It’s Two Player, Honest Gov.
All in all, I like something that is true to its intentions and design. There’s an ongoing discussion about whether or not games are always true to themselves about the player count that best serves the overplay play mechanics. You can see the marketing team sneaking over and changing the player count sticker from ‘Best at 3’ to ‘1 to 6, honest governor’ and that type of nonsense never gets us anywhere. So when Orbs VS Drones states that it only plays from 2 to 2 players and everyone else can sit from the side. There’s a part of me that breathes easier, because at least you know they’ve probably given this a play test to within an inch of its life.
On the surface everything looks promising, and if you hold your breath and look under the first impression then things aren’t only promising but a bit tasty as well. You’re looking at a two player asymmetrical head to head. Where the invading Orbs are looking to take over the world by destroying the last stand of humanity and the defending drones from humanity are looking to block the portals that the orbs use to transport themselves to the planet. On first glance of the board you’ll be forgiven for thinking that someone stole the Pandemic world map and then gave it some Tron like vibes, but there’s a simplicity and clean look to the whole game that plays well into the overall theme and forces you to concentrate on the game in hand. In the same way you don’t see decorated chess boards because we’re not trying to gaze lovingly at the squares here, we’re looking at the King.
Independent Swarming
Orbs move up to ten spaces at a time, smashing through any drones they encounter, trying to reach block capitals so they can control them and increase the ‘orbstream’ in their favour. While drones collapse like the weakest of enemies, if they manage to surround an orb on either side, then the orb is removed until it can be spawned again. So it leads to this sneaking like movement, where both parties need to move to take over areas, but also need to be careful how they move. There’s something really interesting in playing a force that can’t move quickly, but can create clouds of annoyance, and as the drone player you’ll quite happily attempt to sacrifice drones on masse, just to give you chance to take down an orb while another group heads to an orb spawn point to shout it down and prevent further alien activity.
As the orbs take control of the city, the game goes into serious mode and the mothership is summoned, a lumbering behemoth that is tasked with finding the last bastion of humanity and in a cruel twist of end game mechanics like snakes and ladders, has to land on the last stand of humanity exactly in order to win. It creates this glorious panic type puzzle, where the drones end up a race to control the last orb spawn points, while the alien player attempts some kind of last minute destructive geometry puzzle.
Final Analysis
Its good, verging on great, and it’s oh so very different, and clearly there’s been a lot of time put into getting everything as right as it can be. The production on the components is high in the prototypes. I would like to see a slight change in the card art to make the different time points in the game stand out that little bit more, there’s even a chance here to do some subtle story telling. The game could do with a simple crib sheet to keep you right during the game as you play. These are all very minor things in the scheme of it.
The biggest issue I currently have with Orbs vs Drones is simple. Here’s a solid enjoyable game built for the crowdfunding model. It’s got everything going for it in terms of a solid approach to an idea and the gameplay has been honed so much you can tell the time invested in it from the way it plays. It’s confident in asserting that it plays for two and two alone. Yet at the time of writing, the Kickstarter campaign has launched and is at ten percent of its target. The target is probably the same amount of money one of these big ticket behemoths spend on a video and a couple of adverts. It’s a cracking idea that won’t see the light of day because it’s trying to do what Kickstarter used to allow. Taking a solid idea, that actually works and making it a reality for people to play and enjoy. So if you have reached this far, I would ask you not to worry about sharing the preview, but definitely share the campaign so we give this little engine that could a fighting chance. It deserves its Last Stand.
