Tag: Adventure Games

PREVIEW: Battlestations: Dirtside from Jeff Siadek – LIVE on Kickstarter

Posted on by E.R. Burgess
PREVIEW: Battlestations: Dirtside from Jeff Siadek – LIVE on Kickstarter

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of getting a visit from legendary SoCal game designer Jeff Siadek and his producing partner Joey Vigour over to my place to try out the second edition of Battlestations!, Jeff’s magnum opus. The original was a huge success, with a massive community of gamers adding to the lore of the versatile sci-fi adventure game. The new edition updated the art, mechanisms and more to bring the game to modern audiences. The Kickstarter was a rousing success so it’s not surprising that I got an email from these two gents last month suggesting it was time for the sequel.

So, after a little planning, I got a similar visit to see their next big game in the series—Battlestations: Dirtside. While the original Battlestations was focused on capturing the feel of ship-to-ship combat with a full crew adventuring into space, Dirtside brings the modularity of the system down to the planet level. Away missions were available in the original game but the scale wasn’t ideal for exploring a whole planet. Dirtside solves that problem, and adds many more adventures and scenarios to the ever-expanding game worlds Siadek and his community of fans have imagined.

What’s it all about?

Battlestations: Dirtside is a science fiction adventure game that accommodates 1-9 players, with most missions lasting one to two hours. The game can be played cooperatively or solo, or even in “scrimmage” play that moves even quicker.

My Rhinoceros-esque scientist dropped down to the planet to find the cure for a raging disease infecting a different world. I horned in on it immediately. 🙂

The joy of Battlestations: Dirtside is the sandbox system, achieving a happy medium between an RPG, a board game and a minis game. The rules provide enough detail to get the character and adventure of your dreams while still moving along at action movie speed. Watch Jeff tell you all about it:

What’s in the Giant Battlestations: Dirtside Box?

In the massive container, you get some exceptional minis representing a variety of intriguing space races, plenty of scenario boards, and a ruleset that will address all of your questions. Like GURPS and even the modern D&D edition, a lot of elements are reduced to standard die rolls so you can play quickly, but you can also delve deeply into the game to design and equip your character with the skills and items of your choice. You can also level them up and use them on future missions, letting that light RPG feel surface without putting a major burden on any of the players.

How does it play?

Dirtside comes with tons of scenarios that all require a bit of setup to configure the board for the game world you’re exploring, but then gameplay is pretty fast. Once you have a character, you can bring them on future missions so you can see your character progress and more quickly dive into future games since you already have one to use. Player turns are easy but engaging – make a move, take a variety of action options to drive, shoot, explore and discover on the planet you’ve reached.

Battlestations: Dirtside
Designer Jeff Siadek

The Missions library is a vital part of the game and Siadek is making sure it is large. So will that aforementioned community of Battlestations fans. Many of those, by Jeff and by others, have multi-scenario story arcs—let’s just say it: Battlestations was Legacy before Legacy was cool. Dirtside is inspiring a whole new movement within this community, who will surely build missions to scale for planetary encounters of all kinds.

“We knew that planetary experiences were constrained by the scale of the ships being used and rules specific to them,” designer Jeff Siadek told me, “With Dirtside, we needed to change things around a little bit allow whole planet events, exploration on a larger level and to offer unique experiences you don’t see in other games that try to capture the thrill of Battlestations. Our scenarios are much larger than just these missions you see in other games.”

Developer Joey Vigour added, “We wanted replay value for the scenarios, too, so there are totally different directions a mission can go and there’s like 15 threats but so you can redo the same missions again with different threads. We wanted quality stories, not just a board where you run around and shoot things.” Of course, shooting things and running around can be fun, and this is totally available in the game, too.

Battlestations: Dirtside is fun and now available to pre-order on Kickstarter

We had a lot of fun with Battlestations: Dirtside and I expect it to do well on Kickstarter. In one scenario, we dropped onto the planet trying to find the cure for an epidemic happening on another world. We managed to claim it but almost landed our ship right on top of our away team (the drift rules are clever).

A second mission had us fighting off denizens of another planet with a timeclock ready to blow up the world. We had to keep using our Luck chits to avoid the blow up and managed to escape just in time. And, yes, there was running around and shooting of bad guys—but all within the storylines.

Battlestations: Dirtside
The Battlestations: Dirtside setup at Gamex 2019 from Strategicon

I had a raucous good time with Jeff and Joey, who are always wonderful to see, and I enjoyed playing the unique alien races from in the game on detailed planets included in the scenario book. If you want an adventure game with old-school rolls to resolve combat and tight enough mechanisms to make the game move along well, Battlestations: Dirtside should be looked up on Kickstarter ASAP. There’s a whole lot of game time in this big box of space adventure fun.

For more information on Battlestations: Dirtside, please check out the Kickstarter page today. The original Battlestations! Second Edition is available now on Amazon.

Disclosure: Boardgame Babylon accepts no payment for reviews, previews, comments, whatever, but accepts review copies occasionally. It’s kind of obvious, but the designers came to my house and taught me the game. Yes, I’d call them both friends but I’d also call a lot of people in board games my friends and that doesn’t affect my reviews.

Review: Call to Adventure from Brotherwise Games

Posted on by E.R. Burgess
Review: Call to Adventure from Brotherwise Games

Call to Adventure is kind of a revelation. I have been increasingly interested in games that effectively tell a story while also having a tight set of mechanisms that make for a clean game. Brotherwise Games, previously best-known for the video game nostalgia-fest Boss Monster, have delivered on this combo in spades. While their Kickstarter was a hit, the game is now widely available. I believe it deserves your attention.

Let’s be clear: I love eurogames. I’m a proud eurosnoot—that term is hilarious and I embrace it (mostly because I think our hobby sometimes takes itself too seriously). But I admit that the appeal of story-driven games is compelling, especially as a storyteller myself. I have also been intrigued by games that encourage low-effort creativity and we’re seeing more of them these days. That’s not necessarily a bad term—we are in an era when people enjoy building on existing stories. Call to Adventure (CTA) engages this notion well, giving players a chance to add a bit of themselves into the game. While you the game plays effectively with smart mechanisms, (and it just sails), you also build a story that you can tell at the end of the game.

Gorgeous artwork, enjoyable game

Answering the Call

CTA starts with some cards dealt and selections made to seed the basics of your character. That’s an Origin, Motivation and a Destiny. You get two of each and get to pick one for each stage of your character’s life. Right from the beginning, this gives you a strong sense of how your character will develop over time. This can help drive the choices you make about increasing your experience and skills. Each turn, you select one of four or five face up cards for the stage you are on, with an option to discard one by spending Experience tokens.

Some cards just add characteristics and you can just claim them. Others represent challenges you need to achieve and give you two options, a top or bottom choice. Usually, the bottom one represents something harder, but the reward will be greater, too. Depending on which path you take, you’ll place an acquired card showing the top or bottom of the card to show off your reward, usually the ability to do more or a story element that can rack up points when you gain multiples of them. How do you take on those challenges and add to your skills? Well, you ‘throw the bones.’ Well, runes – that is.

The Runes from Call to Adventure: Chunky and fun to throw

Rune-Throwing

The game comes with runes that are kind of like a coin toss but they are so much nicer than that. First of all, there’s a standard set you always roll, which might also give you a Hero or Antihero card (more on that later). Then, there are different runes to line up with six attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity…you know the rest. You earn the right to throw more as you gain experience, using the appropriate ones depending on whether its a challenge for your military prowess, knowledge, or perhaps your guile. This simple system has just the right amount of sophistication to make it not merely a coin-toss-fest, but still quick enough to keep the game moving and under an hour from beginning to finish.

When you fail at a Challenge, it is discarded but you get an Experience token to help you in the future. So, you did learn a little something.

One of the Four Player Boards with cards mid-game.

Hero and Antihero cards can be acquired and played during the game, from both runes and cards you collect. However, your tendency to goodness and not-so-goodness are tracked with a sun/moon token (shown above left). When you’re in the middle, you can play both. However, when you go to the extremes, it can help you gain points (or lose some heroic points). This adds pleasant nuance to your character story. This is a smart design.

Each of the Attribute and Challenge cards (that you achieve) are added to your character board in one of the three slots. The next section opens when you have three from the current level. They each give you some advantage or special ability, helping you along your journey. You can double-back for a lower-level cards if you want, but this could keep you from staying on pace with your competitors, as the game will end when one player gets three Level 3 cards on their board. After a final turn, players count up their points to see who won, with totals including cards you won, played Hero/Antihero cards, Experience tokens (that are often used in the game), and any bonuses from your Destiny card.

An Individual Call to Adventure

Enjoyably, the designers built a good solo mode right into the game’s basic mechanisms. Adversaries are special challenges that lack two options but can become an integral part of your character’s story. In solo mode, one of these is pulled out and setup as a final battle for the character – giving you something to built toward for that ultimate showdown. This feature works with the cooperative variant as well.

There’s more to it, including some Ally cards that add interest to the game. But mostly, the rules take a backseat to the clever story-construction the game engenders. While you don’t have to do it, at the end of the game, you are encouraged to tell the story of your character to the table. This inspired idea helps elevate the game a bit more. Engaging the creativity of players is one of the most appealing new features of modern games that I’ve started to notice in recent days.

I’ve sung the praises of Four Against Darkness for similar reasons. While that game is fun for its mechanisms, the true joy is in writing out your dungeon with your own decorations and artwork. The upcoming Cartographers from Thunderworks Games also inspires players to not just roll and write, but roll and create their maps. More designers are coming up with intriguing ways to include some creative energy into the genre and I love it.

Recommended: Call to Adventure

Call to Adventure is utterly gorgeous, too. If the appropriately 8-bitty artwork from Boss Monster made you think they were going to go on the cheap for this one, put it out of your mind. Quite the reverse, the artwork in CTA is fantastic and evocative. I expect to play a lot more Call to Adventure and look forward to their future expansions, which include one based on Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series (although maybe they should hold it hostage until he finishes the third book…).

Call to Adventure is a unique gaming experience that I really enjoyed and I think you will, too. It’s family-friendly and absolutely worth your gaming dollars. Get it on Amazon or at your FLGS, and answer the call!