Leviathan Wilds: A Spectacular Homage to a Classic

Somewhere in the video I say that Leviathan Wilds should not work. The fact that it does is a miracle, a conjuring, some sort of arcane trickery that animates paper and wood into a daunting physical act. If you boil Leviathan Wilds down into genre, you appropriately get boiler plate tags. Co-op. Boss-battler. Action selection. But if you distill it into essence you get only one word - magic.

Leviathan Wilds is a valiant attempt at translating a premise not at all dissimilar to Shadows of the Colossus into board game form. In it, you’ll climb, leap, hop and glide across the terrain of gargantuan creatures trying to liberate them from blighted crystals. It’s snappy, feather-light and more-ish in a way that only modern co-opeartive games can be.

But it’s beating heart lies in adaptation and how effortless it makes it feel. I still don’t know why Leviathan Wilds works, but I’m glad I got to experience it. For more, please watch the review above.

Can a Board Game Save the World? | Daybreak Review

What's that law about the title being a yes or no question? The answer is always, yes, right? (No one correct me.) Ha ha, well jokes on you, this one is a straight N.O. How would a board game even save the world? With its dashing smile and can-do attitude?

Haaaaaaving said that... I think that maybe Daybreak is as close as we'll get, and I know, I know - that's corny and a tad sensationalist but... I dunno. There's something kinda transcendent about it. Something that makes it more than a board game. Actually, scratch that. That implies that a board game can't ever amount to being transcendent. What I mean is, Daybreak feels like just a bit more.

In both setting and gameplay, Daybreak feels like it's breaking ground, and to see both executed so well is a rare treat. So please, enjoy me gushing about a fantastic board game for 15 minutes - a treat for everyone, I am sure.

Sky Team is So Tense, it Game Me Hiccups

The Crew, The Mind, Magic Maze and now Sky Team, each wonderful games that want you to sit down and shut up (ha ha). The premise is simple. Land a passenger airplane without talking. Isn’t that just the best pitch? We’ve all dreamed of being a pilot. Sky Team says - you can do that, without the ridiculous complexity of Flight Simulator and none of the dangers of real planing. Here’s our review.

What follows is a transcript of our video.

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Sky Team asks a very simple question: have you ever wanted to land a passenger aeroplane? To which of course the answer is:

Elaine: NO! I don’t know the first thing about planing, I don’t want that kind of responsibility.

Efka: Relax, you’re not piloting an actual aeroplane, just a pretend board game one with dice. Let me show you how it works.

In Sky Team you and one other person will play as the pilot and co-pilot responsible for landing said aeroplane. You will do this by placing dice one at a time on this true to life accurate representation of a pilot’s dashboard.

There’s just one problem, just like in a real aeroplane, you’re not actually allowed to talk to each other. So that’s fun, but if that wasn’t enough, let me show you some other things you shouldn’t do.

Normally when we explain a board game, we like to start by telling you how you win, because that gives you context for what you’re trying to do. With Sky Team, I will instead be telling you how you lose.

This is the altitude track. It goes down by one at the end of every round.

If you haven’t reached the airport by the time it reaches zero - you crash and lose.

If you overshoot the airport at any point - you crash and lose.

If you don’t arrive at the airport before the last round - you crash and lose.

As you fly towards the airport, there will be other aeroplanes in the way. You and your co-pilot can shoot them down from the sky with this radio action. If you fly over any of them - you crash and lose.

Let’s say your aeroplane reaches the airport on the penultimate round. On the last round it needs to have a speed equal or lower to your brakes value. If it doesn’t – you crash and lose.

Let’s say your aeroplane reaches the airport on the penultimate round and on the last round your speed is lower than your break value but you haven’t perfectly balanced out your plane - you crash and lose.

Let’s say your aeroplane reaches the airport on the penultimate round and on the last round your speed is lower than your break value and you balanced out your aeroplane, but you haven’t deployed all your flaps - you crash and lose.

You haven’t deployed all your landing gear - you crash and lose.

You tilt your plane too far to either side - you crash and lose.

You flew through some clouds at the wrong angle - you crash and lose.

You ran out of fuel - you crash and lose.

You haven’t completely trained your intern - obviously that last one is fine, interns don’t really care about on the job training, they’re just doing it for exposure ARE YOU KIDDING ME, YOU CRASH AND LOSE.

Just one or two things for you to worry about as you’re not communicating with your team-mate. Unless, maybe you are.

As mentioned, each turn, one by one you’ll be placing one of the four dice you rolled at the beginning of the round.

You can place these dice anywhere you like, as long as the spot matches your dice colour – blue for pilot, orange for copilot – and the number restrictions. For example, I can only place a one or two here to deploy some of my landing gear. Each time you place a die, you perform the corresponding action.

That’s how you deploy brakes, landing gear, flaps, shoot other planes out of the sky, cross all the dots and i’s or even make some coffee.

Most actions are simple. Place a die, it does the thing. And when I say thing, nothing miraculous happens. If you radio to shoot a plane out of the sky, you just remove that plane. If you increase your brake value – well, you just increase your break value.

However. Two actions, balancing tilt and speed, are mandatory, and require a die from each the pilot and the co-pilot. Which means, two of the four dice you have, are spoken for every round. And that’s where communication comes in.

Let’s say it’s my turn and for my first die I put a 1 on the tilt action. If Elaine also puts a one, our tilt remains the same. If, however, she puts a higher die, such as a three, the tilt will move towards her equal to the difference. Tilt too far to one side - you crash and lose.

So me placing a one here is an outrageously brazen move! I have no idea what’s behind Elaine’s shield, it could be all fives and sixes in which case that’s an instant loss. But think about what I’m communicating with that one.

Because I placed it as my first move, I’m saying to Elaine, this is my problem die.

Elaine: Your face is a problem die.

Efka: It’s true. I haven’t got anything better for there, and if you haven’t got low dice you have four turns to figure out a solution.

I’m also saying, all my other dice are probably low too, so adjust your plans accordingly. Maybe send a die to the coffee space, which, like in a real aeorplane, makes coffee and adjusts die values by plus one or minus one.

And if worst comes to worst, we can always spend the very hard to come by reroll token.

I want you to think about how tense all these situations are in play. I said you’re not allowed to communicate, but I can bet you ten pounds no one’s going to stop themselves from a painful wince if someone places a two on tilt on their last turn when all you have behind your shield is a six.

Or the agony of deciding whether to use a reroll, which lets everyone reroll any dice they want, but you have two of these for the entire game.

And obviously you can’t confer when to use it. You just have to decide to use it. For both players. Whilst the other person is giving you a deadeye stare. And you just sit with that. And stew. I mean, forget hiccups. This game is so sweaty it legit gave me swamp butt.

What truly makes Sky Team a masterclass in board game design is that it knows how to de-escalate that tension in the most dramatic way.

Die by die, move by move, mind read by mind read you watch as you and your partner sync up and read each other and your plan is maybe, possibly, just about coming together.

Still in silence! Until that very last die placement where you’re finally allowed to high five each other and go OMG that was perfect! How did you know I still had a four behind my shield when you put a 3 down on speed?

Or the alternative to that, where someone makes one misstep, like the co-pilot forgetting that they need to shoot down an aeroplane and instead putting the die down to retract the flaps. And the mad silent scramble by both players to somehow find a fix before they literally cause an international catastrophe.

Last year everyone’s darling was Heat, a racing game that didn’t simulate racing, but high drama movies about racing.

Sky Team, along with obviously being a future mega-hit, does exactly the same thing. It simulates not actual aeroplane landings but movies about aeroplane landings.

You’re not playing a pilot, you’re playing Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, maybe even Gerard Butler or Tom Butler.

Elaine: Who’s Tom Butler?

Efka: He’s the actor that plays the pilot in Snakes on a Plane.

Elaine: Oh. Why Snakes on a Plane?

Efka: Cause we needed a segue for the criticisms.

This isn’t gonna be long, don’t worry. My only real criticism is that Sky Team is incredibly precise and particular with the timing of actions. You move forward at the exact moment when someone places the second die on the speed action for example, not at the end of the round.

There’s a reason for that, it lets you set up more strategic moves. If you can’t shoot down the aeroplane that’s two spaces away because you’ve only got dice with like ones or sixes, you can move forward one space, and now your 1 die is eligible to take that enemy passenger plane DOWN!

But that sort of thing can be very fiddly during the portion of the game that has to play out without people talking to each other so when someone forgets - it’s tense, tense, TENSE… Oh wait you forgot to move your flap marker. No longer tense.

Aside from that, I mean, it’s a dice game where you roll dice and the values matter. So at easier difficulty levels, it’s tuned quite well towards that communicating without communicating action. Whereas with the really difficult scenarios, it’s just, did we roll the right dice? No. Okay. Let’s try again I guess?

Which isn’t really a criticism. Sky Team is an experience game. You can get better at it, but you don’t play it to get better at it. You play it for kicks, and let me tell you, this aeroplane’s got legs.

Also, don’t play this with strangers. In fact, don’t even play it with like acquaintances or co-workers or virtually anyone with whom you haven’t developed a level of comfort where you can just chill in each other’s company. Sky Team relies on intimacy to create that tension, so a disaster in the wrong hands.

But as long as we’re talking about scenarios, and as much fun as that base game is, this tiny box is a treasure trove of well thought out game-modes. From an intern you need to train, to fuel you have to manage to ice-breaks, wind - every module (aside from the hackneyed real time mode), offers an interesting spin to make sure that when you’re feeling comfortable with planing, it’s got another spanner to chuck in your face.

Try the intern module after your first game to vary it up a little bit, add the fuel module if you’re into players forgetting to do important actions and watching disastrous consequences unfurl in silence, and put on some ice-breaks when you really feel like taking things up a notch.

Sky Team is a top-notch recommendation from us. If your evenings are getting a bit stale and you’re bored of binge-watching streamers, inject a bit of swamp butt into your routine.

A Review of Everything Too Many Bones

Howdy bone fans. What a video today - a comprehensive review of everything ever published for Too Many Bones so far. In this monstrous video you’ll learn about the popular dungeon crawler, why you’d want to buy it, why you wouldn’t want to buy it and what to buy or not buy. Is it a buyer’s guide? Yes. Is it a critical analysis? Yes. Is it too long and overambitious? Yes. The game, or the video? Yes.

Enjoy!

Descent: Legends of the Dark Review - A New Kind of Dungeon Crawler

NPI has the scoop on perhaps the hottest game of the summer, and what better way to avoid the plague than by staying inside and moving fantasy heroes around a map for hours on end in an expansive story driven campaign with cool combat mechanisms. Can Descent: Legends of the Dark deliver on all of that? You’ve come to the right place to find out.

Bloodborne: The Board Game Review

I need to stop going into a big project after another big project with no little project to fill the gap in between. So expect something small and cute for our next video - but right now we have big, scary, moody, dark and expensive. Is it good? No. Is it interesting? Heck yes.

Bloodborne: The Board Game is not a fantastic game but it gets close. If you’re tickled by near greatness, this review delves into the whys and hows.

Project: Elite Review

Let’s face it, we’re not the target audience for this game. NPI has always been a staunch resistor of “Big Kickstarter,” and upon initial glance, this is one of the genre’s naffer offerings. Generic theme? Check. Generic minis? Check check check check check. But any ol’ cardboard doesn’t just get featured in an NPI review so maybe there’s something hiding behind the plastic.

Project: Elite is a real time dice chucking madness simulator where every second you feel like you’re on fire - and trust me, you won’t have time to check whether that fire’s coming from an alien’s mouth or your own gun accidentally pointed at you. Appropriately, Project: Elite isn’t a game of high stakes action - it’s a game of foibles and a comedy of errors.

So let your guard down for a moment and let this plastic wash over you as we tell you why exactly is it that maybe, against all odds, this game won over our hearts.

Forgotten Waters Review

You might have never heard about them, but let me tell you, pirates are cool! Well, not real pirates. Real pirates are… boy this suddenly turned. Fantasy magical pirates are cool. You know, the ones more about adventure and ridiculous consequences? Sign me up for some of those non-real life magical pirates, PLEASE. And do it quickly because this intro has gone really awkward.

Forgotten Waters is by far not the first pirate game to hit the… waters but so very rarely do they float. Which is why I’m incredibly delighted to tell you that in a rare occasion, this one doesn’t just float - it paddles! Watch our review for more.

This video was sponsored by Skillshare.

Cloudspire Review - 50% Genius, 70% Disaster

Oh no, there he goes again bashing another big Kickstarter board game, you might say. And you know what, you would be right. Cloudspire is so big and so indestructible (no, really) that it can take a big swing. But here’s the trick, frequently if you give large containers filled with various bits a good bashing - things will fall out. And sometimes those things might be amazing. So let’s see if this Kickstartosorous will leave a nugget of gold after you sift through it.

Tainted Grail Review

After 7th Continent we did not think we’d be intrigued in seeing another ‘continent composed of cards on your table’ open world board game but here we are. Better sharpen your scythes as you take on the role of hapless villagers trying to unravel a world-ending mystery so “dark” it’ll give Vantablack a run for it’s money.

Tainted Grail is everything “Kickstarter board games” but hyperbolized. The scope? If you want to finish this beast and have time to play some other board games in your life - better take all your annual leave at once. The bling? Let’s not mince words because Awaken Realms does not mince plastic - it’s all truly gorgeous. The cost? Actually, forget other board games - if you bought this - you can no longer afford them. Whether you should buy it is another matter altogether.

Tapestry Review

Tapestry! When you lose control and you get no bonus,

Tapestry! When the resource’s gone and you can’t go on it’s hard to be….

Wait, put down that pitchfork - this was a fine homage to a horrible song and admit it - deep down in your heart you liked it. Just like I had to admit that deep down in my heart I liked Tapestry, a civilization themed game that asks you to go up four tracks that will propel you as high up as space (and other human achievements). But, my oh my, I don’t think everyone will enjoy this trundle through history and as always, the hardest job falls on us - helping you figure out which camp you’re going to be on before you hit ‘purchase.’

Pax Pamir Review

Frequently, before the publishing of this review, we got messages from our viewers expressing hope. As in, they hoped we would like this game. Let us say right now, Pax Pamir is a game like no other. Job done. Why even watch the video?

What we mean by “like no other” is that it’ll astound like no other, envelop like no other and confound like no other. It’s not uncommon to expect reviewers to dish out verdicts, but we see our job less as judges and more as guides. So if you’d like to know whether Pax Pamir is for you, then go on. Click that play button.

Batman: Gotham City Chronicles Review

Here he comes, here comes the Batman - he’s a demon on wings. And he’s gonna sell you a big box of plastic. Just before we rush off to UK Games Expo we want to leave a little review we have made for you of a teeny tiny game about a caped crusader and his, as it turns out by counting all the other miniatures in the box, seventeen thousand friends and enemies.

And since this is quite a long video, we’ll just let it do the talking. Hope you enjoy the review!

Gen 7 Review

It is a well known rule of physics that in campaign games nobody can hear you scream. But I’ll tell you what - Gen7 doesn’t care about physics. It’s big, loud and it’s barrelling down your door, yelling at the top of it’s lungs: “love me, for I am all that is cool.” Sequel to Dead of Winter? Check. Campaign game? Check. Sealed envelopes? Check. Replayable? Check. It’s like a board game by Gucci if Gucci was still fashionable (I mean, I have no idea, maybe Gucci IS still fashionable - fashion experts - let us know).

But it’s not until a board game has been through the NPI gauntlet can we truly find out if it is actually hip or whether it is just a hipster. Want to know more? Only one way to find out.

Discover: Lands Unknown Review

One small step for man, one giant leap for cardboard. It turns out that identical components are so yesterday and 2018 is the dawning of unique games, lovingly handcrafted by the modern dominant sentient life force - the algorithm. Here at NPI we always welcome our new overlords so we were more than excited to dissect the very first unique board game (technically first, as KeyForge is a trading card game) only partially created by humans. Make room! Make room! For it is truly a sight to behold.