My kids and I pulled Photosynthesis off of the shelf and dusted it off last night. It’s been a few months since we played it, and I was going to get rid of it because the box is gigantic and it seemed too strategically complex. It always seemed like you had to plan 5 turns ahead, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the board’s geometry.
Last night, it finally clicked, but now the problem is that I fear the strategy may be too linear.
We discovered three principles:
Do not sell your big trees off early. My son did this, and the loss of both income and the ability to shade other players is devastating. He never recovered–spent several rounds collecting 2 light points per turn, while my daughter and I were pulling in a dozen or more.
You only really need to look one turn ahead. Sell your trees when it’s strategic to do so: when it’ll remove shade from your own trees on the next turn of the sun. Grow trees to get them out of the shade on the next turn.
Make sure you maintain a good inventory of trees on the board. Use extra light points to buy and/or plant seeds.
These apply to the basic game, so strategies may open up a bit with advanced play. I may keep the game now. It is absolutely gorgeous and elegant, but I still really don’t like how much room it takes up.
The advanced modes biggest change is not being able to grow stuff in the shade, which will bring you back to having to think 5 turns ahead again. You’re solving the same style of problem, but really have to watch other players to make sure you don’t waste sun on a tree that won’t be able to grow for a long time.
It also makes the higher point spots a lot more dangerous. Since they’re more often in the shade they’re really hard to ever get a chance to grow. A strange side mechanic pops up where you plop seeds down to claim locations and just not grow them to make sure there are light paths to get to your trees. This is especially important if you’re trying to grow in the central spot that’s super gloomy.
I think the game feels a bit too short in basic and a bit too long in advanced, though. I wish there was a way to speed it up without losing the tension.
Played nemesis. Need another play, but it totally captures the alien vibe. I will say, that how well or poor this game does in your group will depend on your group more than on the game. We had a blast playing it.
Oh and if you like gugong or are interested in it, the deluxe version is drop dead gorgeous.
Branching campaign, card-driven combat (each character gets a unique deck that they construct over the campaign), etc. So, basically FFG is doing the first real Gloomhaven competitor.
Uses an app a la Mansions of Madness 2e to drive the thing, too.
I would like to know as well. Mainly because I’m interested in picking of MoM 2e (have not played 1e) but I’m unsure about how needing an app to play would affect the experience.
Is the app actually required, or can you play without it? We played Gloomhaven with an assistant website, and while it wasn’t necessary, frankly I wouldn’t want to go without it.
I’m actually really happy with the app for MoM. First edition required a game master player which meant you couldn’t play solo and sucked for lower number of players. Plus the app has cool music and voice acting. It’s also neat to have things like hidden timers.
I love the app usage of Alchemists. There’s the same information hidden from all players that they slowly discover, and I can’t think of a way that would work without an app. I also just really love Alchemists, which predisposes me to loving the app. One of the best thematic Euros out there.
I have not. I haven’t played X-Com either. The only games with apps I’ve played are Mansions of Madness and Imperial Assault. Seems to me any boardgame that needs a computer to track or express what’s going on doesn’t need to be a boardgame. I play boardgames because I like the complete transparency. But my reaction against games that rely on apps is based on theory more than experience.
Also, get off my lawn and take your fancy smartphones with you!
Well, yeah, ok, I get that a boardgame is not a video/mobile game, and there are good reasons not to introduce videogame tropes into boardgames (not knowing the rules probably being one of the worst).
But I think there’s a lot of scope for apps to make boardgames easier to play, understand, track, etc. without actually making them videogames.
My personal dream is that you turn on your phone’s camera and point it at the game, and it makes an alarm noise whenever you make a rules mistake.
