Far Off Games Xia: Legends of a Drift System

NOTE: If you don't care for dice rolling/luck games, this might not be the game for you. If you like not knowing the future and live in a reality where anything is possible, carry on..This game is simply fantastic. I got my copy. I unboxed it. I "ooh'ed" and "ahh'ed" at the superb quality of everything from the tiles to the miniatures. Then I started reading the rule book. The first thought that went through my mind was "Dear gawd, what did I just get myself into?". It's confusing at first and there's a lot to take in what with the rolling for chance, rolling for damage, rolling for defense, or figuring out when you can take certain actions. Honestly, once you get past the initial shock it's actually quite simple. My group sat down for our first go with Xia and fumbled our way through it, pausing every few minutes to re-read rules to make sure we were playing correctly. After 5 or 6 rounds it started to click. We made it to the 5th fame point to finish the starter game (by "we" I of course mean me, the ultimate and glorious winner of the Universe) and decided unanimously to move the marker up to the 10 point spot (which I won at again, btw) to continue playing only to move it up again. It was about an hour later that the marker was at the 20 point spot (It was a while before this that I was humiliated by more than one death at the hands of my counterparts for being an utterly sore winner). We couldn't stop playing. Everyone was having too much fun.I've read in others' reviews of this game that down-time in between turns is an issue for some. We really didn't notice, as part of the game - as it should be in any tabletop multiplayer experience - is the story you build as you play. Granted, this is also a group that will play 5-6 hour long 6 player Magic: The Gathering games with horribly wrong house rules, so we're probably acclimated to downtime anyway. Oh and then there's alcohol, but that's another adventure.As for the game play, the one thing you might notice missing is narrative or story. This game does not tell you a story. It won't educate you on it's canon (it has none). It won't even suggest how you should play - you decide this completely. If you want to be the mad marauder that hunts down anyone with the purple cargo cubes just because that was your ex's favorite color - that's the law and you can live by it. If you choose to set the parking break and admire the view for a few turns smugly atop the one sector your opponent needs to sell his full cargo hold just 'cause, do it. This game is truly sandbox, with well defined rules of engagement, but you make the story. I love this aspect of it.Starting out I would recommend that if you move from 3 players to more, be sure at least one or two people understand the rules and turn steps. If you jump in with a bunch of new players it will take a while to catch them up and get the game moving smoothly. Once you get up and running and everyone understands the mechanics enough to start forming strategies, you can then introduce the NPC and Title mechanics - these only add to the value of the game by making more happen in the system. I can't wait to see what comes out in the way of expansions - so many possibilities to add to this already awesome game.There is an excellent video on Youtube that describes the majority of the games mechanics in under 12 minutes.http://youtu.be/k3nhdrBKZ1EPros:- Every piece of artwork, miniatures, cards, credits, all of it is absolutely beautiful. You are most definitely getting your money's worth in the quality alone.- Randomized sectors during play makes the strategies change from game to game - a "can't lose" strategy doesn't work the next game.- Every ship has unique ability - you keep the old abilities at tier 3 ships - makes for many different combinations of specialization- Flexible game duration- Modding community encouraged by the games designer - make your own ships/abilities/missionsCons:- The ship mats warp when you unwrap them - not a game stopper but definitely annoying. It's said pressing them under heavy books will sort them out- Downtime - for people used to fast games, they'll notice it. For people used to alcohol induced humor, maybe not- Only one set of the several dice needed to play - it's a little annoying to pass them all around or lose track of one, but dice are cheap at least.

I came into this game not knowing much about it. Amazon just suggested it to me one day and I thought it sounded fun enough to take a chance on it. Overall I think the game is amazing. It's fun and there's lots of ways to win from being a pirate to helping stranded players to being a merchant. This is because you aren't winning because you're building a fortune or anything; you win by becoming famous.If I had to describe the game in 3 words that would be "Firefly the game". You start out by picking one of the 6 tier one ships. The amount of free space and the layout of that space varies from ship to ship, and each ship has a special ability associated with it that you can use once per round. You then get 3k credits and a chance to buy outfits before the game starts. These outfits are Engines, Shields, Blasters, and Missiles. Each outfit comes in 3 different tiers and they all vary in size and shape with the higher tiers being larger. You buy your upgrades and fit them into the free space on your ship mat. Whatever spaces you don't fill with outfits can be used to store cargo for selling.As you complete missions, buy/mine cargo and sell it, claim bounties on other players for their nefarious deeds, or earn money by exploring the map you build up money and can eventually upgrade to a larger ship. There are a total of 3 tiers of ship and every time you upgrade, you get to keep the ability of the previous ship.QualityThe quality of the materials in the game really made it stand out to me upon opening the box. The tiles are a thick and sturdy cardboard that isn't going to just fall apart any time soon. The game currencies are real metal chips. This may not seem like much, but when you're holding a handful of credits, it feels like you're really holding money; it just feels good and shows a real strive towards quality. The miniatures could be painted better, but the quality of them is good. They don't feel fragile like in a lot of other games I've played. And if you don't like the paint jobs you can always repaint them yourself. Your resources consist of small colored plastic cubes, very reminiscent of the viruses in Pandemic. I think it's easier than dealing with a bunch of cardboard tokens that could fray at the edges due to all the handling.Attention to DetailAs a fan of board games and miniature games in general, there were a few small things that I noticed which really made the game appear to be made by someone who has a true love of board games. Slots in the in-box insert to store your credit chips. A baggie of extra baggies so that you could divvy up your markers however you wanted to speed up setup and tear down of the game and make organization more to your liking. A ton of extra flight stands which your ship sits on when you're playing. These things aren't the most fragile things ever, but it's still possible that you could accidentally break or lose them considering they're clear plastic. There are so many extra flight stands included, that I don't see how you could ever possibly lose enough of them by accident to not be able to play.Learning CurveThere is a lot you can do in this game and when it's your turn you can keep taking actions until you run out of things to do. There are also several ways you can win. As a direct consequence of this, it can be a little overwhelming at first as to what you should do. Especially when someone who has never played before is outfitting their ship before the game starts and has no idea what to buy. However, in the games that I've played, it only takes a few rounds for everyone to become comfortable with the rules so that play speed starts to pick up.RandomnessThis keeps the game fresh and re-playable along with the different ship configurations and roles you can play. However, the randomness can also make things feel unfair sometimes. The game board consists of a series of tiles, and as you explore the map, you place new tiles. So you don't know how the map will be laid out until it's revealed. This can also more easily lead to situations where a planet that is selling one cargo which is directly next to a planet that is buying that cargo. As selling cargo is one of the ways to amass Fame Points which are needed to win the game, this can lead to a situation that some might see as unfair. But if it bothers your group, then simply make a house rule amending the situation.SummaryI can't recommend this game enough. The length is variable as you can simply agree on how many Fame Points are needed to win the game. With a group of people that know how to play, a low point game could be over in 30 minutes. Or you could play a full 20 point game and have a few hours of fun with friends.