It's a game about survival in a range of different environments. Each biome has its own challenges and environmental effects. Each box comes with two of the potential six regions that are available.The balance of resources is key on each board. On top of that there is a plot. Each scenario has a story which unfolds as the exploration takes place. After playing the game this seems to make it a nice touch but I can't say too much without giving the plot away.
Concepts about survival within the game seem pretty sound although not especially detailed. Obviously you need the basics but gear can be made and what you scavenge is important. It concentrates on food and water but seems to bypass shelter altogether. I would have thought that shelter would have played a bigger part but I guess that must interfere with the need to push the players into exploration.
As cooperative games go, it is cooperative light. Sticking together is better but not essential every turn. Players are prone to doa resource grabb but then try to help each other out. The end game is less cooperative apparently. I haven't got there yet so I can't really comment. There is a more cooperative variant published
The game is hard. Having played it twice the trend seems to be towards getting there but as a team we have failed to beat it twice. I am not sure if that is because we have gotten better but it is probably more likely the second time we played there were three players rather than two, giving us more actions to start with and a lot more per turn.
Each environment is tough. The biomes have slightly different resources and the mix of what out have represents what you might find there. This makes tactics that seem to kind of work in one area won't always work in the other. It's a nice feature, and along with the level of challenge make the games interesting enough to be replayable. Every day the situation varies a little. The trend is such that things tend to get more problematic as times go by and the amount of stamina you get is determined by the cards. This makes planning an entertaining process which may end up being a waste of time unless you work on the worst case scenario.
The blurb tells me that each game is unique. This is probably true, statistically speaking. Although there are a range of board and cards, it seems likely to me that in order to make the game work, the cards need to have a relatively similar split. So, whilst there are way more variations than I would care to name, the variations are geared up to work together. It's more like different shades than different colours.
Typically I buy games for two reasons, it's either because it's a genre I really like or it's an idea I kind of like that seems like it might be fun and has a good rating on Board Game Geek. At rank 4151 (at this moment although I remain hopeful) his game is definitely in the former category. This is not a fair representation and the game (assuming you like the genre) is a fun game to play and it is still fun even when you lose.
Sounds like a fun game, I'll check it out.
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