f13.net

Fuck, but this viral marketing is over the top.

I have not had a chance to play it yet, but Season 0 (really season 3, but a prequel) is out.  So far the reviews are that it is amazing. 

It's sitting in my living room. Just chilling. It'll hit the table probably tonight or tomorrow.

Tried the prologue.

Liked it.

The mechanic of building vans then driving them around doing shit gives the game a bit more arc than regular pandemic. You sort of develop resources like a normal pandemic game, but you also then get to use them.

The character that can drive vans three spaces instead of one seems pretty important.

Don't like the new outbreak mechanic. You draw a card to determine the effect rather than putting more bad tokens in the adjacent cities. Feels too random.

Have you folks played?  As good as the hype?  Or not as good as advertised?

We're a few months in.

It is good.

It seems easier than the last two, you have to work for each win, but so long as you plan properly it seems more solvable.

I really like the arc of each game. You find yourself having more of a strategy than just 'ARRGH PUT OUT THE FIRES BEFORE WE DIE'. There is a bit more room to work out a plan to win one step at a time.

Also, make someone take the occupation that let's you drive vans fast. It is just flat out necessary.

We finished this.

Reinforced my early view.

It is very good. But possibly an overreaction to the reception of season 2.

My going in advice would be don't worry at all about the story elements, the game is completely on rails and has very strong automatic stabilisers if you screw up. This is the opposite advice I'd give for season 1 and 2.

That said the individual puzzles are one of if not the best pandemic variant I've played.

The varying combinations of objectives set interesting prioritisation puzzles, and it is certainly the fairest. If you approach it right, understand pandemic and plan properly you are very unlikely to lose games to luck.

Character development is really nice, by the end your guys feel  powerful, you start to spot fun combos within your own character and with others. Only quibble is that the 'alias' system is good but the cost of an action to switch alias feels punishing.

The pandemic I now want is a season 1 second edition, with the search mechanic replaced by the equivalent in season 0, and the disguise stickers to use on your characters.

Thanks for the review. We've still got Season 2 to handle before Season 0, but we're excited that we'll tackle it one day.

Season 2 my one piece of advice would be not to ignore optional goals that push the story on and make progress toward an overall win. You have to treat 'months left' as a resource, and push on each time. The game doesn't give you enough feedback that this is the case imo.

Experience on season 2 seems to vary a lot. I enjoyed it, but very aware that the feeling that we really could screw something up might only have been fun because we didn't screw something up.