Biggun. Get ready.
My partner and I started a game of Atlantis Rising last night and polished it off this afternoon. It was a learning game for her, and a first full play for me. Right off the bat, the included 2P variant is outstanding and I donāt see a huge reason to rush toward multi-handing any time soon. Itās dead easy to implement, gives a taste of all the powers in the game, and seems to be scaled just beautifully. Also the piece for the hologram is really awesome and itās fun to have it on the table.
Anyway, we played with the beginnerās suggested setup and managed to succeed. We will certainly make subsequent attempts using at least the standard setup and difficulty settings, but the game wasnāt short on chills and spills; it was only by the (end of) the second to last turn that we were mostly certain we had it in the bag, and our island was in pretty rough shape. Thankfully we had done a good job protecting the gold peninsula (our only missing resource for the final component builds) and we were able to just throw handfuls of Atlanteans into the mines for one final big push.
We opened the portal with three of six peninsulas down to their final tiles, two with only two (but each protected with barriers), and a mostly untouched gold coast thanks to our big final push (spared no expense!). We figure another round would have pretty much sunk us (yuk!) since we completely blew our wad on the final push, but it was more than adequate to get the job done.
Breezy gameplay, huge tension and escalation, fun choices usually requiring risks taken, big groans when it all goes wrongā¦ Iām not sure Iām prepared to pile on the heaps of praise the game has received, but it was a whole bunch of fun. Definitely into the keeper pile.
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Later on this afternoon I was able to complete my game of Cloudspire, in a decisive 3-star victory (reminder this was the tutorial scenario). Hilariously I had to praise the Spires Attack phase, as I had ended my final turn such that my key heroāwith one HP!āwas in range of the last minionās fire. Thankfully the bloody thing was on its last HP as well, and since it was just on the edge of my only spireās range, I was able to knock it out before it had a chance to fire. This would have lost me the game entirely so I had to laugh through a little sweat.
Total playtime ran about four hours with lots of interruptions. Not bad for the complexity here, and it feels like things will run a lot quicker next time provided I stick to the same faction, which is the plan. My nose was stuck in two manuals and four reference sheets pretty much the entire time though, so Iām not even going to pretend it wasnāt a slog. I wouldnāt call it any heavier than Too Many Bones, however. It has a similar structure whereby the underlying mechanisms running the show are reasonably simple to understand and internalize, but then you pile on an encyclopaedic list of special abilities and powers, game shaking events, deeply asymmetric factions, and the swathes of edge cases all of it presentsā¦ I mean itās all a bit masochistic but Iāll be damned if it isnāt just an incredible time.
So far, this is really hitting all the same buttons I got with Too Many Bones while addressing all of my personal criticisms of the solo experience. Iām gobsmacked. I canāt get back to this soon enough.
Vikings always remain barbarians and Arthurians go questing while Atlanteans just sink below the see as an empire never being barbariansā¦
Glad you are enjoying the game. I should really get a few games in. And everyone makes rules mistakesā¦
rolling 