Blake, first time I see a review from you. Such a refreshing energy and would love to see more content with you involved. Such a fun watch and your energy is fantastic. We got to see a bit of your collection during the video - what're some of your favorite games or your top X games?
Hey Diego, thanks for the kind words! I recently did a top 10 favorite large group games video for the Dice tower. That has a lot of my favorites in it!
concise but detailed and informative review, not too quick but not an infodump either. Very helpful, it's also great to see the opinions of other gamers in the same video, not just the main reviewer.
I think I played it wrong; I remember only mingling with 3 rats and I didn't move the cart with the rat icons. Had fun with it anyway. Will have to play it more with the real rules.
While there's way too much randomness in this game to be a pure hidden deduction it's the perfect PARTY game to absolutely have a blast with....a great social experience for everyone more than just about winning or losing........for me, this is the real value of having a game like this on my shelf
Facade games dark cities series are all really games esp when you consider it's a 2 person husband and wife team that designed all of them AND they all look really cool on a shelf do to being book boxes
Amazing review Blake! I have this game (and all of the other "book" games), but we've not gotten them to the table yet. Gonna play this one the first time we have more than 4 folks at the house. Keep up the good work!
I liked your review! Well balanced. I have this game (backed the kickstarter during Lockdown) and haven't played it yet :-O I finally have enough people around and looking forward to playing it even more after watching your video.
03:36 WHAaaaaaT?! Isn't it the fastest player elimination ever (related to the duration of the rest of the game)? So... A single or couple of players are immediately out of the game while the rest keep the game, maybe even without eliminate one with the other..? HOW IS THAT FUN for those whom sitting frustrating outside, doing nothing but waiting to the next game to begin, while no one can promise them that it won't happen to them again right at the beginning (or during) the next game..? What am I missing..? 🤔
A player is only eliminated if there isn’t space in a cart behind them. The player who pushed them out would also be eliminated if the player they pushed wasn’t sick. It only makes sense to push someone out if you are 100% sure they are sick, which it’s hard to be sure. There are also cards that counter a push card. So in our play throughs there wasnt much, if any elimination.
I think, conceptually the game is amazing. But as is, for me out of the box it's 2 out of 10. The game is flawed. No game should rely final results on 'honesty'. There should always be checks and balances for it to remain competitive. The symptom cards are completely pointless. The group of people I play with, are very critical when it comes to game design. They are the type that go out of their way to exploit the flaws in games. But I love this game so much, this is what I had to do to make it playable for my group: I created 27 1/2" discs. On one side of all the discs there is a silhouette of a fly, and on the other side of 9 of them there is a skull, and on the other side of the remaining are blank. At the beginning of the game you insert the equal number of skulls to players to the bag, and X2 blanks per player. And whenever there is mingling people randomly pull one chip out of the bag, and then place the chip in front of them, fly side up. So the more someone has mingled, the more 'flies' they have around them. And the idea of flies around an individual, created so much laughter. Just because someone has flies around them, doesn't mean they're infected. During one game, there was a player that had three flies, but were still healthy at the end of the game. And that slight modification took zero fun away from this game, makes me wonder why they chose the card/honesty system over something more results driven.
I played it and its decent, not really much deduction more dice game and race element. 1 loophole in this game is that there is no way to check whether someone had the plague (6 points or higher) at 1 point in the game or not. For this part the game relies on honesty of the players, which is a small loophole that i feel should have been thought of before releasing the game. Lastly the ending does not feel as rewarding as other racing or deduction games when u win/cross the finish line.
this is game is not great for a lot of reasons. For one, it's a pretty depressing setting all around which is already a huge negative. Two, it's a game where there is no built in mechanic to denote that you're plagued or not and people have to be "honest" about it. Also, the rules are not totally clear on what your goal should be if you are plagued and the way it was played the couple times i have played it, it seemed to work as if plagued players automatically lose. Worse of all, if a player accidently reveils that he is plagued after becoming plagued or it's obviously through deduction that a specific player is plagued, then the game can break down in a hurry. It's only redeeming quality is that it's fast pace with a fun dice rolling mechanic, but other then that, the confusing goals, and lack of options once your plagued really makes this game a hard pass for me and I'll only play it if I basiclly am pushed into a game and it's either "play this or play nothing".
I like the multiple views in the review. The main reviewer was very knowledgeable and I learned a lot about the game. 👍
I'm surprised this is the first review I'm watching of yours, Blake! It was excellent. Thank you!
Blake, first time I see a review from you. Such a refreshing energy and would love to see more content with you involved. Such a fun watch and your energy is fantastic. We got to see a bit of your collection during the video - what're some of your favorite games or your top X games?
Hey Diego, thanks for the kind words! I recently did a top 10 favorite large group games video for the Dice tower. That has a lot of my favorites in it!
Blake’s reviews are always top notch!
Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for watching!
concise but detailed and informative review, not too quick but not an infodump either. Very helpful, it's also great to see the opinions of other gamers in the same video, not just the main reviewer.
I think I played it wrong; I remember only mingling with 3 rats and I didn't move the cart with the rat icons. Had fun with it anyway. Will have to play it more with the real rules.
Great review, thanks, I was wondering about this one. This format you have here works really well!
Fantastic review. My wife and I just played Deadwood and Tortuga and really loved them both. Really looking forward to playing this one tomorrow.
While there's way too much randomness in this game to be a pure hidden deduction it's the perfect PARTY game to absolutely have a blast with....a great social experience for everyone more than just about winning or losing........for me, this is the real value of having a game like this on my shelf
Horay for more Blake!
I feel like such a jerk as I chose not to back this and secretly was hoping it was not good. Glad to hear it was as fun as it looked.
You know, there's a solution to that, like getting the game... ;) (I did back it but haven't played it yet due to covid restrictions)
Facade games dark cities series are all really games esp when you consider it's a 2 person husband and wife team that designed all of them AND they all look really cool on a shelf do to being book boxes
Great video! Thorough. Nice to see various opinions. Can't wait to play,
Amazing review Blake! I have this game (and all of the other "book" games), but we've not gotten them to the table yet. Gonna play this one the first time we have more than 4 folks at the house. Keep up the good work!
I liked your review! Well balanced. I have this game (backed the kickstarter during Lockdown) and haven't played it yet :-O I finally have enough people around and looking forward to playing it even more after watching your video.
Nice review !
Best review yet, Blake.
Great stuff! Liked hearing the pros and cons
Great review, thank you!
Great review.
You got me interested.
Really enjoyed the review - would have preferred bigger components as well.
7:16
This game is something fresh
Love the irony.
There is also a soundtrack to it if you want a bit of more immersion: th-cam.com/video/G2ak7XpCrhM/w-d-xo.html
03:36 WHAaaaaaT?!
Isn't it the fastest player elimination ever (related to the duration of the rest of the game)?
So... A single or couple of players are immediately out of the game while the rest keep the game, maybe even without eliminate one with the other..?
HOW IS THAT FUN for those whom sitting frustrating outside, doing nothing but waiting to the next game to begin, while no one can promise them that it won't happen to them again right at the beginning (or during) the next game..?
What am I missing..? 🤔
A player is only eliminated if there isn’t space in a cart behind them. The player who pushed them out would also be eliminated if the player they pushed wasn’t sick. It only makes sense to push someone out if you are 100% sure they are sick, which it’s hard to be sure. There are also cards that counter a push card. So in our play throughs there wasnt much, if any elimination.
Bruh if you play with 4+ people there will be stuff to do
I think, conceptually the game is amazing. But as is, for me out of the box it's 2 out of 10. The game is flawed. No game should rely final results on 'honesty'. There should always be checks and balances for it to remain competitive. The symptom cards are completely pointless. The group of people I play with, are very critical when it comes to game design. They are the type that go out of their way to exploit the flaws in games. But I love this game so much, this is what I had to do to make it playable for my group: I created 27 1/2" discs. On one side of all the discs there is a silhouette of a fly, and on the other side of 9 of them there is a skull, and on the other side of the remaining are blank. At the beginning of the game you insert the equal number of skulls to players to the bag, and X2 blanks per player. And whenever there is mingling people randomly pull one chip out of the bag, and then place the chip in front of them, fly side up. So the more someone has mingled, the more 'flies' they have around them. And the idea of flies around an individual, created so much laughter. Just because someone has flies around them, doesn't mean they're infected. During one game, there was a player that had three flies, but were still healthy at the end of the game. And that slight modification took zero fun away from this game, makes me wonder why they chose the card/honesty system over something more results driven.
I played it and its decent, not really much deduction more dice game and race element. 1 loophole in this game is that there is no way to check whether someone had the plague (6 points or higher) at 1 point in the game or not. For this part the game relies on honesty of the players, which is a small loophole that i feel should have been thought of before releasing the game.
Lastly the ending does not feel as rewarding as other racing or deduction games when u win/cross the finish line.
If you play with cheaters, you should invoke Illuminated Manuscript as described on page 14 of the manual.
this is game is not great for a lot of reasons. For one, it's a pretty depressing setting all around which is already a huge negative. Two, it's a game where there is no built in mechanic to denote that you're plagued or not and people have to be "honest" about it. Also, the rules are not totally clear on what your goal should be if you are plagued and the way it was played the couple times i have played it, it seemed to work as if plagued players automatically lose. Worse of all, if a player accidently reveils that he is plagued after becoming plagued or it's obviously through deduction that a specific player is plagued, then the game can break down in a hurry. It's only redeeming quality is that it's fast pace with a fun dice rolling mechanic, but other then that, the confusing goals, and lack of options once your plagued really makes this game a hard pass for me and I'll only play it if I basiclly am pushed into a game and it's either "play this or play nothing".