Board With Each Other

Episode 27 - Twilight Inscription: Galactic Yahtzee

• Alister Simpson & Hannah Kelly • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Thanks for joining us for this month's episode!

In this edition of Board With Each Other we assess the laudable / insane attempt to translate the behemoth that is Twilight Imperium into a tighter, more approachable roll and write experience. But does the attempt work or was it pure folly? We answer the question as well as picking out how well it works as a two player experience. 

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Unknown:

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Al:

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Bored With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that looks at board games and asks the question, how well does this play with two players? Whether that's with a good friend, partner, or that strange bug-like alien with which you're trying to solve matters of interstellar conflict. I'm your host, Al Simpson, and I am joined as ever by my player two, my lovely wife and co-host, Hannah Kelly.

Hannah:

Hi guys.

Al:

And today we are going to look at Twilight Inscription. The Lord of or utterly insane attempt to reskin the expansive epic that is Twilight Imperium into a much shorter roll-and-write affair that's probably the most epic of the roll-and-writes that we've ever encountered. And also make it playable without, you know, four adult people who, you know, have an entire weekend on their hands to devote to a board game, which I wish we had more friends like that, but unfortunately we don't, do we? So in Twilight Inscription, you basically take control of four player acts. These are navigation, exploration, no, not exploration, expansion, industry, and warfare. And on a turn, you have a deck of cards, which is called the event deck, and you draw a card from that, which will either be a strategy event, which are the most common, basically every second card or more, that will give you some resources to spend. There are three resource types. I can't remember their names. I know one of them is research, one of them is materials, and one of them is influence. I can't remember their names. So there's three different resources They will give you some resources. And at that point, you need to pick which of your four maps or four boards as such you are dealing with on that turn. You then get to spend those resources to do things on those maps. So on navigation, you basically explore and claim star systems throughout the galaxy. On expansion, you unlock planets and basically undertake a bit of fracking, I think, to get bonuses, mainly with an eye to increasing the population of your civilization. On industry, you grapple with a very complex grid of commodities and other things which you have to either claim or scrap. or series of rules. And on warfare, you prepare for an inevitable war that is going to happen with either the person on your, with people on your left and right. And in doing so, building units, you also gain victory points and other bonuses. There are other cards within the event deck. So there's warfare that triggers a war and then you calculate your scores depending on how many troops or whatever you built and get the bonuses or reverse, usually lose victory points if you lose that particular war against that particular opponent. There are There are cards that allow you to gain trade goods depending on how many of the commodities you've unlocked through the industry chart. And there are cards that make you vote at the council for certain outcomes. I'll explain a bit more about that in the two-player section when we come to it because there are different rules when you're playing solo or two-player. versus when you're playing with three or more. The game plays up to eight people, which is insane. But again, so does the original Twilight Imperium. You would probably need a boardroom-style table for that, though. Yes. Lilo versus

Hannah:

Alan.

Al:

It's got a horrible image of Alan Sugar playing this. It'd just be the longest, most painful experience you could ever undertake. Anyway, I digress. Hi, Alan, I know you're listening. Play continues in those rounds. I think, I'm trying to work out, I think there's something like 23 or 24 turns in the game in total. It goes through five, as it were, Acts 1 to 5. Act 1 is very short, as is Act 5. The other three are a bit chunkier. The play continues, you gain victory points as you go. There are four mission cards for each of the player boards that require you to do something specific. So, for example, on navigation, it may ask you to have a string of 12 connected explored systems. On Warfare might ask you to build a certain number of troops in rows. And the first player to do that gets the victory point bonus on the front of the card. The card then flips over and it can still be done by other players, but the victory point is lesser. There's also a mechanic around reaching medical wrecks first. And again, there's victory points to be doled out depending on what order people get there. So the first person to get there gets the most victory points.

Hannah:

Which is like a massive planet sent to the solar system,

Al:

I guess. Yeah. It was the seat of the previous galaxy-spanning power, which I can't remember their name at this point.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Al:

I won't go too much further into the individual rules around the sheets, etc. There's a lot. But that is generally the overview of how the game plays. At its core, rules-wise, it's not actually that complicated. The complexity comes from the sheets themselves.

Hannah:

What I would also say is the idea is that play is simultaneous. So when you decide which of your player boards you're going with, you make that decision, and then on the count of three, you reveal it by dropping your pen on that

Al:

map. So you can't sort of... play off what other people are playing and do. You have to reveal at the same time and your actual spending of resources. Well, that's something I didn't mention, which is incredibly important. I can't believe I missed it. The roll part of the roll and write. After you've got your resources from the card and you've chosen your sheet, you then roll six dice, three of which you can use all the time.

Hannah:

They're the black dice.

Al:

And again, they give you resources depending on what you roll. And then there's colored dice that you can only use if you unlock the ability to take a bonus die on any of your sheets, which you gain by either usually the industry warfare or expansion sheets.

Hannah:

When you play as a two-player game, you have an AI. Yeah. And the AI uses those colored dice. And you've got more likely to have doubles, for example. Yeah. So you've obviously got more to

Al:

spend. Yeah, they can give more resources. Yeah, they can give

Hannah:

more resources, basically, if you then end up being able to use one of those colored dice.

Al:

And the AI, basically, the dice indicate how, firstly, the strength AI has in voting and warfare, but it also indicates how quickly the AI completes subjects I.e. fluffing them over and stopping you getting there first. So a bit like June Imperium in a lot of ways, the AI is a bit of a spoiler rather than an actual opponent. It's just there to balance things better.

Hannah:

That's not to say that we haven't both lost to the AI. Yeah,

Al:

me more so, but we'll get on to that. Playtime, I think it's around an hour and a half usually.

Hannah:

Yeah.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Al:

I would say about 90 minutes.

Hannah:

Yeah, I think it probably can go on longer, and certainly it

Al:

has. Or quicker. Well, it's all down to thinking time, really. And I guess the only other thing to mention is obviously you play as a race. So there are a good 20 or so races within this, I

Hannah:

think.

Al:

More, I think. Yeah, it's quite a big stack. And with those... various races, they all have a special ability. And they also have a special power, as it were, which is a sort of unrockable resource on some of the sheets. So when you gain that resource, that power fires off, basically.

Hannah:

Unless you use something quite powerful that can alter the board in some way, or your board in some way, shape, or form.

Al:

And they are quite different.

Hannah:

Yes, they are. Every single one that we played is quite different. And some, I think, are more technical than others. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess there is an element of, like, how does that suit your play style?

Al:

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's pretty much it. That's wise. I picked this up. I knew about this for a while. Twilight Imperium, I have never played. It is my grail game. If I ever end up in a situation where I do manage to find, you know, like seven or eight adults that wanted to vote an entire weekend to play a single board game, then I would absolutely be there. But I don't think it's quite unlikely I'll ever get to play Twilight Imperium. So this obviously appealed. It was like, okay, this is a version of or take on that I would be able to play with you as such. So we were at a gaming convention sort of a shelf and I was like, oh, love that. Anything else you want to say about it before we...

Hannah:

No, I think that's about it, really. I guess that was a very light coverage of the rules, but it is a complex

Al:

game. Yeah, I mean, we could sit here for, if I went into the intricacies, I could sit here for 45 minutes and bore you all to absolute tears. You can do that anyway. Yeah, I'd do that anyway, you know, it's fine. So shall we get on to some scoring?

Hannah:

Yeah, absolutely. So as always, we start off with our general rating criteria. We move on to our two-player ratings. And first of those is components. So that includes things like Board space, set up, and...

Al:

The actual things that come with the

Hannah:

box.

Al:

Yeah, the components. The components, yeah, that's the one.

Hannah:

That's what it says on the tin. So, I really like the dice.

Al:

Yes, the dice are massive and chunky. Chunky and

Hannah:

very satisfying to roll.

Al:

Yeah, they are big. But

Hannah:

I lead with that because actually I just think it's a bit meh.

Al:

I think it's a lot to do with its nature. So, All of your boards have got so much information packed onto them. It is just so unbelievably dense that it looks quite messy.

Hannah:

Yes, and because there's so much packed onto those boards, you can't have a huge amount of artwork behind because that would just detract from actually being able to understand what's

Al:

on the maps. What you're doing. So yes, it looks like a technical diagram laid out on the table. It does a little bit.

Hannah:

to say that when we first picked it up, I definitely found it very intimidating.

Al:

Yes. The

Hannah:

iconography isn't actually that horrendous.

Al:

No. I think

Hannah:

because you've got four player mats and because there is so much on there, it does definitely feel quite intimidating.

Al:

Just a bit of an overload, really. I think all the rest of the artwork is obviously sort of taken from the main Twilight Imperium game, all the races and everything. The artwork on there is really, really good. Yep. Very, very high standards. And I think, obviously, the nature of the game, which I didn't mention in the rules, is you have wipeable marker pens. So all of your boards are basically wiped clean, and you use those wipeable marker pens on there. And I know why they've chosen the colour, because it's obviously something in contrast with everything else going on there, but it's this neon orange. And when your boards start filling up with neon orange, it just looks quite ugly to me. It is not a satisfying thing to look at. It's quite like, bleh. There's a lot of colour going on here, but not or necessarily gelling because it's designed with all the colours going on in the background that it needs to be really highly visible compared to everything else.

Hannah:

Sci-fi game, right? So it's set in space, so everything's quite dark. Lots of blues and purples and blacks, which, you know, again, strong theme and I quite like that. But again, it doesn't make it for an easy... read or easy to

Al:

yeah to yeah to pass as such it's quite you have to concentrate on what you're reading and you know um and even sort of the warfare that you end up sort of drawing shapes on there and whatnot they look very clunky and a bit odd

Hannah:

yeah

Al:

um it doesn't it doesn't capture the imagination it looks like the kind of thing that you walk in on two housemates playing and just decide you were going to move out because these people are really weird. It does not look visually appealing. It's not going to entice people to the table, I don't think.

Hannah:

It's not. Well, again, I guess you wouldn't be picking this up for that purpose.

Al:

Unless you're a nerd like us. So, yeah. I mean, that aside, I think the actual quality of the components are fine. It comes with a lot of the marker pens, although I have to say one of them's run out already. And we've played this nine times.

Hannah:

Yeah.

Al:

So one of them's already... Although one of them

Hannah:

did

Al:

leave. Yeah. One of them's already dead. I assume we can replace it with similar, you know, whiteboard markers as needed.

Hannah:

Given that it is world and right and therefore you use your player maps over and over again, there's been no threat there. They're not... No,

Al:

it's like laminated-y, plastic-y, but not cheaply laminated. They've got that feel to them. They're quite thick and chunky.

Hannah:

They are quite thick and quite chunky, and there's been no fraying, no bending or anything like that. So that's

Al:

good. I have to say, a lot of my complaints, this is a Fantasy Flight game, a lot of my complaints about Fantasy Flight tend to be they're small, fiddly cards and perhaps a little bit of cheapness for the components, whereas this doesn't feel like that at all. Everything feels quite

Hannah:

chunky and well-made. Yeah, I quite like the cardstock they use for the... The

Al:

event deck, yeah. They feel almost quite similar to the Radlands cards. Yeah,

Hannah:

there's

Al:

a slight texture on them, which is really, really nice. But yeah, overall, nothing massively awful. I'm not a huge fan of the way it looks, especially in play later on in the game. It can look very, very messy.

Hannah:

So how did you score it,

Al:

then? I gave it a 7.

Hannah:

Also, I gave it a six.

Al:

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

Hannah:

Above average.

Al:

Yeah.

Hannah:

So then our next category is complexity.

Al:

So

Hannah:

as always, this isn't how complex a game is or isn't, but how well the complexity serves the gameplay. We also talk about things like analysis paralysis and arguing about the rules. We're going to start off by talking about AP.

Al:

Yeah.

Hannah:

There is a real big struggle with this, I think, because... you've got quite a lot of freedom so in terms of what board you're picking and what you're activating

Al:

there's nothing pushing you in one direction or other it's just endless decision space

Hannah:

endless decision space and then working out what's going to be best for this that absolutely you can spend a really long time and in fact I think sometimes I spend so long just trying to pick out what board I'm going with that can be a really frustrating experience for you I guess but then even once you've then spent those original resources on that board and then you roll your dice, you then just have this huge open expanse of trying to work out what it is that you need to do. So if you struggle with AP, this might not be the game for you.

Al:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm going to say this, yeah, I'll come back to it a little bit, but I really struggle to play this well. I'm not very good at this game at all. And I think my brain just cannot deal with the repetitive wide openness of it all, I find it very, very difficult to stick to any sort of strategy because I always bounce back and forth between, oh, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, I should be doing that, I should be doing all of it, but I should be concentrating on something, but I should be doing all of it, but I'm not. I'm trying to be Jack of all trades and I just bounce back and forth between those two things. And I end up, my brain goes into some kind of black hole complexity mode points, tactical complexity. The K-hole, if you spell complexity with a K.

Hannah:

Which you probably do in the end of

Al:

this game. And I just feel very, very overwhelmed. And that's not rules weight. It's complexity weight, which is something different. But even very, very high complexity weight games, my brain can usually get to grips with this. But this, I just feel like I'm fighting myself all the time. I

Hannah:

think there's also an element of, because you know that you're going to end up with a warfare card and you know that you're going to end up with a voting card, there's also an element of you have to pace yourself a little bit and trying to work out

Al:

when,

Hannah:

because you can't completely sideline those things.

Al:

No. Yeah, you can be punished quite badly if you do sideline something.

Hannah:

But because of that, you also have to be thinking two, three turns in advance, which is, again, something you struggle with, whereas actually I find that a bit easier.

Al:

I am not a chess professional.

Hannah:

I

Al:

just do. My I-just-do approach does not really work for this. Yeah, so I find... the weight the weight of the complexity a problem in this i find it quite difficult i think particularly late game there's so much mental adamant you're doing to keep track of oh i've got a bonus die there oh i need to spend something i unlocked earlier there and i need to do it the right time And just trying to keep track of all that in this incredibly busy visual environment is quite overwhelming. And yeah, I do struggle with it.

Hannah:

In terms of the actual rules, I... Full disclosure, there was definitely a learning curve when we started playing this, and I think I was able to get two of the player boards, and then I sort of had to, like, add in the extra ones as I went along, because I just couldn't comprehend all of them.

Al:

It's always industry that'll come for you. Oh, right. Industry. Industry is a brain-burning mess of... Big

Hannah:

tattoo.

Al:

Yeah, kind of. It is very, very complex, and I think most new players shy away from it, but I think Looking at the past few games, it's probably one of the most powerful sheets, but you neglect it because it's just off-putting. It's like, oh my God, I don't even know where to start with this.

Hannah:

And it's the easiest one to kind of just ignore.

Al:

Yeah. And I think there is an inequality with the complexity of the four different boards. And usually you would think, oh, you know, the really complex ones are the tough nut to crack and they'll be the most rewarding, but that's not always the case because warfare is very complex. But I don't think it's that rewarding in terms of winning the game.

Hannah:

I don't know that it's particularly... complex. I just think that it's more challenging to do... It's

Al:

hard to do well. It's hard to do well, I think.

Hannah:

It's knowing how to balance your resources.

Al:

It's more than

Hannah:

the rules about the actual map. well, board space being complicated.

Al:

But I think it speaks to a general problem with this, with the complexity I find, is a good competitive game, you need to be keeping an eye on what your opponent's doing and understand what your opponent's doing, but it's hard enough just keeping abreast of what you're doing. I don't even bother looking at your sheets most of the time because I'm so busy trying to figure out what I'm doing. That's...

Hannah:

And bear in mind, what you're doing is simultaneous. So I'm spending my resources, you're spending yours. And here's the other problem. I make mistakes all the time, and I'm sure lots of people do. But one of the great things about at least revealing your turn together is that the other person can keep you in check whereas actually I've missed stuff that's probably lost me the game but also I'm probably sure that I've got more than I should have done on occasion because I just

Al:

lost track

Hannah:

particularly because some of the powers that you get to unlock on that player mat will allow you to do things that it's just yet something else another bit of admin you have to get track of and when you've done it and when you haven't done it and what that means And

Al:

even later on when you start unlocking the bonus dice, you're like, right, so I've got two pink and three blue, and I'm going to do that. Oh, did I spend the three blue? It's just this constant mental arithmetic that you're doing, trying to play your own sheet, let alone what the other person is doing.

Hannah:

And

Al:

I'll occasionally glance over your warfare sheet to see how many troops you've got. But aside from that, I couldn't give monkeys. You just play.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Al:

What

Hannah:

should also be said is that when you're spending your resources, that should be done blind.

Al:

Yeah.

Hannah:

so that you can't see. So if you both landed on warfare, for example, I couldn't watch and see where you put your warships and then I put my

Al:

warships down. No, you should be doing it simultaneously.

Hannah:

However, because of the way that we're set up and the fact that we just don't look at each other because others play them out, we tend not to bother with that because we don't have space for it really. And also, like you say, I couldn't give a shit what you're doing. I've got enough. I've got enough going on my own

Al:

board. Well, I could see some really snarky person sit there and just watch you do it and then, you know, you could do that or just kind of not in the spirit of the game, but there's nothing stopping that happening. So, yeah, it was a difficult one to score because I think I have my own personal mental problems with it as such. You know, just trying to keep track of everything. I don't want to mark it down too much, but I do think there's issues there.

Hannah:

Yeah, I would agree. And I think you're right about the complexity rather than perhaps the actual rules themselves. Yeah. Thinking about the rules mainly, and even with all the O.P.,

Al:

that sort of comes with it.

Hannah:

I still scored it a seven because it is a really deep game. It is supposed to be. And if you look at what they were trying to emulate, and to be fair, I don't know very much about Twilight Imperium, but if you look at what they're trying to emulate and condense into an evening's play session, I think they've done really well.

Al:

Yeah, no, there is that. And there is a side to it that if they had made it too simplistic, people who actually like Twilight Imperium will probably get the pitchforks out because they're like, what are you doing to our beloved game? How dare you dumb it down so much? So there's probably an element of that. But all of that aside, I have to say I've given it a five.

Hannah:

Oh, really?

Al:

Which is bang in the middle. Yeah, because I do have problems with this. Okay. Yeah.

Hannah:

All right. So then on to shelf life. So here when we talk about things like replayability, but also value for money. So as we always do, how much does it cost?

Al:

So I think that's a good thing to lead on. Usually under 25.

Hannah:

Bloody hell, that's a really exceptional value

Al:

for money. So from a value for money standpoint, this is exceptional. You will not find a game this deep and this heavy. for that price point. And the components are decent. They haven't cheaped out on them. I would also say

Hannah:

it's quite well balanced as well. We talked about balancing, but I don't, I mean, I'm sure you do get classes that are absolutely superpowers, but I've never really felt that way.

Al:

No, not so much, not yet. So yeah, it is right out the gate. It is exceptional value for money. And it's at that price point that, you know, even if you're vaguely interested, have a punt on it. I mean, why not? It's really good. Shelf Life, again, there are so many races, and they do play differently, and it is such a deep experience that if you loved this, you could play this forever.

Hannah:

Yeah. What's also worth noting is that each of your player maps have two sides to them.

Al:

Yeah, there's a synchronous and asynchronous side.

Hannah:

Yeah, so again, you get to choose.

Al:

Yeah. Well, yeah, you choose your maps, basically. The differences between them are subtle. They're not massive. But sometimes

Hannah:

actually it can make or break the game. So I have warfare maps with a warfare character that have just really been a thorn in my side because they've been really difficult warfare maps. boards to play because of the way things are set up and stuff like that. So, you know, it...

Al:

Yeah, it does make a difference. It

Hannah:

does make a difference. You've also got your event deck that's randomised. You've also got your... You also can sometimes unlock special...

Al:

Artifacts. Artifacts. Yeah, there will be different things. So again, you've got a

Hannah:

level of randomisation there. And you've got a level of randomisation with a voting... thing as well.

Al:

Yeah, to a certain extent. I'm going to talk a bit more about voting in the next category, I think.

Hannah:

But I think my point is that there's pretty much every single facet of this game is randomisable, which therefore gives you a huge amount of variability

Al:

and replayability. Now, if you love this, absolutely fully boots, because you will be playing it for years and years. I mean, I don't think there's much else to say there. I I can't see me playing it for years and years, but that's other reasons. But in this category, I've given it an eight because it's excellent, both value for money and shelf life.

Hannah:

So I have also given it an eight.

Al:

Okay.

Hannah:

Excellent. And so then under our last category, fun.

Al:

Do you have

Hannah:

any fun while you play it? I'm thinking about emergent storytelling and stuff like that. Or you kind of

Al:

put your cards on the table. Yeah, sure. I do struggle to have that much fun with this. I find it feels more like work than playing a game at times. I find it quite exhausting to play. I love a lot of things about it. I love the universe they've created. I think trying to instill an incredibly complex proposition into a roll and write experience like this is laudable. I think it's vaguely mad, but also laudable. And I think they've done a very, very good job of that. But I do struggle to enjoy myself that much with it, just because I find it so difficult to play.

Hannah:

So I also would say that, do I enjoy playing it? Yes. do I like playing it? Would I keep playing it? Yes. And I think it's probably got more legs for me, which is odd because I wouldn't have thought that to begin with than it has for

Al:

you.

Hannah:

So, yes, I do enjoy playing it. If I look at the games, I find fun. They are games where there's a lot more social interaction. And we've come on to this in our two-player rating scale, where despite the fact that resources are quite often limited and restricted in this, particularly in the early game, I don't get that same nail-biting experience around competing games. and again we'll pick up on this a little bit later so the things that I really enjoy from a board game experience are kind of missing from this so for me personally no I don't find it fun, but it is enjoyable and I do like playing it. Again, I guess it depends what you're looking for from a gaming experience,

Al:

isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing that's definitely worth mentioning under this is in Twilight Imperium, a big, big part of that, if you've ever played any big sort of civilization builder or war game or anything with a lot of people around the table, a lot of that is alliances, broken, betrayals... You can trade between each other. There's a lot of interpersonal reaction that comes into it, which is what gives something like Twilight Imperium its real legs because you really get into your race and, you know, friendships are broken over. How dare you do that, Dave? We had a deal. You know, you don't get any of that in this. And I think it's worth mentioning under this category, the whole voting thing. So the whole concept of politics within Twilight Imperium is a really big deal. and people politic properly and people vote on things and people put motions forward. This is just a really rote, here's your two options, spend a resource to try and beat each other. Or in

Hannah:

the two-player version, spend a resource... to stop bad things from happening to you. And really that's what it is. It's about preventing something bad happening from you, which feels tacked

Al:

on. It feels like they had to tack it on because it's such a massive part of the full thing, but it just feels really rote and really tacked on. And I've always inwardly grown whenever the council event comes up. I'm just like, ugh.

Hannah:

It's another resource that I've been stockpiling because I know that I have to.

Al:

Yeah, and it just doesn't hit as such. And I think, I haven't played Twilight Imperium, but I imagine if you had played it and went to this, you would, it's like the soul's been sucked out a little bit. I know that sounds really, really negative.

Hannah:

It's really mean.

Al:

But there is all of that extra stuff, that interpersonal stuff is all gone. And you're just left with this core of the rules and you're playing just with the rules. And there's an element of almost something being missed. And part of me wonders if they didn't skin this as Twilight whatever, it might have done a little bit better because you haven't got that association. I don't

Hannah:

have that association. It's my same complaint.

Al:

No, I didn't. But I imagine some people do. I think it's worth mentioning. And I think if you're going for that very sort of thinky, rulesy thing, there's better stuff out there and there's more fun stuff out there than this. So yeah, on that basis, I gave it a six.

Hannah:

Huh, so I thought you were going to rate it lower than that. So I gave it a six mainly because I do have fun. I do enjoy playing it.

Al:

But do I

Hannah:

have fun playing it? I mean...

Al:

Yeah, I think it's still good. There's still enjoyment to be had. Maybe my comments have been a lot harsher than my score, but I think it's important to pick out what I have a problem with around it.

Hannah:

Okay, so should we add those up?

Al:

Yeah. Okay, as always, we add them up and average them, and that gives us 6.6, which we round to a 7. Definitely more of a 6 than a 7 to me, but...

Hannah:

Oh, no, I think 7's fair.

Al:

Yeah, okay. I'm

Hannah:

happy with that.

Al:

All right.

Hannah:

Okay, so for the second section, we then look at specifically... how this plays as a two-player game, a two-player rating scale. And first up, we have tape at all.

Al:

Yeah. No.

Hannah:

No. If you're bored with each other, this is the game. She said the

Al:

thing. Yeah.

Hannah:

But here's the thing, right? So we've already talked about it. It's simultaneous. You... don't really have to explain what you're doing by the rules. There isn't a huge amount of option for talking to each other. But here's the other thing. I think it makes it a worse playing experience for it, just generally.

Al:

Yeah.

Hannah:

It's not just about that two-player thing.

Al:

No.

Hannah:

It's...

Al:

You want to get eight dudes together and sit there in silence?

Hannah:

Yeah, because this is the game for you.

Al:

Yeah, no, it fails very, very badly in this category. You will not get to know the other person. You will not necessarily chat about anything. No,

Hannah:

you don't even necessarily know what it is they're doing. You will make mistakes. because no one else is keeping you in check. Equally, if you've got a cheater on the table, they're just going to

Al:

get away with it. Just run rampant. Yeah,

Hannah:

wildly with it. And I think the whole playing experience suffers as a result.

Al:

Yeah, no, I have nothing else to add. It's the absolute antithesis of this category. You will sit there in silence for two hours, one hour and a half. So I am probably going to give it my first one.

Hannah:

I've also given it a

Al:

Yeah, it just... It's the antithesis of this category completely. But yeah, it's... You're not... You're playing... simultaneously as well so it's not like you can watch and comment on the other person's turn

Hannah:

yeah and again you've already hit the nail on the head which is because you're so focused on what you're doing on your map and also you may have been playing a different board you can't even really tell what your opponent is doing and where they are in terms of victory points you might be able to like see what they've circled see what they're doing on population track or what they've

Al:

won

Hannah:

but

Al:

Yeah, I think the interaction in it is like, you know, if you did something really weird or very technical, we'll probably talk each other through it. And it's like, oh, that's nice.

Hannah:

Yeah.

Al:

But also it means nothing to me. Okay, all right, cool, you did that. Let's crack on. And even warfare is just, I have a seven, I have a three. Okay. Yeah. That's it. There's no tension. There's no, it's just falls really flat on that count. But that might not be a problem, but that is the category. And I have to give it a one, I'm afraid.

Hannah:

Yeah, me too. So then let's talk about competitiveness. So how does this work as a competitive experience?

Al:

Yeah, I think at its core, obviously, it's a competitive game. You try to get more victory points than your opponent. But I think it comes down to that lack of clarity about what your opponent is doing. If I win or I lose, I never feel like I'm beating you. No. Or you've beaten me. It's always just, oh, I... the thing's slightly less good than you. Yeah, and

Hannah:

resources are scarce, again, from the beginning, but it's not like you're competing for victory points aside from in warfare. That's the only point where you're

Al:

doing head-to-head. Yeah, you're directly competing.

Hannah:

So you will either win victory points if you win that battle

Al:

or you will lose one. Sometimes you don't win victory points. A lot of them you don't actually win victory points. You just get minus one victory point if you lose.

Hannah:

Yeah, but you get resources or you get other things that you can spend. But that's the only point where you're actually going head-to-head. And again, because you have to you have to plan your warfare in advance. Again, you don't get that direct nail-biting

Al:

thing. Yeah, no, you don't.

Hannah:

I

Al:

think an analogy I can think of is like the two of us deciding that we're going to go play Pac-Man in separate rooms and then come back in an hour and compare our high scores. It is a bit like that, though. I

Hannah:

think that's an evening.

Al:

It is, it's an evening. I mean, you might enjoy that. But that's what it feels like a little bit. It's like you're so locked into your own space, or at least we are without that. It doesn't feel like you're competing. It feels like you're playing a game, you get a high score, and then you're comparing those scores in the end.

Hannah:

Yeah. It kind of feels like some of my early games of Terra Mystica.

Al:

Yeah. I never felt like this was Terra Mystica, I have to say. No, this is probably the

Hannah:

worst one that I've experienced. And I think even when we talk about solitaire-type-esque games...

Al:

Yeah, it's even more so than that. Yeah, it's even more so than

Hannah:

that, which is really, really odd, given what the... game is about.

Al:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, at its core, I just don't think it works well in that space. I've given it a four.

Hannah:

So I gave it a three.

Al:

Fair enough, yeah. I mean, there are elements of it, yeah, fine. There's competitive elements, but it just doesn't, it's definitely below average in my eyes.

Hannah:

And then our final rating category under the two-player rating scale is scalability. So would this be better with more players?

Al:

Yeah. So my answer is yes, most definitely. Oh,

Hannah:

do you reckon?

Al:

I do, yeah. Because I think the voting stuff would be a little bit more interesting with more people. I think the race to Metacol Rex would be more interesting with more people. And I think the objective winning and losing with more people around the table would have a little bit more spice to it. So yes, I do think this would work better with more people as a game. As an experience? No. As a game, I think it would.

Hannah:

So I'm... not sure that i've thought about the whole voting mechanism particularly um So, okay, fair enough. I'll take that under advisement. But for the rest of it, no, not particularly. Because again, it's the same issue, isn't it? The issues and the problems that I have with it are not going to change with more people.

Al:

No, they're not. The issues are fundamentally about the game. They're not to do with two or three, with three plus players. With eight

Hannah:

people? No! I

Al:

mean, that would be a weird afternoon, wouldn't it? Really weird afternoon. Which

Hannah:

people you don't like? I really want

Al:

to find an eight-person game that's going at a convention and join it. No, I really don't. I'm not going to do that. I do think it would work better with more. Like, quite significantly, I think. Just from a rules perspective, I think it would be better. I don't

Hannah:

think there's enough changes.

Al:

I

Hannah:

don't think there'll be enough changes to warrant it. I don't think the race for medical recs... I don't think anyone is going to... I don't think you're going to see people race off to do that just for the purposes of those nine victory points.

Al:

I think warfare becomes a bit more interesting because you're only fighting your neighbours, two right and left, so you'd have a few more people around. You'd have people having very different experiences with warfare, depending on what races people were using and what they were leaning

Hannah:

into.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Al:

Yeah, I always find the battle against the AI, again, very, very rote. I'd rather have another human to worry about. I think it would make a better game. Okay. So I've given it a five.

Hannah:

So I gave it an eight. I think it works absolutely fine as a two-player game, and I think it would add nothing to it.

Al:

Sure. I disagree, but, yeah, you've got two different standpoints

Hannah:

there. Okay.

Al:

All right, let's add those up. So add an average and we get a 3.6, which makes it a four.

Hannah:

However, what I think I would say to that is actually the way that the scoring's worked out is it's more about the social element of it really rather than it being two-player. I think it is absolutely fine as a two-player

Al:

game. Yeah, it's just the way we approach two-player games, isn't it? Rules-wise, no issues there. So don't let that think it's unworkable or broken as a two-player game. It's not at all. One of us thinks it would work better with more. One of us doesn't. That's fine. So yeah, a little bit of savaging for Twilight Inscription, which is a shame. Again, one of those that I would have liked to have liked more than I did. But unfortunately, I think it's very laudable what they attempted. I think it's a very cool thing, but it just doesn't land for me. So thank you very, very much for joining us. And until next time, be good to each other, have fun, and play lots of board games.

People on this episode

Contributor

Al Simpson

Host
Contributor

Hannah Kelly

Host