're just getting bludgeoned with horror damage or actual damage that that has very little to do with what's going on on the map just all of a sudden you'll fall down a manhole and be you know have masses of damage or you can mitigate this so quite often it will ask you to make a another dice roll using your law etc or your will or or whatever but also your characters are as we all are good at certain things and not at others which means that quite often that can be really quite game ending or breaking. Yeah pretty much it feels like there's nothing you can do about it it's completely and utterly random and it's got nothing to do with anything else that's going on.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Or you don't see it because what is really cool is the app just generates this so you it all just come up with things and that is really lovely because as an investigator thinking thematically I don't necessarily know about all these you know uh cults that are sat there silently chanting behind the scenes making bad shit happen to me but it does feel a bit abstract.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Yeah just random bullshit is how I how I view it.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

I would also say that quite often when we're playing I'm spending more time paying attention to the app than I am to the board. And so again this goes back to my first question well what is the app there for? Because actually part of me feels like you could just do away with a board altogether and make it video game.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Well yeah you know the old were they fancy flight books like people it kind of it it kind of feels a bit similar to that and that this box is not even gobbins yeah yeah and I think again with with that sort of route to victory thing I was talking about that there's there's two things I'm not a huge fan of in gaming in general whether this would be board gaming video gaming tabletop gaming is metagaming um so understanding the mechanics outside of the theme and using that to to win and min-maxing so making sure that everything is absolutely optimized to its nth degree and I feel like to win these scenarios you have to engage in both the metagaming from memorising what the scenario is and how what order things happen in and the min-maxing because you need to make sure that you are maximized this character to do this particular thing at any one time you need the exact right equipment to do it you need to make sure that this person has this equipment on them yada yada yada yada and those two things that suck a lot of the joy out of gaming for me. So I think this is very a personal thing some people love that stuff I do not like it at all. So if you're anything like me this will be a this this will be really off putting for you I imagine I think for me as well it's worth mentioning that you know the Arkham you know the Lovecraft universe is punishingly hard.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Yes you know it's meant to be you are designed to be just your average Joe who stumbled into some elder god as plot of you know world domination or whatever and so it is supposed to be really hard and that's not the problem it's not the problem that we lose the encounters all the time it's that or even that we get a little bit further each time round it's still that even when we do win and we do complete an encounter it doesn't feel satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

No it just feels like you've done the right thing actually yeah I've done it. Well no you just feel like you've done I've done the right thing at the right time I've done what the game wants me to do therefore I have won.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Which I just that's not why I play ball games and I got so excited on our most recent playthrough because I really thought we'd done it. I really thought we'd nailed it and we still died anyway it doesn't really particularly bother me we still died but I thought well we cracked it we just didn't we it was a turn too late.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

We did things in the wrong order. Yeah that was the but and I think that's one of the things that wound me up even more is the fact that we did everything right we just did them in the wrong order and we didn't kick off a trigger when we were in the right place on the map to kick off of that trigger to give us enough time where we were on the map when we kicked off this trigger made it impossible to win the scenario. One of the things I also mentioned that on its surface I would usually find incredibly fun are when you take enough sanity damage you get an insanity card. And these are things you can't tell the rest of the players that you're playing with but they will make you act in a weird way. On paper I love this really cool love that kind of stuff I'm all over it. In practicality from my experience half of them are just you lose the game because there's no way that your character could get you you are told to do something. For example the last one I got was you can only win the game if every search token on the board is uncovered if you did that you would lose anyway because you're too as I said there's a route to victory and you can't you can't deviate from that. So they almost like immediate there's your lost card. There's no fun in that make me act in a weird way fine don't just have me a card that says oh you lose which is essentially what it does um so again that it's that prescriptive sort of game every time I try and have fun or think I'm having fun the game just baths me back like no you're doing the wrong thing you're not playing the way I'm expecting you as a designer to play therefore you lose and that I do not like I try to think if I've got anything else to add I've I have been very very negative there are there are glimpses of fun there are moments where you know you you something will happen that's like oh that's that's really cool you know like the the bookish librarian karate kicking somebody in the in the head which happens you know one of our games which is quite amusing but I think the other problem I have is a bit like another incredibly punishing uh co-op or semi-co-op experience in Nemesis the emergent storytelling there comes out the emergent storytelling here does not have room because the game bashes it away from you the app bashes away it as soon as you start to have any sort of emergent storytelling it's like no no this is what's happening and again that just irks me I'm like oh okay and because you have an app that's driving things like mythos which is where the bad stuff happens to you or driving monster movement etc quite often it can feel very irrelevant because actually say well this happens to the investigator with the lowest I don't know will in this outside area well nobody is and it again it just is it just feels very janky yeah yeah you either you need to be one or the other almost yeah yes so is it fun for me no absolutely not I give it a two I also gave it a two fair enough um I don't think a game that we've fought so well we we needed to play for such a long time but we haven't and we've put off for months and months deserves anything higher than that really. Most of the games on my shelf fall off the shelf wanted to be played this was hiding at the back for a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

With good reason I think and there are an awful lot of people that do really like this um so I think you know this is our view and not necessarily the views of the masses um and there are a lot of people that really love it. There are things that I loved about it um but I just think it never quite made that mainly around the idea of having an app and revealing rooms and stuff that was really really cool but it just didn't really follow through for me. I really wanted to like maybe also would I have rated it higher if I hadn't gone in with such high expectations possibly I'm pretty sure I wouldn't I think I'd still have the same issues with that's just brutal he's like shit I'm no I'm pretty sure I'm burning this after tonight we're burning it. This is by the way check my channel for if you want to buy much cannabis um at this point I'll pay you to take it away I digress um no I don't think it would have impacted my score okay so that gives us a total of 3.7 so we'll round up to four so as a general score we think it's a shit game a four um yeah to put it bluntly definitely definitely our lowest score alright so our next category this is when we talk about specifically from that two player perspective and whether it works as a two player game. So our first category under under that rating is um table talk so that includes things like dead time getting to know you that kind of stuff and what I will say is that actually we do talk a huge amount whilst we're playing this I think that's partly because you're having to read stuff off the little tiny tablet screen to me because I can't see it because it's such a table hog.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Yeah I think there's a there's a amount of table talk just from the nature of being a co-op um I think it's that classic thing of you know you have to discuss tactics and work out where you want to go.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

You do this I'll do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah. But I think again there's so much going on on the app and there's so much narrative coming from the app that you both or all of you end up very focused on that.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

I'm playing from the app screen I'm not playing from the board I'm not playing with you.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

And that kills quite a lot of conversation because it's it's constantly either having to stand sit there in silence reading what's on the app or somebody reading it out. And that's not really table talk it's just everybody sort of statically either listening or reading. So there's a huge amount of silence in this game because of that more so than a lot of other games. You're still engaged it's engaged silence but it's still silence while you take in what the app is saying. Hmm I hadn't thought about it that way there's also things like the puzzles where again somebody was saying somebody could sit there for 20 minutes trying to figure something out and everybody just has to sit there and give them concentration space basically.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Yeah and I think the first time we did it I didn't realise that you had to do it on your own or maybe the second time we did it I'd forgotten that and you're like Hannah no you can't help me and I was like uh oh yeah yeah so again it by and I'm shit at those sort of things and the fact that I could see the answer and he couldn't really annoyed me.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah I was like yeah I know it um so I think yes Table Talk is there by its nature it's a co-op game but unlike a lot of the other co-ops that we've reviewed and we play this one has a mechanism that actually detracts from that.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

I suppose the other thing that I was thinking of is that again you talked about the beginning that idea of illusion of choice you know so quite often once you begin to realise what what you need to do at what time point and what checks you need to make ordinarily I would say oh do you think it's worth spending a clue? Yeah shall I do that yeah let's do that whereas actually that really I'm just asking you is this important enough can you remember if this is important or not?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Yeah do you remember what this is so that's what it devolves down to. I think when you play a scenario like sort of two or three times it just it either boils down to okay we know exactly what we're doing therefore we just go to do it or do you remember if this is important or not? Shall I leave it? Should I not?

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Um which is not fun table talk really it's just jogging each other's memories. And again because there's so little decision space in this game from a getting to know you perspective no because you you just you're just doing these rote things you're not really making choices you're not you you can try and be tactical but if you're doing the wrong thing your tactics don't matter.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

So I probably want to revise my score based on what we just talked about because again I do think there is a lot of interaction I do think there's a lot of talking again thinking about your time and place for things if you've got somebody who's quite new to board gaming who wants to give something a try then actually it's it's a really icebreakery kind of game. It works informationally difficult. Yeah um so in that sense that's quite good and it takes up some of that dead space but in terms of meaningful interaction interaction then probably quite low. So if we base it on meaningful interaction because I don't think it's a division or a or or a or a divide that I thought we would have to make.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

But I think this one it's pertinent. Yeah. I think where I could see this sitting quite well is perhaps with a couple where One one was a a gamer of various descriptions, the other one was not at all. They wanted to introduce them to the concept of gaming. I think it might be quite good for that.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Well, we're we're about to get onto the co-competitive co-op rating scale, so let's just stick with where we are. And what's your score? So I've just downgraded my score from an eight, oh no, from a seven to a four. So yeah, four is where I like that. Yeah, okay. Alright, that's fine. And that's based on meaningful engagement versus than actual talking. Um so then our next rating scale is around the competitive slash co-op nature of it. So co-op. So how well does it suit that game? I think that this has a huge propensity to be a completely quarterbacked game.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Oh, yeah, worse than anything else I've ever gotten.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Worse than anything else I've actually have ever come across because you've got one person who knows what the solution is and is like, right, you do that, you go there, you do this, yes, lend a clue. And any sort of decision making you have is probably completely eviscerated by the fact you've got one person who either knows or thinks they know.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah, exactly. Um, if you played with somebody who had completed one of the scenarios and understood that the game was so restrictive, they were just like, No, you need to do this, this, this, and this, otherwise we'll lose. And if you want to lose, that's fine, I'll sit back and we'll lose. But that's just a horrible premise, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Um but yet, but that's not how we played it. And a lot of the things that we talk about is particularly when you're playing co-op games or even necessarily competitive games as a couple, and that's your hobby, there is an element of you kinda need to explore that game together. Yeah. And if one person starts playing a lot more to the carcasson, for example, you played an awful lot online rap and you just used to whip my ass, and that was fine. But that idea that you then are on different playing fields.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yeah, I don't think you could play this as a couple if one person had played through the scenario.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

I don't know why you would play this.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

No, because again, as the person who played through them, why would they ever want to go back to that? So maybe it's a bit of a moot point, but I I can imagine I can imagine a universe where somebody brings us to a ball game meetup and they play through a few of the scenarios and they get a bunch of three newbies around the table. It's gonna be frustrating for everybody because that person has played them is gonna know that you have to do certain things, so they either have to sit there and watch it happen, or they have to tell everybody what to do. So it's almost a position where you have to quarterback or lose. And that's that that's that's a shit decision. You shouldn't have to make that decision when you play a poker. So, yeah, in terms of in terms of quarterbacking, it is the propensity for the worst ever that I've seen.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

However, I don't think that is how you would play it as a couple if we're talking about from a two-player perspective, no, it's not how we played it, and I don't think that you that's how you would play it if you were gonna approach it from a two-player perspective, in which case I do feel like it is relatively cooperative. I do think that you are in it together, you're both getting a battery together, you're both learning things together. And there is, so I remember again last night you were like I got the clue that there was something that's you were like, but I'm there and it's not there, and I'm like, no, no, here it is, like you know, you know, so we we we kind of work together, you know, and I think that does make it quite cooperative. Yeah, I mean it definitely is cooperative, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

You're both gonna lose together, yeah, this time. But again, I don't think the score is just about something being cooperative or being competitive, it's about how good that is and how enjoyable that is as a two-play experience. Um yeah, I think I think it's fine provided you're both on the same level of experience.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

And you really enjoy love you love puzzle solving, you love you love working and figuring out the like the inner dynamics and like working out the machinations and seeing what makes it tick. That's not the right phrase, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

So I scored an eight.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I scored a six.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah. Okay. So our final uh category is around scalability and FOMO. Would this work better with more people? Or do you feel begrudged at the amount of board gaming friends you have when you play it as a couple and demand to go out to the street and shout people down to come play this cool game with you? Uh does this need more, basically?

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Um, so we have played it with multiple players.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Yes, we have.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

Um and it was a more fun experience because there were other people playing with us and it's always lovely to play with other people. Yes. Do I think it made a difference? No. No. Do I think it needed another person? No. It just took longer. Yeah. Um, and actually that's a massive critique of it. If you want to play it with a recommended Well, it's not recommended.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

It goes up to five. I can't imagine anything worse personally.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Can you imagine that six-hour epic battle with five uh epic epic adventure with with five people? I think it would just be it would oh god no.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

No.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Um so no, and therefore I think it is perfect at two players.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Yes, I think it is. I don't think it needs any more people. I think two, I think two is probably the sweet spot for this. Um, like you said, we had fun with three, but that was more because we were just having fun. There was a lot of joking and messing about that was going on, sort of double.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

And we didn't care whether we won or last, it was just real playing three.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

We were just playing for the fun of it. Um when we were very new at the game, again, that previous point that we made, if we'd been a lot more experienced, it probably would have been a much less fun experience. Well, again, if I'd known what I know now, I probably wouldn't have brought it out in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

However, it's interesting that we did and we all had fun.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Because we didn't know yet.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Because we didn't know yet yet. We didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

We were still playing, we've played we'd only played one scenario once, so we're still in the first scenario, and we're still finding out how the game works and all that kind of thing. Uh, we had a lot much better experience for that. Now that we know that it's so prescriptive, I wouldn't have brought it out in the first place, I would have reached for something else. And again, why if I've got extra people round, why would I pull this out, particularly if I played it a bit to play it with them when I could play 101 other things. Um so I've given it a really high school, I've given it an eight.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Yeah, equally I've also given it an eight on the basis that I think it is a perfect two-player game that you would go on a journey with, you would get through the core content, and as long as you liked that sort of game, it it's perfect at you.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah, and I think that's the ultimate caveat of this. I mean, I I I completely hold my hands up that I have sat here for half an hour and just shat on this because I don't like it. But I've hopefully I've been coherent enough in the reasons why I don't like it that you could listen to me and go, none of that bothers me.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

I think I quite like that.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

I quite like it. And if that's and there are there are a lot of people that that do love this. So sometimes negative reviews are good on the basis that it allows you to see what bothers somebody else about something, and if that bothers you, and if all the things that Hannah and I have said tonight don't bother you, jump in with both feet. Because the ultimate at the end of the day, the way what this podcast is about is playing things as two players, and that final score is an eight because it does work really well to play as two players. So if this sounds like your bag, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Um, on that note, let's total up our scores.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Right, so that gives us an average of six point three, so six for two players, so four for general, six for two players.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

And actually, I think that's a bit low. I think that's you and the whole kind of table talk thing, rating it down. I actually think it's a really solid two-player game, if we liked it.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

I stand by it. Rolling your eyes at me. This is why it's best off of the visual medium. Um, so on that note, thank you very much for joining us. Um, I hope you've enjoyed the episode. I think it's our first negative review, which is gonna be a bit different for some people. I know there's not a huge amount of those out in this sort of space, but here we go. Um if you like what you heard, please do engage with us on social media. Uh, we'd love a review on your podcast medium of choice if they let you do such a thing. But until next time, be good to each other and play lots of board games.