Played a bit of Voidfall, a very handsome 4X boardgame (the artwork is gorgeous and reminded me a bit of Moebius, which is one of my favourite artists in the whole wide world).
Like every other 4X I have seen (never played one, watched a couple of playthroughs on Youtube), playing it seems like a task worthy of Hercules. I was horrified by the sheer voume and diversity of components. I have seen things you people won't believe. Attack ships of the shoulder of Orio ... sorry, wrong speech. I have seen boards within boards within boards, over fifteen types of chits, a wagon of cards and enough coloured cubes to build a mighty pyramid for your hamster.
I did some simple calculations and reached the conclusion that you can build at least four Euros with half of the components and only the player boards. There is also, the complex iconography. Four pages of symbols. Player boards look like the walls of a pyramid. I stared at them for minutes fighting the uncontrollable urge to lick them and eat them like candy. Absolutely delicious. Unless you want to also play the goddamned game, not just looking at it. Then those beautiful things become nasty little critters standing between you and the gaming paradise.
For a while I stared deeply into the Voidfall while the host, may the Universe bless his soul for introducing me to this wonderful mess, was droning on and on with the rules. Apparently he decided to read all the rules before playing, while my age old custom is to read just enough of them to be able to start playing and go back to the manual as I play. The Voidfall refused to stare back. Another gorgeous game, I said to myself, which I wont ever get to play because I am scared of it. We started playing it and after two or three turns it goddamned clicked. The chits started to look like gorgeous buildings for the guilds, the backbone of the economy. The coloured cubes morphed into mighty fleets laying waste to the enemy forces and the corruption tokens became unholy tentacles infecting the good and kind citizens of my puny outpost with impure thoughts about the forbidden pleasures of the flesh. It took a bit, but when it clicked, it clicked hard and I started to see a story where there was only plastic and cardboard.
Then we had to stop because the setup and the reading of the rules took two hours and my time in that Universe was quite limited. I learned a few things, though, that would make the next setup session last only a fraction of the time we spent arranging hexagons and cubes on the table.
The documentation and the included tutorial scenario were of great help. Very organized, the information we needed was les than a minute away, there is a glossary explaining the various symbols (again, four pages of symbols), detailing the action cards and every component in the game. The tutorial is pretty easy and masterfully introduces gameplay mechanics without overwhelming you with options. However, from what i could see by reading the rules beyond the turorial scenarios, the possibilities are legion. I love the learning process, is one of my favourite things about boardgames (sometimes once I learn a game I stop playing it for a while) and the learning process of Voidfall was a delight thanks to the documentation that came with the game.
Going back to the components for a bit, some people would say it is overproduced. As a fan of ameritrash and owning some kickstarter games, I've seen overproduced and trust me, Voidfall won't even make the top 30.
One might argue (and one did in some youtube clips i watched before starting the game) that Voidfall is in fact an overdressed euro disguised as ameritrash. Maybe. Maybe. It certainly has euro in its DNA (i always wanted to used the shared DNA cliche when I was writing about videogames, but I just didnt have the heart), but honestly, I don't care too much about it. I just included this for the people who like classifications. No shame in that. What I wanted to say is that despite the amount of things that Voidfall throws at you from the box, learning it enough to enjoy it was a very straightforward and pleasing experience. It has a nice flow, the tutorial is designed in such a way that the concepts and the rules it introduces wont mess too much with the flow. Actually, from the second turn I was feeling that I am making progress towards the end goal to amass vast quantities of influence and wealth. And military might.
Small mention though. I played (not mastered though, but became very familiar with the mechanics) a lot of 4X games on PC and this helped immensly. Voidfall was my first "analogue" 4X but my previous experience with computer 4Xs played no smal part in me being able to grasp some of the rules and concepts introduced by the boardgame. So, if you are new to this genre (both on PC and in the boardgame form), your experience might be a bit different than mine. Might be straight nasty. But hey, Voidfall isn't exactly the kind of game you use to introduce someone in the enchanted world of cardboard universes. So yeah, the same advice I give to people wanting to try magic mushrooms or some shit that is supposed to make you one with whatever universe you live in, dont try this alone. Have someone with you who has some experience.
And the last small print, what you read are my impressions after a very limited time with the game. Based on that, I can predict that you will have many many hours of boardgame goodness (solo, coop or versus, because Voidfall has all three modes) but I cannot guarantee it. After around two hours of play I found it mechanically beautiful, dripping with theme and a joy to look at. And full of possibilities once you have a firm graspp on the rules. Which I dont have yet, but I am planning to be a master at this game.
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