A Brief Interlude – Injustice?

Interlude

“A pause between the acts of a play.”

Or in this case, between posts!

I was scanning through the forums on BGG the other day, and someone had asked the question, “Worth buy just for solo? (Sic)” This was asked regarding the game, 1066, Tears For Many Mothers.

There were several responses, all in the positive, but I had found the game to be too easy, lacking in depth, and quite repetitive, as I made a point of highlighting in my One Year On update in December.

So, to give a different perspective on things I posted a reply of my own…

Looks like I’m the odd one out!

Yes, the game is full of theme, but I found that the solo game is all about chasing a perfect score.

I found it fairly easy, once I’d figured out the strategy, to beat the AI whatever level I played at, so you just end up chasing your high score.

As soon as you know that beating this is no longer possible, then you either go for the kill to end the game, or simply give up.

I found it rather repetitive with little depth in strategy.

Others seem to like it, so maybe it just wasn’t the game for me!

It didn’t take long for someone to pop the question, “You try the additional 3 lvs? Are 6 in total (sic)”.

Now, what was meant by this is, have I tried the extra 3 solo levels that have been added by a user, as a file download to be downloaded from the 1066, Tears To Many Mothers BGG page. This adds another three levels of difficulty to the game, and is a simple extension of the table in the rulebook.

My reply to this…

No, I gave up on the game before that popped up.

I just found that, strategically, it was fairly easy to kill the leader and win the game that way. So, you aim for a high score by setting up the leader ready for the kill, and then trying to get as many damage tokens on wedges as possible before you take him out.

Once you have reached a pretty high score, then yes, it becomes difficult to beat.

I then found that when I played the game, as soon as I reached the point where I knew I couldn’t beat my score, I then lost interest – I felt I was going through the same repetition every game without much in the way in variance of tactics.

Each to their own, but for me, I felt there wasn’t enough depth in the game.

I then went back and read my original review, as well as my One Year On, and decided to add a little more to the conversation…

It’s quite interesting that, when I reviewed this game, I found the solo game to be the best thing about it. But when I wrote my ‘One year on’ for my Blog, I found I no longer played the game due to the reasons I stated above.

I would determine from this that the game, for me, had a good level of challenge right up until the point where I had achieved a really high score, and thus started to lose interest, as the game no longer held the challenge that it did.

I admit that I hadn’t seen the new solo levels released on BGG, and will now take a gander, and once more break out the game.

It will be interesting to see how long it holds my interest, as I’m guessing that the tactics used will be exactly the same as before, but harder to accomplish.

But I’m more than willing to be proved wrong!

Someone else added a reply saying that they played with slightly different rules – not being allowed to kill the opposing leader – and really enjoyed the game.

This got me thinking, had I done this game an injustice when I wrote my One Year On update?

Well, I mulled this over some, and here’s my thinking.

When I review a game, I believe it is only right to review the content that comes with the game. If I think the game benefits from something that I know exists On-line, then I will point this out, but I will make a point of highlighting why the game needs this additional content. For example: In my recent Marvels Champions review I made the point that the rules are somewhat lacking and required a fair bit of On-line referencing; I then included a link to a FAQ’s page for the game.

So, had I been aware of the additional levels available to download for 1066, I would probably have mentioned them, especially if the game benefits from their inclusion, but I would have probably added something like this:

“The game has its flaws when played solo…. but there are additional levels that can be downloaded from BGG…”

When you spend your hard earned cash on a game, you expect it to be at its best as is, straight out of the box. You shouldn’t have to go trawling through the Internet to find content to make the game the experience you had hoped for in the first place. And so, I feel I haven’t done this game any injustice, I reviewed the game just as the designer intended.

I have therefore concluded that no, I have not done this game an injustice. I have given my opinion, whatever that may be worth, on the game as it comes in the box, and that didn’t include any extra solo levels. I will continue only ever to do this, but will also endeavour to point out anything I come across that improves on the experience, and if I am reviewing something that includes extra content, be sure that I’ll let you know.

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I’ll be writing more of these little ‘interludes’, just short filler posts, whenever I come across something interesting, something I just want to share, or simply have a bee in my bonnet about, lol! Hope you enjoy them.