Board Game Review: Android

Since I put so much work into this, I thought I'd repost it here in case anyone (hah!) would like to read it.

It's a review of a very large and complicated board game by a large and very successful company called Fantasy Flight Games. This game is called Android and sees the players take the roles of detectives investigating a conspiracy and murder against the background of a dystopian future (think Blade Runner meets Space 1999).

The game takes place over two "weeks" (of six turns each, making 12 turns in total)

In these two weeks players assign guilt, uncover the conspiracy all the while playing cards to help themselves and hinder their opponents.

Much of this is spent moving to certain places seeking out leads, which you can assign to the conspiracy or murder suspects.

The conspiracy is discovered in the form of a rather ingenious puzzle that shows a maze of connections, where the links show which persons are involved.

I include it here more for the quality of the writing than trying to get anyone to play with me.

Click the link for the whole thing

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I hope I can convey in this review what a game of Android is like and how it works. I also wanted to show you, from experience, how each game can be affected fundamentally by its most ingenious feature - the conspiracy puzzle.

My lofty aim is that this review can be followed and understood not only by those thinking of buying this game who have already done some research but also by those they intend to play it with (who may know nothing). I hope I can achieve this in general enough terms that we avoid a rulebook rehash,

Also, I am bolding certain sections of the post to show the "highlights"

I'm now up to 4 games played of Android and am loving it!

CAVEAT: I would recommend, from experience, that you don't try and teach four players at once! At least not while trying to play as well.

What I am currently liking a lot is how the different investigators are forced, due to their strengths and weaknesses, to take sometimes very different approaches to winning. Though I have never won

I was also impressed (as you'll see) by how despite the killing of one of their suspects in two consecutive games, the (same) winner still adapted and came out on top.

To people who don't know much about the game, I will explain its structure in very general terms. This next section is partially adapted from an email I sent to someone to see if they wanted to play.

================The Game itself - what is it?==================

Android is a game that, like many others, uses the universally accepted all-purpose nebulous currency of Victory Points (VPs).

The winner of the game is the player with the most VPs at the end of the game. (well, duh!)

The trouble is, every turn you have a very limited amount of time to do things - usually allowing for a total of 6 "time" points. The task you have is to use your time well enough to score many points, while fighting off other players traps and roadblocks.

Your characters have a lot of personal stuff to use and think about - a guilty and an innocent hunch to prove, their own stories you live through during the game, and two decks of cards, one that helps them, and one that hurts them.

The detail of the plots, cards and how they work is unnecessary for a review like this, but I think it's worth taking a look at how you can get those all important victory points.

There are three points scoring methods;

1. endings to plots (between -10pts and 14pts),
2. having the right hunches (0pts if unsuccessful to 25pts if both guilty and innocent is correct),
3. picking up tokens from three places (Haas and Jinteki token 3vp each, conspiracy line completions 4vp each).

Aside from scoring for completed lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal sets of five) the conspiracy puzzle does something even more crucial - it can modify any or all the other points scoring methods by anything from 1vp extra up to potentially (though a not practical or likely outcome) a massive 16vp extra. It can also make things that are worthless except in exchange (the favours) crucial to victory.

=======So this puzzle is the key to everything?======

Not always, but perhaps.... the cool thing about the puzzle is you can only do it if you forgo your right (and time) to do something else important (namely work toward your hunches) - Android is a game where you have very limited time resources to do everything.

You can't afford to ignore the conspiracy though.

FWIW, I think the puzzle can easily be underestimated as a force in the game. Even if you don't want to spend time on it, rest assured that it will affect the outcome of the game significantly if someone else does.

To show this fully, take a look at how it affected our last two games.

=========================Last Weekend==========================

The conspiracy puzzle was defining in both games this last weekend, but in very different ways - take a look and see why.

In the game I played Saturday the conspiracy was complete by turn 4 - everyone wanted some of those crucial 4VP tokens - and the outcome of the conspiracy ended up benefitting the eventual winner most - who crucially had his Guilty Hunch killed off in the process.

The way the conspiracy does this well is that depending on the connections different things become important in different games. In this game it was Street favours - where else could you gain 3VP a turn for just 2 time? Nowhere! They soon ran out.

The other fascinating fact here was that thanks to all those connections, the Innocent hunches came out worth a full 11pts each, as opposed to the 5 they usually are.

Since Guilty Hunches were only worth 17, the conspiracy drastically reduced the points swing between guilty and innocent hunches (there's usually a ten point gap), leading to higher scores and a closer run result (1st Position had 56, 2nd 55 and third 53 - fourth btw had 45. Less said about 5th the better (-7!!!!)) I was third (behind my brother AND my wife, which shows the accessibility of this since Mrs Algo is only an occasional gamer) despite having the guilty hunch!

How did I only come third when I had the highest scoring thing, Guilty hunch, in the game - you may ask? It wasn't because I'm incompetent! Honest!

This was because my innocent hunch was the guy who had been killed (D'OH!), meaning I had lost those 11 points (though bro would still have won if he'd managed to keep him alive and guilty)

By contrast, in the second game I played, with three detectives on Sunday, with some of the same players (mum and bro) the conspiracy was virtually "pointless" though it led to the killing off of the eventual winners innocent hunch, and only Jinteki tokens had four extra points. What Raymond (me) was able to do, was bluff people into chasing Political favours (worth four each for most of the game) and on the last turn, turned the relevant conspiracy piece around and blocked off the relevant link meanign that their hard earned political favours were now worthless! I also totally monopolised the 4vp tokens by leaving no legal placement spaces for pieces very early on (about turn four).

I appreciate that without reading all the cards one won't know this last move could happen, and no-one knew it was coming, but it serves to underline the effect the conspiracy can have on final scoring. (1st place 35pts, 2nd 31pts, 3rd 16pts)

(another cool thing that happened in this game was that an event reduced our "time points per turn" by one for most of the second week. This meant our plans had to be changed on the fly)

=====Get to the point now, Algo!=====

The fact I still came second in the second game despite totally controlling the puzzle shows the flexibility and multiplicity of paths to victory in this great game - and the three player game came in at under three hours. I think this will see more play than TI:3 in terms of gaming hours!

Oh, and about that -7 score in the first game. That was my mum's score (and is a sad indictment of my teaching) BUT she still enjoyed the game enough that it was her suggestion we play again on Sunday. That game she got 16 (and would have had 28 save for my last turn butchery of her points with the conspiracy). I put this down to the fact that Rachel Beckmann appears to be a very tough character to play with rather than any particular poorness on mum's part. This detective seems to have it rough at virtually everything and her money vps didn't make up for it.

On the whole, I was very please I managed to teach the game to four people at once (on Saturday) with mostly success (sorry mum) and this was a hugely fun weekend, with games of Shadows Over Camelot, Princes Of Florence and BSG as well. Just a great, great weekend.

AND I got a Curry one night as well. Does life get any better?

==========Alright, alright. But is the game any good?=========


It REALLY deserves a look. I appreciate many will find themselves unhappy with some of its mechanisms and its harshness with "take that" methods of winning, but if you let it, it can become a fantastic way to spend your time.

Plus, it feels to me like, while playing Android, you are actually playing three or four games (a card game, a race to complete the puzzle, evidence placement and plots) all of which are interconnected. The three to four hour running time doesn't really hurt that much given this fact. Sure, you could play four to six games of Shadows over Camelot in the same time as a five player game of Android - my advice would always be DO BOTH!

Then I think about how you have 5 murders (or, minor rule changes to give it the boring explanation) to try out and five very different characters to play as.

While games are even more expensive than ever, and the economy is so bad I think this big box has ALREADY given me value for money at £8 a game or so, since a movie costs about that much.

=========Hmm, interesting, but it sounds complicated========

My advice to new players is not to get hung up on winning the first game so much. There's so much going on you'll get a headache and won't enjoy it.

I've never been too hung up on winning anyway (lucky, really!)) and I don't think anyone who views games as a social and fun activity can get too upset if their first game is a little unsuccessful points-wise (like mum!))

Take it easy and it'll all become clear, on average, about turn four. If you are really insistently unhappy at the disadvantage your mates may let the game be restarted and you can really go for it then.

If not - don't worry, just have fun. It's a fairly forgiving system so long as you keep an eye on your baggage (and remember draws are bad, just like in SoC).

================Wrap it up, half the audience are asleep!============

I'm very impressed with Android - I think everyone should give it a go, it is clear it does not work for everyone and that's fine, but everyone I have tried it with had a good time and got something out of it.

On a personal level, I am pleased with the variety, the value for money side and replay value.

I highly recommend it.

A

P.S. Thanks for reading and I hope whatever your views on Android or my review, your games are always as fun and memorable as this has clearly been for me. All the best!