This is a game that I've played a decent amount in tabletop form and its an easy recommendation for players that want an extremely specific experience.
When I first saw this game on kickstarter, I thought it looked dreadful. Each "Book" is 10 specific cards which you deal out into 2 rows. Each player character draws a hand of cards and NEVER draws another. The board state really doesn't change, there's no exciting surprises, and its an extremely static experience. You don't take damage or trade blows engaging in excited combat. While there is RNG, none of it changes the experience and admittedly most scenarios feel very similar mechanically.
Your ultimate objective is to end the game with more "Case" cards than there are living enemies. You achieve this by balancing your card play to either kill things or solve things.
Having played 10K games in my life, my judgement is usually pretty good. This is one of these few times I've told the designer that "I was wrong. I didn't think this could work, yet you proved me so wrong" Everything I've said above was true. This is an extremely static game with zero excitement, but hells bells does it hit certain buttons well.
This is an extremely tight puzzle based on resource management. When the board is set and your cards are drawn... you'll spend the next 20 minutes planning the entire game. If you aren't thinking far enough ahead, you'll lose the game. You need to find the most efficient use of your cards because you have exactly one hand of cards that needs to solve cases, defeat enemies, alter the board, and earn the action point currency.
For example:
- The current board there is an "Obstacle" card that reduces attack damage and is dealt far away this time.
- Because it's out of reach, I know that my attack cards will be useful and better spent as currency.
- So I use green cards to start solving mysteries and more importantly set up combos with the cards in my hands.
- One character uses a card that "If it closes a case, it inflicts damage to one enemy" which allows me to bypass the obstacle.
- This damage is enough that I can now use my characters once-per-game talent to finish off said enemy.
So, you're planning one long combo that uses the unique scenario cards, board layout, and cards in your hand. It's an very tight puzzle that feeds into that mindset of maximizing your limit resources. If you like puzzles... this is a great one.
At the end of each game, you get a "Showdown Phase" which allows you to spend your currency to roll dice to finish off any partially solved cards. This part of the game is pure RNG and is probably the only exciting part of the experience. But again, this phase required you to have planned well up until this point.
The game page claims that its a 30 minute playtime, and I definitely haven't found it to be the case. It's 10-15 minutes maximum once you know how to play.
In summary, if you like resource puzzles that require you to think 5 turns ahead and aren't very dynamic this is extremely good. If you're looking for something more exciting... look elsewhere.
