Oh dear… I bounced off this so hard. (In slow-motion though, because the game lasted 4.5 hours.)
The tournament is actually tomorrow, but there were a bunch of copies to play today, so I thought I should give myself a foot in the door and get to grips with it beforehand. I withdrew my name from the tournament as soon as we’d finished playing – by that point I’d had more than enough GWTNZ for one weekend.
It’s just too much… the sheer quantity of iconography was appalling, and for the entire duration of the game I could barely take a turn without the aid of the reference manual to try to figure out what on earth any of my available options would actually do. Even if I’d taken those actions before, it would all be a mystery again the next time. I just had no idea how to approach anything, and that’s fine in general with new games – I expect it – but I could envisage it easily taking four full games to start to get my head around it all; and if that means 12-15 hours playing a game just to start to feel I have a semblance of understanding of how to play… Nuh uh. Not doing that.
And the idea of ever trying to teach this… brrr…
The other two players had some experience with other GWT games (albeit not a lot), and they didn’t struggle the same way that I did; but even the winner (who had virtually doubled my score with what seemed like a very solid engine) repeatedly expressed that it was too complicated.
I’m sure it’s a good game in loads of ways, and I imagine lots of people will grok it quickly and love it; but I greatly regret trying it. Surely my least enjoyable day at any Wellycon. I look forward to tomorrow being a marked improvement. I’m expecting to play some games with an old work colleague for starters, as well as checking out Regicide Legacy, so things can really only improve.