This weekend I finally had a chance to play
Android, a dystopian science fiction detective game from Fantasy Flight. The owner of the game was happy to teach me how to play - provided I was willing to set aside most of Saturday afternoon for the occasion with the understanding that I wasn't going to really know what was going on until after I'd played through an entire game, and maybe not even then. This sounded just fine to me and we started up around 3pm.
By the time we wrapped everything up around 7:30pm, I did have a vague idea of how I might play the game again, provided I had the same character. I consider this to be a pretty good achievement. Android is interesting in that it has three separate mechanics going on for each of the players:
First off, there's a murder mystery happening, with several suspects to choose from. However, this isn't like Clue (-do or otherwise) where a guilty party is chosen and then the players try to figure it out. Instead, each player is dealt two hunches, one for a person they think is innocent and one for a person they think is guilty. Then they can use their actions to find clues, convert said clues into evidence chits, and then place the evidence on their person of choice. If you want someone to be guilty, hit him with high numbers; if you want to prove their innocence, hit 'em with low numbers. It's like playing golf in a dirty world where justice is irrelevant, only framing the person you want to see taken out. The catch here is that the other players are all doing the same thing to the characters they've got a stake in, but you don't know who they're going after, and the evidence chits you get are played face down, so you don't know who's winning either. It's basically an elaborate crap shoot where you can increase your odds by focusing heavily on this particular angle of the game. That would be fine if this were the only thing going on.
Second, you've got an overarching conspiracy about whose involved in the terrible crimes you're investigating. Corporations? The media? High society? To answer these questions, there are tile pieces you can draw and then play on a board where they form fairly simple pathways. You're hoping that you draw a tile that will lead in the direction of the conspiracy theory you want to prove true (again, this game is all about relative guilt or innocence and building a storyline) and that it might give you a nice bonus in the process, with the possibility of extra bonus points if you complete full lines of the puzzle over the course of the game. In this case, you're hoping to complete conspiracy storylines that give you points in the end game and screw others, but it's pretty tricky to pull that off, especially if you've never played before.
Third, each of the characters in the game have their own storyline to follow, with good endings and bad endings cropping up over the course of the game. In some cases the ongoing plot can affect the abilities you have during the game, and in all cases it'll have a big impact on the number of points you can score throughout the game. Thus, you spend a lot of time trying to build up good baggage for yourself and send bad baggage over to other players.
Now, have all of this happening simultaneously and you have Android. Have it happening while you don't know what your own goals really are, let alone other players, and you have your first game of Android. Fortunately, there's a lot of stuff to do so even if you aren't making optimal moves - which, considering the amount of shafting that goes on - at least you're having fun running around and trying to make cool things happen for you. You really will have to play a full game to get the hang of it, and it's not a short game.
At the very least, it's all terribly intriguing. The setting - which borrows heavily from Blade Runner and
The Caves of Steel, not that I'm complaining - is incredibly detailed, with absolutely tons of flavor text helping establish the world you're in. Detailed plots have been written for every player and you spend the game experiencing two busy weeks in their lives. There are also all sorts of other things going on in the game aside from the three major point-gathering goals I mentioned. The method for traveling around - using a ruler specific to each character representing how fast they can get around in their car - is clever and gives everyone a chance to lust after the fabled sports car. There's a system of gaining and playing light cards that help you and dark cards that shaft other players, with each player having their own deck of pain that everyone can choose to draw from. You will be screwed hard at some point in the game and it'll be really funny and really painful all at the same time.
Did I like Android? Well, it's certainly interesting and I'd like to play it again, so I suppose I did like it. However, it's a hard game to recommend unreservedly. You'll need a lot of time and some patient friends in order to give it a fair shake. You'll also need a whole helluva lot of table space. Seriously, the amount of stuff shoved into the box surpasses even other Fantasy Flight component fests like Arkham Horror or Descent. You really will have to play through almost an entire game to have the hang of what's happening and how your character should be played. Oh, and each of the characters in the game are significantly different from each other, so expect to have a learning curve every time you play with someone else. On paper, it doesn't look promising. Fortunately, in practice it's a fascinating experience and you'll find yourself wanting to make the time to give it another shot. I think that after a few plays folks will be able to get through the game in three hours, which isn't too bad - though taking the time to really read all the flavor text and get into the storyline could easily add another hour to that total. These are things that I'm okay with, but others may balk. If you're looking for light games that can be wrapped up in less than two hours, this isn't the game for you. But, for someone who's read Neuromancer too many times who wants a complex science fiction quasi-RPG, this is basically perfect for you. I dunno how many people there are like that out there, but I'm pretty sure I'm one of 'em.
In other, less compliated gaming, I got to play
Hex Hex, which is basically a hot potato card game that's kinda like Uno but with far more opportunities to be a total bastard. It's fast paced, simple, and a hoot and a half. I also got to play a couple more games of the classic beer and pretzels game
Wiz-War, a sort of board game precursor to Magic: the Gathering about Wizards with hands full of spells running around and blasting each other down to zero health while stealing treasures. Okay, so that last bit has nothing to do with Magic, but the concept is somewhat similar even if you don't have to collect cards. Unfortunately, with the game being way out of print (thanks to Chessex's inexplicable desire to not earn money), this is a bit on the collectible side either way. Fortunately, while waiting for an official new edition to be released - which looks to actually be happening after years of it's languishing at Chessex - obsessive fans online have made
the entire game, plus expansions available for free. Well, free if you're willing to print everything out yourself, but it's still a nice option. Wiz-War is worth that kind of pain in the ass effort in order to play, so give the game a shot sometime if you'd like some wacky four player wizard on wizard antics.
FnordChan
FnordChan
