I think what I appreciate about your reviews is how you clearly balance the pros and cons of a particular game. I get a good sense of whether or not I want to consider it further.
First time seeing your channel, this was a great review! Loved the quick background info about the game at the beginning. Looking forward to seeing more of your work!
Thanks for the review. I was curious about this version. Sounds very BSG. I used to enjoy it on dedicated gaming days. The slimmed down, 70' ish version of BSG was an unofficial release called Battlestar Galactica Express. It later got an official retheme and release as Dark Moon. The theme and aesthetic mix Alien and The Thing. Cards are replaced by dice behind player screens. It's also easy to explain, shorter, and, IMO, as tense and thematic. It's worth checking out if you want the BSG like game that can fit in a normal evening.
Wow this is exactly our feeling after 3 plays. Thank you so much for putting this out! I'm hoping that the gaming experience will improve more as players gets more experienced. I feel like the skill cap of humans are higher than the hybrids, and the addition of cultist on certain player count do spice up the dynamic even more.
No problem, glad it was helpful! Yea, for us I think it's a much better game when the Cultist is involved because you have that extra push to Boston, and it all becomes more interesting and tense.
So maybe I have misremembered but in BSG there was a captain role who would look at the next card in the travel deck to see what card would come out next and help to mitigate some of that randomness in travel. Is the captain no longer present in this game? Because he should be preventing this lack of progressing, or at minimum reducing it.
@BoardOfItReviews Hey everyone! We really appreciate you watching! If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing as it helps us grow our channel. More subscribers makes us more attractive to publishers, which allows us to collaborate with them and make more videos! It's costly and time consuming to make these videos, so we could really use the support! :)
When I played this a couple of months ago, 6 people, I felt exactly what you said. Only 2 people, myself included, were truly invested till the end cause the turns for some reason took seconds but for some reason it felt like a drag till you can do anything. The most fun comes to the guy with the magic spells. Anything else is repetitive. No way I'm getting this unless I know I'll find a group of players with the same amount of commitment and even then, for a thematic game, Nemesis and even MoM2E are better.
It's funny because I watched a Dice Tower top 10 this week (essentially games which are too long) and they included Unfathomable and also slammed it a bit for missing a chance to shorten the experience since it's a reimagining.
My biggest gripe with BG, too, was that it just took way too long to play for the depth it provided. Disappointed if Unfathomable has the exact same problem as this was one of the things I was 100% sure they'd fix. Oh well, there's probably house rules to speed it up.
Yea, I think it's the one thing that then makes every other little issue much worse. One of the problems is the randomness of moving and the distance you can move. Often you can move 4-6 spaces in the first hour so you feel like the game is moving at a nice pace, then in the second hour you might only move 2 spaces and then the game really feels like it's dragging.
It's fairly similar, but much more evolved and fleshed out. The issue is that scenario is also a race against time so there isn't much nuance to being a deep one. Here you have much more gameplay based around being devious.
I love BSG. I've played that game lots and lots for years and years. However, I love that property so much that my son's middle name is Adama (after Commander Adama). So there's an implicit bias. I do think that more players add to the enjoyment. Even if it wasn't a players' turn, we were still all commenting, pointing fingers, and just engaging with all the skill checks. Offering up unsolicited opinions and accusations. Some games skew right away for sure. However, there were moments in BSG games that my game group and I still remember to this day. Those standout moments have stayed with us far longer than standout moments in any other game.
That’s really cool to hear! Yeah in my opinion this is almost borderline a party/social game because much of it as about the interactions and story telling that happens around the table, just more complex than the average party game and of course longer!
@@BoardOfItReviews Definitely. It's also why I really dig Nemesis. They both create stand out moments that I'll always remember. Neither are perfect mechanically, but when they hit, man is it awesome. Kind of like an underground classic movie/album feel. Not for everyone, but for those that are into it, we really effing love it.
No problem! Tough question. I think if you were a massive fan of BSG, the flaws won't matter too much. If you're new to the experience, I'm not sure I'd recommend rushing out to get it at full price if you care about having a fighting chance each time.The main issue is the length for us - if it was shorter, a lot of the issues of balance wouldn't matter so much because hey it's over in 90 minutes and you set up again and it would become a fun popcorn game.
I think you must have been astoundingly unlucky have never had any brig experiences as messed up as yours sounded. I found it pretty funny easy to avoid being sent there in the first place by making it sure the captain's cabin test failed.
Nobody ever got sent there that way in our games, only through mythos card effects which meant somebody always had to go in and often it was at a point where there were no suspicions.
Hm i skipped this one because of the minis (not a fan of minis in general). Sadly there is no cardboard standees edition. I think i would really like the game
I think that's a really good point. I do think a lot of games should have both a cardboard and minis version. I will say that I'm not a fan of minis either, but they are particularly good in Unfathomable at least.
We have, but it wasn't a big hit. I'm quite fond of it, but Tallie isn't a fan. That plus getting 5 or 6 people together who are willing to sit through Dune over the last two years has been difficult! I'd certainly like to play it a few more times but I don't know if it will happen.
Good review, the stated length was a bit of a red flag for me and it seems like what I was worried about there is confirmed. Still seems like an intriguing game with a lot of potential though! Maybe we'll see an official expansion that gives us a quicker play option.
It certainly is all those things! I'm almost certain they'll be an expansion of some kind, although if it will address the length we'll see. Thanks for the support!
Welcome back :) Glad your healthy again, Talley. :) This game looks interesting but I can’t see it getting tonnes of play time. Almost like Twilight Imperium in terms of requiring a large amount of time commitment. Looks fun though :)
Thanks! Yea, it's also minimum of three players, and you'd really need to have the full amount of time spare in case it goes on a bit too long. Thanks for watching :D
I found the bulk of the inclusive characters done in an organic way that fit the time, theme and narrative of the game. Sikh solider, deaf engine worker, albino stowaway. I felt all character bios followed the arc of who are they, personal interaction with the mystical and then reason why they might possibly not be trusted. However the "they/them" character in comparison felt tokenism and incongruous. The bio tells up who they are and not the rest of the beats. I personally feel a gay man, not like his brothers and felt forced to leave home, had a brief affair with a dark mysterious strange who opened his eyes to the forbidden world and then never saw him again, until today on the deck he could have sworn he saw him on deck, in a long robe. More organic, fits the time and the theme.
Exactly what I was thinking when I was looking up this game. I'm for allowing diversity when it makes sense, but the they/them is nothing but straight tokenism, no pun intended.
@@Rhyman1992Queer characters should not have to earn their right to be represented in media. Straight cis people can be badly written without people calling for them to change their sexual identity.
It took me more than half of this video to get over how much he looks like that one idget but this is a really comprehensive review. I've been waiting for reviews before buying this sucker haha
ah yes because the creators of Battlestar Galactica were just swimming in cash with all their new content they have been releasing, who needs making basically free money ... Sometimes I just dont understand creators... i mean yes there is being Games Workshop that is basically giving rights to anyone who is willing to donate as little as a chicken sandwich, but surely there has to be a sensible level of how you can distribute your licence and give people what they want while making money
Good review. I've played it once and really enjoyed it but I think you need the right group. Can't believe the comments about the inclusive characters and pronouns! I think that part is cool.
@@BoardOfItReviews, possibly. Just hard to weigh the feelings on this of people who haven’t played dozens of BSG games including difference player counts and mixes of the expansion content. Folks with that background as shown on BGG discussions have different eyes when evaluating the aspects and quality of Unfathomable.
@@Keithustus Seems like nostalgia would play a lot more heavily in those discussions as those people are obviously massive fans to have played a game that many times. Either way this review is defo a 'fresh eyes' take on Unfathomable and not what you want so I hope you do find a review that gives you what you need :).
Sure, but how much theme do you want? Bit of a fallible argument because if it's paramount the theme be 100% accurate then do you also want period appropriate thematic flavour like segregation? I just don't really see it as an issue to be inclusive in a game about killing fish monsters.
@@BoardOfItReviews No need to strawman about segregation. This is just another period piece Lovecraft game with some modern day cultural meta awkwardly jammed in. Battlestar is a solid great game and this looks to be as well plus adds some eye rolling around the table.
Not strawmanning, just pointing out even without the pronouns it's not exactly a true to history period piece so why be bothered by something you can ignore or chuck in the bin?
@@BoardOfItReviews since you are "strawmanning" segregation, let's also point out that Lovecraft was an ardent racist and would likely have never endorsed the pronouns nonsense. Does that mean that you shouldn't have even promoted this game since its source creator was "evil" by the modern left wing standards?
@@Rhyman1992 Just because somebody cries strawmanning doesn't mean it's true. They said "inclusion trumps theme" and I said okay, how thematic do you want it to the time period. Hardly a bait and switch. Just pointing out how hypocritical it is to moan that it's not "thematic" because of pronouns, but then pick and choose which elements of 1920's America are thematic. In answer to your actual strawman question, since he is long dead, not profiteering off the product, wildly reviled, and the game is obviously not racist, I think it's fine. It's a decent question though.
I know right, god forbid you have people of color in a game about fighting fish monsters. The fact that the characters and who they are has zero effect on gameplay is certainly worth bitching about. Your bravery in supporting the issues of our time is commendable and I'm sure the publishers have now realized their mistake and will now make games with only white hetero people. 🙄
@@BoardOfItReviews 😏 I see that got under your skin. But then again, anyone who defends tokenism and stereotypes of people of color or alternative lifestyles would think that its impossible for those same people to use their imagination to pretend that they are wearing outfits or are fictional characters instead of having those same characters be a positive steretype of whatever group they happened to belong to.
@@Rhyman1992 I honestly don't know what you're trying to say, I for the life of me can't figure out that incoherent sentence. It's like that rambling speech at the end of Billy Madison. Anyway not so much under my skin as being incredibly bored of grown ass people having a tantrum because of some flavour text or card art they've never seen in a game they've never played which hasn't impacted the gameplay in any way. Buy it, don't buy it, I don't care, I'm not even particularly big on Unfathomable, just wish you'd all stop getting on your soapbox about it here.
@@BoardOfItReviews funny how you talk about soap boxes when you endorsed the virtue signaling of this game. Also, I'll remember that bit about grown folks having a tantrum the next time you complain about Rowling saying there are only two genders and that men can never be women or vice versa. Tokenism has no place in society nor pop culture.
I think what I appreciate about your reviews is how you clearly balance the pros and cons of a particular game. I get a good sense of whether or not I want to consider it further.
Thank you, that means a lot!
First time seeing your channel, this was a great review! Loved the quick background info about the game at the beginning. Looking forward to seeing more of your work!
Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy our other videos!
Thanks for the review. I was curious about this version. Sounds very BSG. I used to enjoy it on dedicated gaming days.
The slimmed down, 70' ish version of BSG was an unofficial release called Battlestar Galactica Express.
It later got an official retheme and release as Dark Moon. The theme and aesthetic mix Alien and The Thing. Cards are replaced by dice behind player screens. It's also easy to explain, shorter, and, IMO, as tense and thematic. It's worth checking out if you want the BSG like game that can fit in a normal evening.
Thanks for the recommendation and information! I've seen others mention it too. Love that tension!
Wow this is exactly our feeling after 3 plays. Thank you so much for putting this out! I'm hoping that the gaming experience will improve more as players gets more experienced. I feel like the skill cap of humans are higher than the hybrids, and the addition of cultist on certain player count do spice up the dynamic even more.
No problem, glad it was helpful! Yea, for us I think it's a much better game when the Cultist is involved because you have that extra push to Boston, and it all becomes more interesting and tense.
So maybe I have misremembered but in BSG there was a captain role who would look at the next card in the travel deck to see what card would come out next and help to mitigate some of that randomness in travel. Is the captain no longer present in this game? Because he should be preventing this lack of progressing, or at minimum reducing it.
@BoardOfItReviews
Hey everyone! We really appreciate you watching! If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing as it helps us grow our channel. More subscribers makes us more attractive to publishers, which allows us to collaborate with them and make more videos! It's costly and time consuming to make these videos, so we could really use the support! :)
Love the video. Thanks for making it...and your dogs are adorable. So calm! They should be featured in future video.
Glad it helped. Dont worry, they usually are ;).
When I played this a couple of months ago, 6 people, I felt exactly what you said. Only 2 people, myself included, were truly invested till the end cause the turns for some reason took seconds but for some reason it felt like a drag till you can do anything. The most fun comes to the guy with the magic spells. Anything else is repetitive. No way I'm getting this unless I know I'll find a group of players with the same amount of commitment and even then, for a thematic game, Nemesis and even MoM2E are better.
It's funny because I watched a Dice Tower top 10 this week (essentially games which are too long) and they included Unfathomable and also slammed it a bit for missing a chance to shorten the experience since it's a reimagining.
Glad to hear your fully recovered!
Thank you!!
My biggest gripe with BG, too, was that it just took way too long to play for the depth it provided. Disappointed if Unfathomable has the exact same problem as this was one of the things I was 100% sure they'd fix.
Oh well, there's probably house rules to speed it up.
Yea, I think it's the one thing that then makes every other little issue much worse. One of the problems is the randomness of moving and the distance you can move. Often you can move 4-6 spaces in the first hour so you feel like the game is moving at a nice pace, then in the second hour you might only move 2 spaces and then the game really feels like it's dragging.
Thanks for this video, it was really helpful! Your B-roll is great and you did a great job explaining it!
Thank you so much! And thanks for watching 😊
How does it compare to the "Deep One" scenario in Mansions of Madness?
It's fairly similar, but much more evolved and fleshed out. The issue is that scenario is also a race against time so there isn't much nuance to being a deep one. Here you have much more gameplay based around being devious.
I love BSG. I've played that game lots and lots for years and years. However, I love that property so much that my son's middle name is Adama (after Commander Adama). So there's an implicit bias. I do think that more players add to the enjoyment. Even if it wasn't a players' turn, we were still all commenting, pointing fingers, and just engaging with all the skill checks. Offering up unsolicited opinions and accusations. Some games skew right away for sure. However, there were moments in BSG games that my game group and I still remember to this day. Those standout moments have stayed with us far longer than standout moments in any other game.
That’s really cool to hear! Yeah in my opinion this is almost borderline a party/social game because much of it as about the interactions and story telling that happens around the table, just more complex than the average party game and of course longer!
@@BoardOfItReviews Definitely. It's also why I really dig Nemesis. They both create stand out moments that I'll always remember. Neither are perfect mechanically, but when they hit, man is it awesome. Kind of like an underground classic movie/album feel. Not for everyone, but for those that are into it, we really effing love it.
Super super helpful you guys! Thanks so much.
Excellent - glad to hear it and thanks for watching and the comment!
Thanks for the review, so is this a stay away or buy for you guys?
No problem! Tough question. I think if you were a massive fan of BSG, the flaws won't matter too much. If you're new to the experience, I'm not sure I'd recommend rushing out to get it at full price if you care about having a fighting chance each time.The main issue is the length for us - if it was shorter, a lot of the issues of balance wouldn't matter so much because hey it's over in 90 minutes and you set up again and it would become a fun popcorn game.
I think you must have been astoundingly unlucky have never had any brig experiences as messed up as yours sounded. I found it pretty funny easy to avoid being sent there in the first place by making it sure the captain's cabin test failed.
Nobody ever got sent there that way in our games, only through mythos card effects which meant somebody always had to go in and often it was at a point where there were no suspicions.
Hm i skipped this one because of the minis (not a fan of minis in general). Sadly there is no cardboard standees edition. I think i would really like the game
I think that's a really good point. I do think a lot of games should have both a cardboard and minis version. I will say that I'm not a fan of minis either, but they are particularly good in Unfathomable at least.
@@BoardOfItReviews Im not a painter, so i dont care about them at all. Just a boardgamer :D
Has your gaming group given Dune 2019 a shot yet? If the group likes role playing, betrayal, and tension over several hours, that one might work out.
We have, but it wasn't a big hit. I'm quite fond of it, but Tallie isn't a fan. That plus getting 5 or 6 people together who are willing to sit through Dune over the last two years has been difficult! I'd certainly like to play it a few more times but I don't know if it will happen.
Thank you a lot!!
Good review, the stated length was a bit of a red flag for me and it seems like what I was worried about there is confirmed. Still seems like an intriguing game with a lot of potential though! Maybe we'll see an official expansion that gives us a quicker play option.
It certainly is all those things! I'm almost certain they'll be an expansion of some kind, although if it will address the length we'll see. Thanks for the support!
My games have been about 2 hours
Welcome back :) Glad your healthy again, Talley. :)
This game looks interesting but I can’t see it getting tonnes of play time. Almost like Twilight Imperium in terms of requiring a large amount of time commitment.
Looks fun though :)
Thanks! Yea, it's also minimum of three players, and you'd really need to have the full amount of time spare in case it goes on a bit too long. Thanks for watching :D
I found the bulk of the inclusive characters done in an organic way that fit the time, theme and narrative of the game. Sikh solider, deaf engine worker, albino stowaway. I felt all character bios followed the arc of who are they, personal interaction with the mystical and then reason why they might possibly not be trusted. However the "they/them" character in comparison felt tokenism and incongruous. The bio tells up who they are and not the rest of the beats. I personally feel a gay man, not like his brothers and felt forced to leave home, had a brief affair with a dark mysterious strange who opened his eyes to the forbidden world and then never saw him again, until today on the deck he could have sworn he saw him on deck, in a long robe. More organic, fits the time and the theme.
Exactly what I was thinking when I was looking up this game. I'm for allowing diversity when it makes sense, but the they/them is nothing but straight tokenism, no pun intended.
That character is so terribly written lol.
@@Rhyman1992Queer characters should not have to earn their right to be represented in media. Straight cis people can be badly written without people calling for them to change their sexual identity.
It took me more than half of this video to get over how much he looks like that one idget but this is a really comprehensive review. I've been waiting for reviews before buying this sucker haha
Thanks for watching!
Good thumbnail choice. 😆 Great review and watch out for those traitorous doggos.
They'd stab us in the back for one crumb on the floor.
ah yes because the creators of Battlestar Galactica were just swimming in cash with all their new content they have been releasing, who needs making basically free money ... Sometimes I just dont understand creators... i mean yes there is being Games Workshop that is basically giving rights to anyone who is willing to donate as little as a chicken sandwich, but surely there has to be a sensible level of how you can distribute your licence and give people what they want while making money
Good review. I've played it once and really enjoyed it but I think you need the right group.
Can't believe the comments about the inclusive characters and pronouns! I think that part is cool.
Glad you enjoyed it! You're right, games like this are very group dependent.
4:08 “we never played Battlestar Galactica”
Ok, stop viewing. Time for a different review/overview.
Sounds like you just want a comparison video then ;)
@@BoardOfItReviews, possibly. Just hard to weigh the feelings on this of people who haven’t played dozens of BSG games including difference player counts and mixes of the expansion content. Folks with that background as shown on BGG discussions have different eyes when evaluating the aspects and quality of Unfathomable.
@@Keithustus Seems like nostalgia would play a lot more heavily in those discussions as those people are obviously massive fans to have played a game that many times. Either way this review is defo a 'fresh eyes' take on Unfathomable and not what you want so I hope you do find a review that gives you what you need :).
@@BoardOfItReviews nostalgia only matters for people who stopped playing it :)
Hahaha very good point!!
Create a house rule
Really don’t care if the characters are “non-binary” or “diverse.” Identity politics should not be a focal point in board games.
Fine to think that but it literally put my decision over the edge cause I was teetering
You seem to care enough to get annoyed we mentioned it. It's the most minor touch.
Personal identity is exactly that. Decent people respect on another’s identity. Whiney idiots complain about it.
Why is it identity politics when a queer person just exists in a game?
What they don't tell you is is that it's 70pound boardgame I'll go the bank now then don't think so,😠
Sorry?
@@BoardOfItReviews ok don't worry about it I did take a look at it thou 😊👍
That Jamie non binary character is so badly written I thought it was taking the piss. Does anyone really get on board with this stuff?
Queer people have the right to be badly written
They / Them pronouns in a 1920s game? Inclusion trumps theme I suppose.
Sure, but how much theme do you want? Bit of a fallible argument because if it's paramount the theme be 100% accurate then do you also want period appropriate thematic flavour like segregation? I just don't really see it as an issue to be inclusive in a game about killing fish monsters.
@@BoardOfItReviews No need to strawman about segregation. This is just another period piece Lovecraft game with some modern day cultural meta awkwardly jammed in. Battlestar is a solid great game and this looks to be as well plus adds some eye rolling around the table.
Not strawmanning, just pointing out even without the pronouns it's not exactly a true to history period piece so why be bothered by something you can ignore or chuck in the bin?
@@BoardOfItReviews since you are "strawmanning" segregation, let's also point out that Lovecraft was an ardent racist and would likely have never endorsed the pronouns nonsense. Does that mean that you shouldn't have even promoted this game since its source creator was "evil" by the modern left wing standards?
@@Rhyman1992 Just because somebody cries strawmanning doesn't mean it's true. They said "inclusion trumps theme" and I said okay, how thematic do you want it to the time period. Hardly a bait and switch. Just pointing out how hypocritical it is to moan that it's not "thematic" because of pronouns, but then pick and choose which elements of 1920's America are thematic.
In answer to your actual strawman question, since he is long dead, not profiteering off the product, wildly reviled, and the game is obviously not racist, I think it's fine. It's a decent question though.
Nobody cares about your pronouns in a board game review. So sick of the woke
I mean, you obviously care. But you'll be glad to know we never mentioned our pronouns ;)
Well, I won't be purchasing this game. Any game that promotes tokenism in PCs is not worth spending the money for.
I know right, god forbid you have people of color in a game about fighting fish monsters. The fact that the characters and who they are has zero effect on gameplay is certainly worth bitching about. Your bravery in supporting the issues of our time is commendable and I'm sure the publishers have now realized their mistake and will now make games with only white hetero people. 🙄
@@BoardOfItReviews 😏 I see that got under your skin. But then again, anyone who defends tokenism and stereotypes of people of color or alternative lifestyles would think that its impossible for those same people to use their imagination to pretend that they are wearing outfits or are fictional characters instead of having those same characters be a positive steretype of whatever group they happened to belong to.
@@Rhyman1992 I honestly don't know what you're trying to say, I for the life of me can't figure out that incoherent sentence. It's like that rambling speech at the end of Billy Madison.
Anyway not so much under my skin as being incredibly bored of grown ass people having a tantrum because of some flavour text or card art they've never seen in a game they've never played which hasn't impacted the gameplay in any way. Buy it, don't buy it, I don't care, I'm not even particularly big on Unfathomable, just wish you'd all stop getting on your soapbox about it here.
@@BoardOfItReviews funny how you talk about soap boxes when you endorsed the virtue signaling of this game. Also, I'll remember that bit about grown folks having a tantrum the next time you complain about Rowling saying there are only two genders and that men can never be women or vice versa. Tokenism has no place in society nor pop culture.