So, I did that thing and I think I’ll do it again.
As part of my planning for doing the thing (creating solo boardgame playthrough content on YouTube, that is), I came up with a number of gimmicks fun ideas to, hopefully, create some interest.
One of them was to have a recurring series on Spirit Island.
“Well, lots of channels have had series on Spirit Island. How does that make you special?”
– you, asking rhetorically
It doesn’t, really. But if it did, it might be because I’ve played Spirit Island a total of 1.5 times. Once over a year ago (maybe 2 years ago?). And another time last night (sort of, but I’ll get to that). Total n00b status, to be honest. The ‘half a time’ I mention was cut short when I scrapped the game because I made too many mistakes; most of which being the one rule I can never seem to remember, “blight removes 1 presence of each spirit in that land” (I struggled with this last night as well, but I think I caught them all and it didn’t impact the result of the game).
So, my idea is, then, that my Spirit Island series will be a journal, in some ways, of my progression through Spirit Island’s vast array of content. Ideally, it will be full of ups and downs as I grapple with new spirits, adversaries and scenarios, eventually overcoming them and moving on.
Tentatively, the series title may be “Spiritual Succession”. Or maybe “That’s the Spirit!”. I’m still working on that part.
Well, anyway. Last night I did a trial run with the camera setup and component layout. My camera quality is still pretty bad, so it’s a bit of a struggle to get things framed so they can be read. Especially since I decided to start my series with Horizons of Spirit Island and that quad-fold board takes up a lot of table space; not only more than the original game’s modular components would, but in an inflexible arrangement that demands more than half of the frame to be easily parsed.
Using mostly Horizons components, I pitted Fathomless Mud of the Swamp and Sun-Bright Whirlwind in a two-handed battle against the standard scenario (or, non-scenario?). Horizons comes with the same cards as the base game (updated for clarification and wording in some cases, so I have retired my base game cards, for everything except the Blight Cards, as Horizons does not provide any of those).
I did, however, use the wooden and plastic components from the base game rather than the cardboard huts (because they are lovely components), explorers, towns and cities.
My first impressions of the Mud Otters (Fathomless Mud of the Swamp) was that they might be pretty dull. I was expecting Sun Cats (Sun-Bright Whirlwind) to be an exciting and dynamic spirit. Interestingly, I found the actuality to be the opposite. Sun Cats spent most of their time boosting the Otters; pumping energy, or simply corralling the invaders into one place that the Otters could wreak havoc upon. The Otters ended up having quite a bit of personality; throughout the game, I could imagine cheeky mires of swamp mud shifting this way and that swallowing up explorers and towns while safely shepherding the Dahan out of the way.
In classic Spirit Island style, from what I’ve heard, I would look at the board after each Invader phase and think, “omg, how am I going to deal with this?” and before the next Invader phase, half the board or more would be clear of foreign presence.
I took a surprising Terror Level 3: No Cities on the island victory before the first of the 3rd stage Invader card could Ravage – I suppose, then, that I won pretty handily as I had plenty of time remaining. A couple of turns prior, I was very close to achieving the Terror Level 2 victory condition, save for 2 towns that I just couldn’t reach due to blight downgrading a couple of key Sacred Sites.
I really struggled with the Cats to keep presence on the board due to the card and energy economy I was balancing with them along with presence. There are some tempo nuances to consider with the Cats that might be interesting to investigate; but probably next time with either a more offensive or more defensive co-spirit.
The Otters were just a blast to play; they feel, at the same time, extremely slow, but also very pacey. Though, if the Cats hadn’t been around to provide the energy flow needed, the Otters likely would have struggled much more.
Anyway, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, I expect to be starting my Spirit Island YouTube series in the next couple of weeks.