Nyheim takes the setup of Rebuild and tweaks it more resemble a dice driven solitaire boardgame. Instead of zombies, it's killer mutated diseased rats. Move around searching, getting new characters and items, averting random event crises, and trying to fulfill quests. You can win by upgrading your HQ to max level, completing the string of primary quests, or simply surviving for one full year.
A lot of negtive reviews say the RNG is too hard. You can dismiss that as people who don't know what they're talking about, BUT I've played plenty of of "player(s) vs. the system" board games (Pandemic, Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, Elder Signs, Ghost Stories, Mansions of Madness, Yggdrasil, and others), so I'd like to think I can comment on the mechanics. I was looking forward to Nyheim because it looked like they were trying to emulate this experience.
Nyheim screws it up. Badly.
The dice system is like Elder Signs. Each die is 8 sided and there are 4 different symbols: hearts, eyes, lightning bolts, and lightbulbs. Thing is, not all dice are equal. Each party member gets to roll a die each turn and each character will have different symbol distributions on their die. Some might have an even spread. Some might have 4 bolts and a heart but nothing else. Every time you try to search, fight off rats, or solve challenges, they will each have certain symbols that need to be rolled to beat them.
The problem is you WILL get screwed when a challenge comes up requiring symbols you just don't have. Need 2 hearts? Too bad, there's only one die with hearts on it. 2 bolts? There are only 2 dice with one bolt each so it's a 1/64 chance each turn, and if you miss it then you get an injury which will eat a bolt roll every turn and the only way to get rid of it is to spend a turn resting but you to roll a bolt during resting and that's after it eats a bolt so again that's only a 1/64 chance of getting the double bolts you need to heal it and you have to do that 3 times to get rid of the injury. Then it's back to hoping for that 1/64 chance again and another injury every time you mess up. It's supposed to be a "strategy" to get characters or items with the right symbols, but you have no control over the options you'll get and will often be locked out of symbols no matter what.
These kind of games need a resource to fudge rolls. Usually it's to buy rerolls or guarantee a certain result. Nyheim does use the food resource for rerolls but that doesn't make any difference if you don't have the symbols in the first place. Some items can convert certain rolls to others, but it probably won't be the ones you need, you can't control which items you get, and each character can only carry one item. Other games solve this by making all dice the same so you always have a chance of rolling what you need, or wildcard symbols. Elder Sign lets you burn resources for rerolls, guaranteeing facing, or adding dice with better symbols on them. Nyheim tries to be these games but doesn't understand the balancing mechanic.
What these games also do is make defeat a matter of accumulated bad luck or bad decisions. Nyheim screws you with a single random result far too early and often. You have to establish a headquarters early on, and many important quests and crises happen at the HQ. Each search has a chance of spawning killer rats that will attack you every turn you're there. Spawn killer rats at the HQ the 2nd turn? "You're ♥♥♥♥♥♥; might as well start over" should be the game's slogan.
But you can't just start over. You have to play each defeat out to the very end if you want experience points, which are used to buy modifiers in future games. You can buy a perk with strengths and drawbacks for 50xp (more survivors spawn, but more rats show up, etc.) or 250xp for the perk without the drawback. You get maybe 50-150xp each run and the perks only last one game. Grind 5 runs to save up for a bunch of perks you buy for one game for your serious attempt at winning? Well the random number generator just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ you that game so you die and all your perks are wasted. Have fun grinding more for another shot.
Nuts to that. This game BADLY needs to impliment some kind of system that allows wildcard rolls. Powerful rat swarms should not spawn early game (especially on your HQ) (and seriously, it gets to the point where searching isn't ever worth it unless it's for a quest). Injuries shouldn't be so severe (at least make the symbols they discard different from the ones required to heal them). Changes need to happen before this stops being anything but a futile RNG grindfest. I regularly play solitaire boardgames where 70% loss rates are the norm, and even I'm calling the RNG difficulty here B.S. And I really hope they do improve it, because the premise, basic setup, and polish are all good. If it was actually balanced to not be total B.S. anymore then this would be a great fun little game.
