Episode 11 - Nemesis: Not-Stromo

In this bumper episode of Board With Each Other, Al & Hannah review the smash hit semi co-op survival horror Nemesis through our normal lens - namely how well does it play with 2? 

We discuss its ability to tell an immersive story, the difference between playing it co-operatively or semi co-op and wax lyrical about a pretty spectacular set of components. We also remember fondly the time Hannah got surprised in the showers by an intruder queen. Remember folks - always bring a fire extinguisher!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Board With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that looks at gaming through the lens of playing as a couple, or with a regular two-player buddy, or with uh some poor sod you're stuck on a spaceship with and you just need to pass the time until the aliens eat you. I'm Al Simpson, and I'm joined as ever by my lovely wife, Player2, and co-host Hannah Kelly.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And today we are going to be looking at the semi-cooperative behemoth, that is Nemesis.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Behemoth is a good word.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, behemoth is a good word, I thought so. Um so Nemesis is played on a basically a map of interconnected corridors that represent a ship, and you take control of one of five, I want to say. Five characters that uh basically wake up from hypersleep on that ship to find a corpse of their crewmate in the room. And how gameplay works is you have a deck of cards, you draw five cards at the start of your turn, and every ability that you do in the game, every every sort of move that you make costs resources, and your resources are cards, so you can just guard cards to do things. And everything you do usually costs either one or two cards to accomplish. Some cards themselves are actions and some are free, but others you have to play a card and then pay for that card with other cards. Play goes back and forth between the between the players, in this case two players, uh until one of you, one or both of you passes. So that basically means you keep what cards you've got left in your hand, and you draw back up to five the next turn. The object of the game is completely dependent on the objective cards that you draw at the start of the game. Uh you start with two and you have to discard that down to one, so you basically need to pick what you're doing when the first alien appears on the map.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Not an alien.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Sorry, intruder. Intruder. They're nothing at all like the uh alien xenomorphs from Ridley Scott's Alien and Aliens, not at all completely different. Now we've got that out of the way, I will probably just call them aliens. Please don't sue me, Ridley. Um in essence, you have to survive, and you can do that by one of two ways. You can enter into a hyper sleep chamber, the hyper sleep chamber for whence you came, but if you do that, you need to make damn sure that the ship is A going to Earth and B has two out of its three engines working. If that doesn't happen, you die. The other way to survive is by entering an escape pod, which uh there's certain in-game triggers that allow the scale that they start the game locked. Um, they will become unlocked during the game when certain conditions happen. And if you enter an escape pod, then it doesn't matter what the state of the ship is.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Just floating around in space, waiting for some sort of lonely space traveller to pick you up.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Exactly, which is exactly what happened to uh Ripley and so on.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Not in the film Aliens, because it's nothing like aliens.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, yeah, no, nothing like aliens. Um the aliens themselves, the intruders, appear when you move between locations on the board, everything that nothing on the map is revealed to start with, so you don't know what what you're getting into basically. The the rooms are split into sort of level one and level two rooms. All level one rooms appear in every game, so they're all definitely there. The level two rooms are slightly more interesting mechanically, mechanical-wise, but not all of them are played every game, so it's it's a bit random. When you move between the rooms, the corridors, you roll a dice to see how much noise you make, and that usually results in you putting noise markers in adjacent and sometimes all adjacent corridors. If you make noise and you roll the dice and it ends up at a corridor that already the noise has already been made, you reach into the bag of fun, that is the intruder bag, and you will pull out different uh levels of intruder, ranging from uh look- yeah, a blank, uh, to uh small larvae, which are uh not face huggers at all.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Then you get they do kind of hug your face.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

They do hug your face and they do impregnate you with aliens, but they're not face huggers, guys. Not face huggers. Uh then you have uh creepers, which are sort of in between a larvae and a full-grown adult, which is the most common type, and then you have our friend the queen.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Breeders.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Uh yeah, you also have another type called breeders, but they only happen through particular mechanics in the game. You don't start with them in the bag. Umce your turn's over and you pass, you in typical sort of co-op game fashion, you have an encounter card where bad stuff happens. Uh, any aliens on the map will sort of move around and attack. If you they attack, you have a separate deck of cards for their attacks, which denotes whether they hit or miss, and if they do hit, what happens then?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Always bad stuff. Always bad.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, it's always bad stuff. Um and essentially you you run around searching for supplies, trying to get the ship in working order, and pray you survive. Where the game gets really interesting is in its uh semi-co-op state, where a lot of the objectives actively require the death of crewmates, or you to do something that is not for the greater good necessarily. Um you cannot attack people directly, but there are loads of ways in the game that you can indirectly send people to their doom if you if you know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Or if you're like me, you just let me waltz around the board and walk into my own doom myself.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, sometimes I just let you do it to yourself, really. Um it is a game that is it is very much a horror game, and it is a game where you should go into it not expecting to survive. The fun of this game is not so much in the beating of it or the winning, it is in the emergence storytelling that comes out along the way. And I mean I'll get into this much more in the scoring, but it is one of the best examples of that type. Um, there's a lot more to the rules, but as it is a uh it's definitely on the heavy side, I won't go into too much rule detail. Perhaps a few things will come out during the actual review, but I think in in the interest of not making the speeding section and rules section too weighty, um, I think we'll sort of just leave it there and move on.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

In terms of running time, I have to say that it is massively variable. We had a game the other night that literally took us 20 minutes before um it all went horribly wrong.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I would say 20 minutes to two hours, depending on what happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah. 20 minutes is probably an unusual state.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, that is that is unusual.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

It all went very wrong.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

But yeah, I think if I had to average out the games that we played, excluding the extreme outlier, I'd probably say about an hour and a half to two hours tends to be the running time.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

This is an interesting one. This is one I had my eye on for quite a while, I think, because I uh uh uh absolutely adore anything Grim and Sci-Fi, so anything that's in the uh aliens and inverted commerce universe, uh, which it obviously is not, um, but anything along those lines appeals to me greatly. I love anything with a tinge of horror, I love uh cooperative, I especially love anything social in a game, so I I really bought this one more to have on the shelf to play with people when they did come round, or a few of our friends that are into board games more so than with each other, because I was aware before I got into this that it's probably not the best experience of two players, but I still wanted it very, very much. Um, and also miniatures. Uh, if you listen to the podcast before, you'll know I'm a I'm a miniature painter and I get very excited. The miniatures in this are top drawer. Um, so yeah, I th that we found it and we we took the plunge.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, I'd also point out that we got this as a discounted board game because there's a tiny little bit of damage to the box. I'm looking at the box now and I can't even work out what the damage is.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

No, we've never actually been able to work out why it was damaged.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Um, we've got a hefty discount on it, which was lovely.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

So again, because it is quite a pricey proposition if you get a proper new. And I guess it's probably one of the first like big smash Kickstarters. I mean, uh as we said before, we don't do Kickstarters, but if they if they interest me and they come to retail, I will obviously jump in. And this is probably one of the first big smashy Kickstarters aside from Gloomhaven, I think we we took the plunge on.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

So I'm quite a big horror afficiado um in all its forms, so I think I was when you explained the game and you kind of talked to me about it, I was definitely very keen on it. Um I think what I really loved about it in terms of its concept was the idea that you can be both cooperative but also have a competitive element. Now I've not I've not really seen that in games before.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Data Winter.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, actually well no, I don't I don't necessarily agree with that because Dead of Winter you've got a betrayer mechanism that actually at some point you are actively trying to make things harder for the whole camp and you do go outside. This is very different.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, it's been people out for themselves, kind of thing, as opposed to one versus many, necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And I think it really feeds off that idea of you know paranoia, and if you had just woken up and saw a dead crew mate, that actually there would always be that level of suspicion. And I think what's really fantastic is when you read the rule book, the first couple of pages are actually just a narrative about the captain. Um it is the captain, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah, it's the captain, and it's just a really fantastic way to kind of introduce you to that concept of that dual competitive slash co-op mechanism. And I just think it's a really beautiful example of that.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah, definitely. I I we haven't played many games in this genre. I think mainly because for the the majority of them absolutely like line in the sand require at least three people to play. Yeah. I think the difference was this one was like, oh, this is actually playable, the two players. Um we'll get into that. Because I think BSG may I would say BSG and Dead of Winter are are quite similar in their term of like you may or may not have a traitor in your midst kind of thing. Um and I guess this is the same. You may you if if if everybody decides not to be a traitor, then fine. But I mean we'll get onto this more later. Having played both sides of the coin, with you know, fully co-op where you're just playing objectives for the greater good and and semi-co-op, I don't know why a lot uh at least somebody in the room is gonna choose the bad one because it's it's more fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I think it's also worth mentioning that the first five or six times we played this, we played like solely just co-optive. Full co-op, we stripped out the um the portrayal mechanics. And then after that, because I think we wanted to learn the rules and understand the game, and then after that we we introduced it.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Um I think it's a real marmitey thing, though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, I think a lot of people I it it's it's that weird halfway house between co-op and competitive. And I think I I think there's a lot of people out there that play co-operative games because they don't like to be competitive, they they don't enjoy it. But I think with semi-co-op there's a real meanness that comes with it. Because I think if you're competitive, you you you're you're you show your colour straight away, you're playing against each other. In semi-co-op, you could pretend to be on somebody's side and you stab them in the back halfway through. And I think we delight in that. I think we we really enjoy that uh because we just like screwing with each other, basically. But I think there's a lot of people, particularly if you play as a couple, where that's gonna end in tears, it's not gonna be a nice experience, somebody's gonna feel very put out by it. Um, and I don't think it works for everybody. I think it, as you say, it is a bit marmighty.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

And yeah, you have that element, you can just strip it out. And I still think like the base game in itself, well, I mean, yeah, but we'll we'll get on to that.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

But there's rules for full co-op, like fully fledged rules for full co-op, it's not like a variant or anything like that. There's even cards, the objective cards are labelled as uh car-op or solo. You can play the game solo as well if that's your bag. Um but I yeah, that the you you you can you can pick a lane in that sense, and we have played several several games.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I think we'd always choose to play carp competitive.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, I'd never go back to carp after after playing competitive. I mean, I think we we're leading that way now. Shall we shall we get on to scoring?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

So I think there's quite a lot to talk about, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Okay, so we have uh two different categories within our scoring. So first we have the uh general gameplay, gameplay, and then we follow it up with talking about it specifically from a couple's perspective. So our can I just jump in here?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I just I want to give it I think for me in this one I want to give a bit of disclaimer. Where this first section, I try as hard as I can to be uh player agnostic, but I think this this is so affected by the player count that you're playing with that my scores in this first part are going to be geared towards it as a two-player game. We are a two-player podcast, and I think that's the way I'm going to approach it. I will mention talking, I will talk about playing it with more because we have, but I just want to give that little disclaimer at the start that that's the way I'm approaching this.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Okay, you do that. I have scored it according to the rules of Hannah, which is Okay, well nobody understands. I've scored it how I will.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

So yeah, sorry for my interruption.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right, so our first um uh category then is components. Well, you've started talking about miniatures already, so please do go ahead and wax a little rule about the miniatures some more.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I mean, just as a general package, this feels expensive, yo.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

But I mean it is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

It is expensive, but it feels it's not like you're paying a lot of money and not getting bang for your buck. Uh it's an expensive price point, but I would say it's the price point's probably about right. The the miniatures are exceptional. You've not painted them? I've not painted them yet, but that is a project for you know the next ten years. Um they are especially the uh intruderslash alien miniatures. They are if you if you're into miniatures, some of them are absolutely jaw-dropping.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

And all the adults are quite unique. There are a couple that I think are duplicates, but yeah, I think it's like very unique.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

I think it's eight, I think it's two of each, if I remember correctly. Um, it's just astounding. You put it on the table, it's just the thunk of this massive thing going down is so detailed, it looks incredible. Um, it comes with a fantastic organizer, which I always really like. Um, everything fits back in the box really nicely, and there are a lot of components. So the fact that everything fits back in the box neatly is is great. Um card to cards, you know. Um there's some really cool little quirks and things with it. Uh you you you have these cards that uh they're called infection cards, and they're basically you receive them when you take damage from the intruders. And you you get them in your deck and they basically just clog up your deck, but you don't know if you are actually infected with uh alien embryo or not. The way you find that out under certain circumstances is you have like this ye old 3D glasses viewer that you push the card into, and then it will show up whether you're infected or not. Um, which is just really funky and cool. Like, I love that kind of stuff. It's it's something so gimmicky but also just awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Um But I think that's and we'll come back to this later, it just feeds that paranoia, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, I mean that's paranoia about yourself, that's about the other person.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, because I mean what he hasn't explained to you is about in-game scoring, because just assuming that you both survive and you both end up in in pods destined for or spaceship destined for home, there are other scoring criteria afterwards, so whether you're infected or not, we're not gonna go into it, but actually whether you end up finishing the game with um contamination cards is is really pertinent.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It's already scoring, it's basically the last hurdle to get through to see if you survive or not, because you could do everything right, but you could still be in that escape pod with a lily in your belly, yeah, and it just fans. And then she's gonna get chest bursts at some point, and you're dead anyway. Um, but yeah, I mean uh again, back to composed, I I I think it's a phenomenal package. It looks great, it feels great, it's it it's it's really well designed.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Um, so yeah, I would echo all of that. What's also really lovely is I don't even know what you call them, but you know the little card holder things that you have that's got your number, so your player order on what are they called?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

I guess they'd be card holders, they're a little bit like if if people are unfamiliar, if you've ever played Scrabble disks. Yeah, if you've ever played Scrabble, the Scrabble deck, it's put like that, but a halt of cards, so you could basically keep your objective cards in view but hidden from the other players. Yeah. It also has a player number on this, and player numbers are really important in this.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Um, however, one of the things that really irritates me is it isn't quite large enough to fit your full deck of cards in your hand, and I quite like to put them all in there. And that's a little bit of a tiny bugbear. I'm pretty sure that's not what they're supposed to be used for. But that's what I like to use for.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

You decide to use them for something and then you're annoyed that it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Well, games developers, you need to you need to row test things on me first.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Um, but I think that's a really lovely idea. Um what I will say is in terms of actual game space that it takes up, we have a dining room table that can seat eight. It's still a squeeze.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah. Around. As far as table hogs go.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, because we also need the box with all the miniatures and all the bits in to be easily accessible, so we often put those on chairs.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

So it's definitely Yeah, it takes up a lot of space. So yeah, buyer beware if you if you make sure you have enough surface area to play this.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, I can see a lot of people playing this on a floor.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Because the board is massive, it is very big. Um, and there's a lot of other goblins that go around, whether there's all your tokens, there's your player mats, the cards that sit around above and below your player mats, there's an intruder mat. Um, it takes up a lot of room.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

And then on the flip, on on the but the back side of that is that then set up does take a while, however, it doesn't take as long as strip down.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

No, strip down takes longer. Strip down is yeah, strip down is a bit of a bug bay of mine.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah. Um, I think it's because the number of counters, so you have noise markers, you have damage counters, you have fire counters, you have malfunction markers.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

There's a lot to pick up and source.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

There's yeah, doors that you have to put down. There are still um things on the room that tell you what in the room what's in the room. So if you get a room of fire, that can happen. You can end up with a room of fire. I have died from being in a room of fire, but that just happened. That was the first one. So you've got all these very small, fiddly counters. So again, if you've got mobility issues in your hands and stuff like that, this is this is gonna be a real headache and a real bore for you. However, am I complaining? Nah, no, not really.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

I don't think it's any worse than Gloomhaven. No. If you packed away Gloomhaven, you kind of know what you're you're getting in for here. I I put it on sort of on a level of Gloomhaven, Arkham 2nd edition, that kind of very weighty lots of lots of stuff on the map at the end of the game put away thing. So yeah, it's it's it's a bit groan-inducing sometimes, particularly if you've had a 20-minute game.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Um spent more time that night setting up and stripping down than we did actually playing.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah, yeah. Um, which can happen.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Um I'm going to give this a nine because I think it's a fabulous package.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Um, the only reason I didn't give it a 10 is because set up and tear down is a little bit of a headache.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah. So one of the things that I've not talked about, and I didn't really know where this where this fitted, but I wanted to talk about the rule book.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Oh, yes. We've never really talked about rule books. And then there's a book.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

However, I feel like this game does deserve a special mention. And if you want, I can talk about it under complexity.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

No, let's talk about it now.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Alright, let's talk about it now. The rule book is shit.

unknown 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah. I've read a lot of game rule books. This one doesn't seem to follow any sort of progression logical sense that I've ever seen. You've got end game end game stuff is somewhere in the first fifth of the rule book. You've got things that are completely buried within other things. So whenever you need it's all very well when you're learning the game and you sort of read it through, but when you're trying to find something mid-game, it is a nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Well, we don't, we just have to go with Google. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Either Google or we printed off some some people on Board Game Geek have done some uh really like uh cool reference sheets so that shout out to them. I wish I had their names, but I don't. But shout out to them.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Maybe we'll link them in the street.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, shout out those guys because they've made our gaming a lot easier, but you need it for this, you need a reference sheet because that rulebook is a labyrinthine mess.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, I mean, and I just I just think that in terms of components, rule book is one of them.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Yeah, I haven't counted on my scoring, but yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

And I mean, well, aside of that, I'm gonna put it onto complexity. Yeah, so I mean, you know. Um that said, I scored it a seven, but then I remembered the first player counter was a cat in space, and I decided to score it an eight.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Uh ball game developers if you're paying any attention. If you want better scores from Hannah, just put cats in your game somewhere. Cats or plants? Um both. Yeah, or both, and get a ten.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Um and slightly wider scrabble dividers.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, don't do that, please. I don't know where we'd score them. Um okay, so seven and a nine. I mean, there's a difference between the the miniature obsession and not really there, I imagine, as well. So, yeah, take that into account. If you're really into minis, give it a nine, if you're not, give it a seven. Okay, so I think that's quite a need leading into complexity, then. So, as always, this is not judged on how complex a game is, but how well the complexity serves the gameplay.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

And so here's what I've learned. I watched I read the rule book and then I threw it out the window. And then I watched several YouTube videos, and we got some Some quick reference guides from the internet, and actually the gameplay is not as complicated as the rule book would make out.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Um, and I think when you first read the rule book, it feels impenetrable, uh uh uh impossible to understand and really difficult. Um, but actually after a few turns it all begins to make sense. One of the things that I will say about it is that each of the rooms that you encounter have different functions and different uses. Um so not only can you get resources from those rooms potentially, um, but you can also use those rooms. Yeah. So, for example, if you were in the showers, you could have a shower, providing it wasn't malfunctioning, you could have a shower and wash off any slime off of you.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah. Slime's a mechanical mechanic in the game.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Um you also need to use you rooms in order to complete your mission objective sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Sometimes, depending on what you got. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah. Um I think what I do find quite difficult about it is that I can't always necessarily work out what rooms I need to find in order to achieve my mission objectives or even just to achieve end game. And it took me quite a while to get my head around that. And even now, every time I enter a room, I have to look at the rules. There's a there's actually a quick reference sheet for that, which is which is quite handy. Um, and if you've got a betrayer mechanism, you need to be really subtle about it, you need to kind of work out what you're doing, you can't sit there pouring over the rooms trying to work out if this is what you need to do, and I find for me that makes it quite janky.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Maybe that's a me issue.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

No, I don't I don't think it is. I think while no single part of this game is more complex than you would find in most other medium to heavy ball games, there are a lot of different mechanisms. There are a huge number of moving parts in this game.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

And it's quite difficult to keep all of those different mechanisms and mechanics in your head at all times.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Particularly when you've got an alien breathing down your neck, trying to whip it you whip you with your tail, and possibly a face hugger, not a face hugger, trying to a face caresser.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Um yeah, it there there are a lot of mechanics. And I don't think they've managed to find a generalized sort of one size fits all. I think. What do I mean by that? I think for sometimes when I play very, very complex games, once you learn the core, everything kind of falls into place. But this is like a whole bunch of gears working at the same time. Where yeah, there's core mechanics, but there's there's mechanics on mechanics and mechanics, there's mechanics for the aliens attacking, there's mechanics for the aliens taking damage, there's a mechanic for making noise, there's a mechanic for your your aliens' resistances, there's a mechanic for eggs, there's a mechanic for getting infected, you know, and that that the illistener is not even a quarter of it. So it's just sort of system piled on system piled on system piled on system. And don't get me wrong, I like that.

unknown 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Because I like a really meaty, complex experience. Like, this is not me moaning about it, like, throw a million mechanics at me, that's fine. I'm an ex-Warhammer 40,000 player, I'm used to a 200 page rule book, like, I'm alright with that. I'm not. But I think you hit the nail on the head where you've got that, and this is what this this what this category is about. That number of mechanics can start to interfere with the flow of the game when you are trying to do something sneaky.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

I feel like we've played a lot of games of this now.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

And yet I still feel very much like we're referring to the rules and we're referring to play not player sheets, uh like crib sheets.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

We do more than most other things we play. Most other things that we play. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

That flow has never developed. And I think, and we'll get on to this, when it's a game that you are so inhabiting what's actually happening on the boards. It pulls you out of it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Which is you've which is precisely my issue with it in this category. It's not a deal breaker level issue for me. Um, but it is an issue nonetheless.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

And I would say it's the heaviest game, in terms of heavy, that we have on our shelf by far.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I would disagree.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

No, I don't think it's the heaviest game we have, no. I think we I I think there are heavier games rules-wise. I don't think this is the heaviest one we have now.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

It feels like it. Again, this is maybe my uh Han's.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Gloomhaven is heavier than this.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Do you reckon?

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, I do. I think Gloomhaven's got more to it than this.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I'm gonna think on that for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

What do you think on that? I mean Yeah, i it it is a heavy game, and you know you should know what you're getting into with that. Um but it's not incredibly thinky. It's a heavy game because of the number of rules. It's not a heavy game because it's intrinsically uh, you know, you're you're having to plan five turns ahead in a very complex engine builder or something like that. It's uh as far as the the actual gameplay goes, it's very much sort of dungeon crawlery and you know, all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I've never had AP, so I have never gone, what is it I need to do? Because I need to do 101 things at once. Yeah, and really I can only move one square because that's all it's.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

It's very reactive in that sense, and the game uh screws up your plans so much that you can't make long-term plans, you can't have a strategy that you can stick to because it just doesn't work, you'll just end up getting killed. Um, which you might anyway, best laid plans and all that. Um, yeah, so I mean this I I don't want to be too negative on it for being complex, because I don't think that's my issue. I think and I I don't know if I I'm sitting here, I'm a non-board game, I'm not a board game designer, I don't know if there's a solution to get the vision that they were trying to achieve without doing that. I don't it just feels like if there's one or two things that were a bit more streamlined or or worked in the same way as something else, maybe it would be a bit easier.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Damage actually would be a lot easier if they streamlined it. So I mean just briefly, you you you will shoot a weapon, you will do an amount of damage, which is either a one or a two, usually, and then you have to flip a card in order to see whether that kills it or not. Actually, whilst I love that, because it means that you can kill the queen with one damage because you know you just got lucky.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

She's just a weak queen.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

But I wonder whether maybe that could be that's just one element that's just an added level of complexity. I also I love that, and I I love that so I wouldn't take it out.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I think my biggest bug bear, mechanics-wise, if I had to lay all the mechanics out, is actually the the the damage system on the players.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

I don't like it, it just doesn't, it doesn't it it doesn't click for me for some reason. Like I always get very confused as to how many of these wounds you can have. There's a there's a whole mechanism where you get light wounds which you have a slider for, and if you suffer three light wounds, it turns into a serious wound. Your third light wound turns into a serious wound, which has an ongoing negative impact, but then there's a mechanism where you can dress wounds and cure wounds. It just it it feels a bit overstuffed.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Like I feel like they could have just simplified if they're gonna simplify something, it would have been player damage. Like, give the for goodness sake, just g give us hit points or something, you know. You've got enough going on that you don't need this additional extra push-pull mechanic with wounds that they have, which is really arbitrary as well, it's not like it's player dependent. No, it's not like any players, yeah, it's all very random. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, saying that, I mean, I I thought a long time about my score with this one. Um, I'm going to give it a seven. Because I think it wouldn't be the game it is without its heaviness. But there there are there are definite areas where it could have been improved. There are definite areas where in order for it to achieve a ten, it would need some streamlining a process, it would need to be a little bit more perhaps visually immediate for the players, so they didn't have to really obviously consult a rule book when they're trying to do something, some sort of subterfuge, you know. They it it just would have made it a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

So I scored it a six, mainly because I feel like the rules as they are, or or the the lack of accessibility, or the lack of flow, perhaps, flow around the rules, impedes my ability to play.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

And I've never felt impeded, apart from the whole enlisting thing in Scythe, I've never felt impeded by any rule, whereas I I do in this, so I scored it a six.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Okay, alright, fine.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

So then our next one is shelf life. So thinking about things like value for money, replayability, all that kind of stuff. So one of the things that I will say about this is we played an awful lot of games, two player, um, and every single one of our games has been very, very different. Yeah. Exceedingly different.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Um, we've had where we've both survived to the end and we've come down to final scoring.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

We've had both dying, um, we've had a whole mix in between. And what I think is really, really interesting is I don't think there are playabilities about the character particularly. So each character has their own ability.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

They're not different enough, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

No, they're not.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

But that's actually an issue for me.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Well, no, that's what I mean. It's like it's interesting, they're not all that different, and yet still all of our games have been so very different in terms of outcome, and that I think is really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah, because I think it's a wide open space where they've they've they've opened it up. The designers opened the game up enough for almost endless possibilities to occur, which comes with its advantages and its disadvantages. Its advantages is are that every game can feel quite different. Its disadvantages are rather manifest. A game can be over in 20 minutes, as we mentioned, but perhaps more problematic is one of you can die within 10 minutes of a two-hour game.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Right, but they've got a solution for that.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, which we've never tried, but I've not heard great things about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Well, what is that solution?

SPEAKER_00 32:46

That solution is that a dead player can take control of the intruders, and there's an entire rule set and mechanism for doing that. But from what I've heard, it just completely overbalances the game in the favour of the intruders and basically just kills everybody off.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah, well, I mean the game's overbalanced sometimes, the intruders anyway.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, so it kind of makes the rest of the game bit arbitrary, and it's it it from what I've heard, I've not played it myself, but it just yeah, apparently it just ends up on a bit of a damp note if you do that. So there there are pros and cons to that. I mean, does that affect its shelf life? I think this I I out of all the games that we've reviewed, out of all the scores I've given games, Shelf Life for Nemesis was the hardest one I've ever reviewed because I I'm not sure where I sit on that. And I think the reason why why I'm not sure where I sit on that is it takes up a very unique space in my want-to-play part of my brain. I think if I if I want co-op, I'll go co-op. If I want competitive, I'll go competitive. This is when I want a game to tell me a story, and how much I'm in the mood for that is completely dependent.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So I'm gonna I'm gonna come out and say something similar but slightly different. I was so hyped for Nemesis. I was so hyped for so many reasons because of the competitive nature of it while still being co-op, the fact that it was like horror and the idea of paranoia. I was so in, and I thought this was gonna knock our whatever it was, our current top game off the spot, and it didn't. And yet I think I will still want to play this in six, seven, eight years' time. Yeah, but it has to scratch that itch for me. Yeah, it's not a game that I've played like when June, when we got June, oh my god, we were like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, dream all the time.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

10 hours away from the table from playing.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, you couldn't, and even now it's still always in our top rotation. And yet, with Nemesis, I think because it's a bit more of a commitment in terms of setup, stripped down, but also committing to the fact that you could be playing for a couple of hours, it's gonna it's gonna be like an ark and horror for me, you know. I think I'll still be playing this in seven, eight years' time.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah, I would agree with you. But when you try to explain shelf life to somebody, it becomes a bit nebulous, doesn't it? Because is this a game that you are going to want to sit down and play for an entire weekend and then want to play every day after that? No, I don't think so. Is this a game that you could theoretically get sick of? Yeah, I think you probably could, if it doesn't fire for you. So it's a really difficult one to score. It is a really difficult one to score.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

And I know we shouldn't compare games, but I'm gonna compare Marvel, which we rated really highly in terms of replayability.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

And yet, hmm. We haven't replayed it all that much.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Whereas, you know, I just I mean in recent times, I mean we played we we played over 50 games of Marvel Champions. You know, it's uh I I don't I don't know if that's a fair comparison. I think we played 50 games of Nemesis and then you could compare them.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

But I think again, it it's a very different it is a very different thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, it is a very different beast. I think that that that is its blessing and its curse when it comes to shelf life. And I agree with you, I don't think it's something that I'd ever I'd ever not want on my shelf because when the I if the need if the need took me or the craving took me to play Nemesis and I didn't have it, I'd be gutted. But I don't think it's that game that I want to bring back, you know, we sit down, like what we want to play tonight. It it it it really rears its head, but when it does, I'm all in. So it's an odd one. It's really it I I can't really explain why it sits in that odd space for me, but it does, which makes it really hard to score when it comes to shelf life. Because of my constant prevaricating and backing and forthing and what have you, I have given it a five. Just because I think middle of the the range is fair, because I don't know if I really have an answer. I think you might be able to, from our our review and what we've talked about so far, you should be able to judge really for yourself where it'll sit on that for you. Um if variety is the the poison to you pulling a the game back out again, you're in no danger there. But if you need a game to do certain things for you, this won't flip the belt all the time.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

So we talk you you put a disclaimer right at the start in terms of well, you're rating the the general and stuff as a two player. I kind of want to talk about multiple more than more than two players on this category. I think one of the really difficult things is that because it's a very heavy game with lots of complexity and lots of and I we've we talked about this, it's really difficult to play with newbies. Oh yeah, teaching it is uh we we've had an amazing game with somebody and that was great, and he picked it up and he got it.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

But he's also like an ex-Warhammer player, like he he he's not scared of rules.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Exactly. There are so few other people you you could play it with, unless you've got like a gaming circle of friends who are willing to put the time and the investment in to learn it.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Um, and I think again, we'll get on to the whole two-player, multiple player thing, but I think that would push it up a little bit for me. However, like I said, I I still think I won't want to play this in eight years' time, ten years' time. It's gonna be it's gonna be another Arkham Horror for me. Yeah, yeah. Although I did fall very deep into Arkham Horror, but things were different then. Things were different. Um so I scored it a seven.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Yeah, fair enough. Fine. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Alright, should we do scores?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Well, no, we need to you do this every time. You don't care if games are fun or not, apparently. You just you're interested about their components of complexity, but not about their fun.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

I treat games like our marriage.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Oh, on that note, is Nemesis any fun?

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Oh my god. So much fun.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

You know, absolutely every single time amazing things happen. Like, there are so many memories that I have from playing this game.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

I have more memories from Nemesis than any other game, pretty much, because every it feels like every game sticks in the memory because it creates a story that is either so profound or outlandish or stupid or hilarious or or or terrifying that it just stays with you.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

So there was a time that I tried to I I I had to kill my other my other player character and tried to join the game. So I tried to kill him, and I happened to be in the room that allowed me to eject him out of an airlock, and I did it. And I was like, But then I had a spacesuit.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

My guy. I had a spacesuit and I waltzed around the outside of the ship, came in the other end, and calmly got into an escape pod while everything exploded around her. There was another time we were playing fully come-op that we were in the hibernation chamber, and all we needed to do was get into the hibernation chamber, but the the aliens kept coming, and we did that thing from aliens where we basically grabbed hold of a grenade and exploded the grenade, and it killed the aliens, but not us, and we we crawled into our hibernation chambers mortally wounded, but we both survived. And then there's my personal favourite where you got slime and you just desperately just decided that you were going to cross the entire map to go and have a shower. While you're in the shower, the queen surprised you in the showers. At which point you fire extinguished her and she ran away.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

I'm pretty sure that didn't happen in Aliens, didn't it?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

No, no, that didn't happen. Alien 3 Ripley of the showers, but no, no, not nearly as hilarious as that. But I I I mean that's just three examples, but it feels like from every game there's a moment that just lives in the memory because it's it's so outlandish.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Yeah. Um, it's it and it is an absolute joy to play, and I think the way in which we talk about our characters now, so in character draft, you get to randomly allocate your characters, and there are certain characters that we cannot pick because we're like, no, it turns well.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Bad things happen when I'm not passing, you know, and it's just become this but that emerges story from any sort of living on through games, doesn't it? Like you try and avoid the showers now because you're just once burnt.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Well, no, it wasn't just me that got surprised by the queen in the showers, you then got surprised by the queen in the showers, but you had any fire extinguishers that you fucked.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Um, but yeah, uh, I mean, there's nothing quite like it for that, as far as I've in my in our board gaming journey, we never found anything that great. I mean, we we you get emergent storytelling, it's one of the reasons we love Arkham Horror 2nd edition so much, but it it's not this level. Like, this creates stories that are just fantastic to experience.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Absolutely, and I think for that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah, I mean, in terms of other things, emergent storytelling aside, the gameplay is really fun. Um, I wish the characters had a little bit more difference. I feel like their their decks are quite similar, and I always I feel like a little bit more asymmetry would wouldn't go amiss.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

I feel like okay, I feel like when there was an expansion that added different elements to it, so for example, um the uh scientist who's in a wheelchair, he can't get serious leg wounds as a result, so uh I think that was more like an erata, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

I think errata the rules.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

I think there's a but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

There have been expansions which we don't have, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

And I also think that if you had more players, actually you'd be able to use those are a lot more. So, like a lot of them. So if the the captain, for example, he can give orders. He can give orders and things. Um but because you there's only two of you, you're quite far apart on the map, and we'll we'll get into this, but I I don't feel like necessarily you get to interact all that much. And there are other rules for like interacting, so like you don't necessarily make moves and noise if you go into other rooms. Um so I feel like maybe that's a two-player issue.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Yeah, potentially. I still I still wish they were a little bit more different to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Um yes, I mean agreed. I think fundamentally they all kind of play the same, just about the amount of ammo you've got.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Um I think the amount of fun out of this, the fun the amount of fun you'll get out of this also depends on what you like in a game. This is, as I've said, a very much a horror game. You are not meant to survive. If you want to go in there and shoot some aliens, wrong game. No, um it's how do you want to die, but yeah, if you go toe to toe with them nine times out of ten. I mean, there's a soldier character who's got a lot of ammunition and you're likely to survive one encounter with him, and you know, but anybody else, hmm, unlikely.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah. I mean if you run away.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

I often try and stand toe to toe and then end up having to run away and just have taken a load of should you know damage away.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Runaway, run away, run away.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Um but again that that can it depends on your your um appetite for that really like sort of survival horror kind of thing. Um I've given it an eight.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

I gave it a ten.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Give it a ten, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Wow, I just I do have so much fun when we play, and I do remember most of our games. I think this is the thing, isn't it? We so rarely pick it up, and yet when we ha play it, we have so much fun when we play it.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

I think there's just other reasons why we don't pick it up. So yeah, on its own, when I'm playing that and I'm living it, and I'm and I am living it, you do live the game. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

I'm not gonna argue a score, I'm just it's like a 10. Ding ding ding. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Tan is erratic scoring, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Accept it. I mean, there you have it. It's a 10 for you, it's a 10 for you. So that gives us an overall rating of 7.5, as always with a round, so that is an eight.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm cool with that. It's a great game, it's awesome. So, yeah, we can go with that. Uh, so on to R2 player ratings. This is going to be somewhat a different, I think. Um, so our first category in R2 player ratings is table talk, trash talk, getting to know you however you want to uh define that. Uh I mean, I'm gonna cut to the chase. It's great in this. Uh it it as with any semi-cooperative traitor mechanic kind of game, there's going to be so much table talk going on. There's going to be constant accusations flying about what are you doing. Uh I know from your end, it's like, are you just being Al and playing the game stupidly, or are you actively trying to mess with me?

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Oh, we need to get home and check the fucking engines.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I've got my own priorities, mate. Like, I do what I like.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Um in the engine room! Look at the engines. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

I think ironically, one thing that happens in this game is there's this glorious period somewhere in the I'd say towards the end of the first third, where you start to get really suspicious of the other person and things go quiet, and you just like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yep, they do that, mm-hmm. Um, so there's this weird dead zone, and then at some point things are gonna get obvious, and then the tabletop just shoots off from there. I mean, it's it's constant shouting at each other, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Why but I think even then, even despite all of that, like because you're exploring new and you you're always going into new rooms because you know you want to see what's there and what you can get out, and you need to get loot and all this gone and stuff, that you're always talking about what's actually happening in-game. Yeah, and it it's never a quiet moment.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

No, um, and if you do play it as a fully cooperative experience, obviously the the table chatter and talk and planning is constant, like you constantly talk about what what you know what we should do, what should I do, what should you do. Um I mean, any way you play it, aside from that dead third, which I think is actually part of it, like that, but where you you're not very sure, um, and people are checking rules and uh doing odd things is uh always interesting, and that tends to be quite quiet, but aside from that, it's um very, very interactive.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Yeah, I don't think there's much more to say, really. Like if if that's what you're looking for in a game, yeah, absolutely for nemesis. And for me, I think um I scored it an eight. Why didn't I score it a ten?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

I scored it an eight as well. I scored an eight as well. Yeah, um, I think eight's a fair score for it. Uh the reason I scored it an eight is from a two-player perspective. I think if you play with three or four, it'll probably take it to a ten.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Um, aside from BSG um and something like uh Koo or Werewolf, I I think in terms of like, you know, that proper banter and accusations flying around with more people around the table, you you can't really beat it for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Um as a two-player, I suppose you can't really, because although I excused you out and outright of why are you fucking this up, what are you doing, there's there's nowhere else to go.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

No, there isn't. So that it does that that's the limitation. But even still as a two-player game, that table talk is great, which is why I think eight is a perfectly fair score. Okay, do you want to take us to the next one?

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Yeah, so the next one is our competitive slash co-op rating. So again, it's uh again, how well does the game fit?

SPEAKER_00 48:30

How how competitive or cooperative is it? And this is a really odd one with a semi-co-op. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

But I think that's why I've scored it so highly because it can be both. You get to choose. And not only do you get to choose by stripping out the uh competitive mission cards, um, when the first alien appears on the board, you then get to choose between your two mission cards, which for me generally has no normally always been one and one. So I can I can choose between the two. Um you get to choose usually which is the most likely, which is the most what is likely to happen. Um, but you have that element of choice, and I think that's what makes it for me that really perfect balance balance, although arguably now I'm saying that.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

So I'm gonna put my cards on the table, we're going off in completely different directions, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

So I looking at this from a two-player perspective, with somebody that you play games with a lot, I don't think it works especially well either competitively or cooperatively. I don't think that's what the game's about for me. Um I think as a co-op, it feels a bit arbitrary. It feels like you're both just going through the ship and doing things. And competitively, it's too tight with two players to really really be competitive. I think a lot of the mechanisms that you can use to really screw over the other player, because of the wide openness of the board, don't work as well. I don't think it works that great for either as a two-player.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

But that's okay for me, because that's not really what the game's about for me. It's about that storytelling and it's about that having fun. And I have a huge amount of fun with it, but I don't think it works particularly well competitively or cooperatively with two players. With more it does, and I know it does because we've been there.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yeah, so I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on that. So let's just stick to the idea of it being cooperative. So one of the things is that if you both uh survive to the end of the game, um there are a whole bunch of additional things that happen on the end of it. So, yeah, and you do get scoring at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

No, there's no scoring at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Well there is, because you if you if you both you both get points you both you both if you both survive, you that's great. Then you have to check for like contamination and all that kind of stuff. And then you check your mission points.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Yeah, but there's no points. You either fail your mission or succeed. If you both succeed, it's a tie, and we've had those before playing cooperatively. There's no scoring.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Is there not?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

No.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

I completely misremembered that.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Yeah, there's no scoring. You either you either win you you either win or you lose, and in a cooperative game, if you both win.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

In which case then it's never really ever cooperative.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

No, not well, the the idea behind the cooperative game is that you both win. You win, the game loses. That's the the crux of any game.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

See, it's happens so rarely that I can't even remember what happens at the end game.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

That's the crux of most competitive games. You win or the game wins. Um when it comes to semi-co-op, you can have multiple winners because you can have multiple people survive and complete the objectives. But obviously, if one if you both survive and one of you completed your objective and the other didn't, the one that completed the objective wins, the other one loses, and we've had that as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Um we are coming up from complete different angles, and I think that's really cool, and that's fine. I wouldn't change my scores, would you?

SPEAKER_00 52:18

No, I'm not changing mine either. I mean I've scored this quite lowly, I scored a three.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

So I scored it an eight.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Okay, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

What I also wrote on my little notes was it creates this perfect paranoia that I think is Yeah. Not perfect paranoia, it's not perfect paranoia, but it just creates this sense of paranoia, particularly when you're complaining, complaining um competitively, that I just think is really hard to beat.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Yeah, I agree with you, but again, that falls more into the fun and emergency storytelling section for me than it does the competitive cooperability sign. Um so yeah, no, I stick by it. I just I don't think it works that well as a two-player in either of those things. If you're looking for something that is incredibly cooperative and you're working together for a common goal, or you're looking for something that's fiercely competitive, I don't think it as a two-player, I don't think it fits either, Bill.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

When you say these things, I think I should adjust my score, but I'm not going to score. It's Hannah's random score in, it's fine. What I say is more important than the number of times.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Okay, so on to our final category, which is scalability and FOMO, and I think if you've been listening at all, you know where this is going.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

We've played what one game with another person, and that was lit.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah, it was one of the best ball games I've I've played with with an extra person. I imagine with four and five, it's just even better.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

I mean, this this with five people, I Although I suspect your game length will go on considerably more.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Yeah, you probably need to put aside three three hours at least, I think, to play this if you're playing with like five people.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

But I imagine as an afternoon experience with sort of five people who all knew the rules, it would be pretty much untouchable.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

And that's the thing, isn't it? That's why it doesn't come out more often. Yeah. Because actually, it would be so much more it would be so much better.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

But it's also why I'm maybe getting rid of it, because yeah, we do have friends who do play ball games and we don't get to see them as much as we we would like to, but when they'd come round, I'm I'm rushing for this, I'm running straight to the shelf for this. But that that fits into the score the the scoring category where you know the scalability does it work as a two-player game, yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

It does, and it's fun and it's great, and we have a really good time.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

But it's the FOBO thing that gets me with this like, oh, we're missing out with not playing with more people. Absolutely 100% we are.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

And here's the thing: so we've talked about all of mechanics and being overly clunky. Well, realistically, aside from you need to pay attention to your rooms and all this sort of stuff, a lot of the mechanic-y stuff we can deal with.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Yeah, you can when you're playing with a newbie. And I I think if you play with a newbie who's experienced in gaming. His experience of gaming, and also is okay with just being a bit of a wild card. I mean, we played with our our friend and he he just decided to for no real reason.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

No, it's his objective.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Well, yeah, but I I mean his behaviour was erratic, and that added to the fun. It was just completely erratic. He started following me around and doing things for no real reason. Then he just escaped through an air duct. Um which which put us all on edge. Um but it's again, you add more people to it, the more the emergent storytelling happens and the more fun it is, I guess. But also I think it works and functions as a core game better with more people.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

I think that goes back to my previous point. I think it gets more cooperative and competitive when you've got more people on the on the map. And I think there's not a huge amount of scaling around player count. The only scaling that happens is uh a slight tweak, there's more adults in the intruder bag.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

No, but also if you think about it like when you make noise, um Yeah, that's what I was about to say, and then it's more likely that the intruders are gonna appear earlier because you all make a noise.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

But again, there's a mechanic that if you move together, if one person moves into a room and you move into a room with a person already in it, you don't make noise, you don't make another noise roll.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

So the board is gonna be covered with noise markers.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

If you all go off in different directions, but a lot of people who play with four or five don't, they stick in pairs.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

I mean that's the first rule of horror, right? Yeah, yeah. Which don't split up, whereas you and I are like separate ends of the map.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

And the map is large enough that I think it negatively impacts impacts the the play in two players. Absolutely. I I think uh there's almost a part of me that wishes that you made the ship smaller for you playing with two players.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Because there's two sides of the map, there's like a hard mode and an easy mode.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Yeah, which we've never played. The hard mode, I'm not entirely sure what's what's involved in that, but um I don't think it makes it smaller. It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

I don't think it's gonna make it any easier to win.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

But that's not what it's about. Listen, that's what it's like.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

No, but it's not, it really isn't though, is it? It's about the most gruesome death you can have, and the most comedic death you can have, or the most comedic way you can survive death, Mr. Space Suit.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

No, I that's not comedic, that was just intelligent.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Oh, I should I'll say fucking good stuff like that. So angry.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Right. I mean, for me, the suffers at two players.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

It does.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

More so than any other game that we've reviewed. Yeah. This suffers at two players, and I wanted my score to reflect that. Because I think I'd be doing a disservice if I said this is like, yeah, two player, perfect. We have a huge amount of fun as two players. I think we are us, and we it if you're considering this as a two-player proposition, take into account everything that we've said, taking into account the weight of the rules, take into account the backstabby nature of it. Does that work for you guys as a as a pair of gaming buddies coming up?

SPEAKER_01 57:59

Oh, well, there's something so satisfying from both sides, knowing you've been stabbed in the back.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Yeah, yeah, well, there's a righteous angle.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Like well played also.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

If you approach it like that, it's like, oh well played. So you know, if you have that attitude towards it, I I recommend it. I absolutely do. But if you don't, be warm because that is the in the nature of it. Um, and I hope we've given you enough to, as a as potential sort of two-player buyer of this, we've given you enough to sort of chew on and and make you think whether it's for you or not. It's not designed to be a two-player game, but it works for us, and we have a huge amount of fun with it.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Okay, so I'm gonna ask you another question. I know we haven't actually done like our FEMA scalability score yet, but having now played it, would you still buy it at the price point it retails form?

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Yeah, because I wouldn't want to erase all the great memories we've had playing it, so yeah, I probably would.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Yeah, no, I reckon I would still buy it. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Uh uh I don't know why I would have played it pay paid paid for it at list price, but the price we paid for it. Yeah. Which was sub a hundred.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

Just yeah. Just. Yeah. I think it's worth it. Yeah. I think it's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

Um but again it's complete value judgment on your own part, so whether or not you you feel that's that that sort of does it for you.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

So anyway, what did you score at?

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Three.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Oh! Bang on. I think you're gonna score at a one.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

No, no, no, no, not gonna score at one. It's only a three because of the FOMO.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

I think every time I play it, I'll rather be better if there was someone else running.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

It makes me crave more board gaming buddies than anything else, I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

It just makes me realise that I'm bored with you.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

She said the thing, everybody. Um right. That's twice in deep book. Yeah. Um so that gives us an overall two-player couple's rating of 5.5, which we always round to a six. I think you and I are both probably a little bit more comfortable saying a five, but our scoring system is our scoring system, so we will we will stick with it. The six, it's uh mileage may vary as a two-player game, depending on the game.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

I'm very much, I think, dependent on you as a couple.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

Yeah, and as players, yeah, absolutely. So that has been Nemesis. Thank you for joining us. Um, if you listen to us on your podcast Medium of Choice, and then let you leave reviews, we'd very much appreciate one. But until next time, have fun, be good to each other, and play lots of board games.