OPHIDIAN 2360: Survival of the Fittest GenCon 2016 Review

Two-Gun Pixie Presents:

LEGENDARY

GAMING

006 – The Gladiatorial

Flow

GEN CON 2016 BOARD GAME PRE-COVERAGE CONTINUES RIGHT HERE DEEP WITHIN THE NERD WASTELANDS FAN BOYZ AND G33K GRRLS!

This game goes on sale Monday August 1st 2016

Heads Up, Nerd Herd!

This Pre-Sale Review takes us far into the future to a world torn apart. From all corners of the world – AND BEYOND – the warriors come; the greatest gladiators prepare for the great games. Battlers of the mind and body, cyberneticly-enhanced and fully-mutated combatants, alien opponents and warmasters alike all gather to do battle both great and awe inspiring.

Join Two-Gun Pixie as we review this non-collectable expandable sci-fi card game of gladiatorial combat and crowd cheering victories.

Let’s Take A Two-Gun Pixie Gen Con 2016 Peek At...

Ophidian 2360:

Survival of the Fittest

Designer: Jason Robinette

Artists: Michael Cunningham, Ina Wong, Patrik Bjorkstrom, Jose Fernandes, Edgar Vega, James Linares, Amber Harris, Banu Satrio, Jason Engle, Jeremiah Humphries, Manthos Lappas, John Moriarty, Dimas Wijil Pamungkas, Unrealsmoker, Franz Vohwinkel, Joseph Wigfield

Visual/Template Designer: Seth Claybrook

Publisher: Hack and Slash Games

Publication Date: 2016

Suggested Player Age: 10+

Number of Players: 2 or 4

Average Play Time: 20 – 40 minutes

Game Mechanics: Hand Management, Player Elimination, Simulation, Variable Phase Order

Category: Card Game, Fantasy, Fighting, Science Fiction

MSRP: $24.95 per box of two decks

The Boxes

Unfortunately Two-Gun Pixie did not receive one of the three available (As of Monday August 1st 2016) starter boxes for this game for review purposes, that’s cool. Boxes are nice but the Game is what is really important. The photos we have seen of them online did catch our eye. The art work for each box is truly stunning with attention grabbing scenes and beautiful color.

These boxes will look great on your gaming shelf. Most fans of this game will probably end up keeping their favorite decks sleeved in collector boxes to take with them to the obvious tournaments that will be popping up around Ophidian 2360.

Regardless of the status of the boxes after you get this game, they will always stand out in your mind.

The Components

Each of the three packs, at the time of this game’s launch (Monday, August 1st, 2016.,) contains 112 cards, two decks of 56 cards each! Each deck represents a different type of gladiator faction.

That’s it.

Well, rules... of course.

But really, that’s it.

This is a non-collectable deck-drafting card game. Each of the three packs contains the exact same cards as the others of its title.

The three pack titles are;

- The Art of War Deck & Otherworld Allies Deck

- Mental Block Deck & Warrior’s Resolve Deck

- War Machine Deck & Bio-Hazard Deck

They are all exactly the same; same rules, same gameplay. The decks in each contain cards unique to that particular deck. The playing cards are all interchangeable between packs. This allows players to mix-and-match to make their most killer of gladiator decks, perfect to rip any opponent’s deck to shreds... well, hopefully anyway. ;-)

The one similarity we see between the packs, as far as cards go, is that each pack contains a card to use for tracking your Resources and one to track your Cheer.

We received a beta pack for playtest/review so cannot comment on the quality of the cards in each pack but judging on everything else we have seen from this game and company so far we have no doubt that they will be high quality and quite sturdy.

Now, before we close out this section of the review I should mention an extra sale item available for this game system. You don’t need it to play but trust me, you’ll want this...

The Official Hack and Slash Games Ophidian 2360: Survival of the Fittest Player Mats.

Wow!

We were caught off guard and more than a little impressed, let me tell you.

On the barest surface these player mats appear and feel to be oversized rubber mousepads and they very well may be just that.

The art for each of the four different player mats is more than impressive. The beta mats we received are apparently a little darker in color tone than the final versions are going to be but that doesn’t matter. We actually really dug the almost shadowy or night time lighting. Each mat depicts a different gladiatorial arena; different arena design, different gladiator depicted, different environmental setting. Beautiful.

Besides the stunning artwork each player mat has brilliantly placed spaces for your front and rear fields, your deck and discards, and trackers for your Resources and your Cheer. Included on the Player Mats are a key to the icons and symbols used in the game. This greatly enhances gameplay as you will spend less time looking these up. The placement of everything on these player mats really does flows easily for the eye to follow. After a few minutes your eyes will know exactly where they always need to be looking. You’ll waste little to no time trying to figure out where, exactly, something is on your player mat.

Game Play

The most interesting aspect of this game, and it has a few, is that this game eliminates the concept of “Turns”. Players begin and end the ability to take actions because of a mechanic called “Momentum” that creates a rather realistic flow to combat.

After choosing a deck and drafting cards you place out your team in front of you in a front row (The Action Field) and a back row (The Support Field). Set your two trackers (I am not sure at this time if each of the packs will come with four beads or cubes or something to use with the card or player mat Resource and Cheer trackers or not).

Now, as I was typing, Momentum... At the start of each game the players roll to see which team will start the match with most precious of commodities in this game, Momentum. Each team consists of exactly 10 points worth of gladiators. The player with Momentum gets to play as many cards and take as many actions as they want.

Wait...

What?

Yup. As many as they want AS LONG AS THEY CAN KEEP MOMENTUM.

Ahhhh, you see when you take actions to play cards (which can boost, help, hinder, harm, etc.) it will be either Positive Momentum or Negative Momentum. Some may even be one or the other depending on the circumstance and current cards playing – or even where your Cheer Tracker is at!

When you take an action that gives you Negative Momentum you can no longer take an action (Other than possibly cards played as a reaction).

Now the opponent can “play as many cards and take as many actions as they want” until they gain Negative Momentum.

Some cards require you to expend point of your Recourses. This commodity resets at the beginning of each Wave (hold on...). You can also spend points from your Cheer Tracker, most notably to cause an action your opponent just took to be a Negative Momentum action instead of a Positive, ending their phase and letting you play cards. Cheer can also win the game. If you can max out your Cheer Tracker you will win the match. As game designer Jason Robinette explained to us during a recent podcast and Facebook Livestream of actual game play, "the crowd gets SO incited and overwhelmed that they charge down onto the field and tear the opponent apart!"

HOLY SHIT!

Soccer fans have nothing on these futuristic fight fanatics!

Now, what is this “Wave” that I mentioned?

The game is played in phases known as “Waves”. If, during game play both players Pass on their turn back-to-back then the current Wave is ended. During this between time, or Breather Phase, each player can take several actions a few include, Determining Momentum, Regenerating damage, or even Promoting one of your gladiators and flipping the card over to the next “level” higher which enhances the gladiator’s abilities.

The game can be won several ways the most common being the elimination of the opposing team or at the end of the final wave you have the most points worth of your opponent's gladiators and possibly the hardest way to win is by maxing out your Cheer Tracker.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are more rules than the ones I mentioned above but reading that is more than enough to understand and hopefully appreciate this game. Once you know all the icons and symbols the game play becomes much more streamlined making further games flow better and run faster.

Although these cards are all very beautifully designed I found that the symbols and icons used on them were a bit small and hard to notice. Likewise the font point could be a bit larger as many are not easy to read at first. I’m sure this is a game that big fans and tournament players will have every card memorized so therefore will not need to worry about this. For the casual player these two points may be an issue.

This is listed as a quick 20-30 minutes and yes, it can be played that fast once you understand the mechanics. Arguably, by definition, that would mark this as a “Filler Game” by some reviewers.

That will be a mistake by them. The level of theme, the deepness of story, and the unique rules make this so much more. This game captured several feels in one fell sweep. The way the mechanic of Momentum works and feels is a near perfect duplication of the powering up moves from classic wrestling video games that allow you to keep doing more moves in a combo. The way cards can be played to keep Momentum and influence Momentum itself can also lead to a score of attack combos and this feels exactly like cheesing a run of moves in Street Fighter.

The way the Cheer Tracker works does an almost seamless job of duplicating the effects of crowd adulation in an “Entertainment Sport”. The feeling you got watching wrestling for the first time and seeing the effect the crowds cheers seemed to have on the wrestlers. Remember that? This game gives it to you. It helps the thematic levels of this game that each gladiator does have their own backstory.

The flow of the game play is amazing and makes sense in the dynamics of the setting and theme presented. The Momentum system Ophidian 2360 uses has set a new bar in tabletop gaming. Trying to maintain Positive Momentum itself becomes a tricky strategy in itself. This adds a second level of game tactics besides hand management and card usage. Now, not only are you trying to maximize the use of the cards in your hand to take out or hinder opponent gladiators, now you also have to plan out how to keep the Momentum flowing. That will alter what order you need to play cards in the longer you want or ned to keep Positive Momentum.

The back and forth action created by utilizing the Momentum mechanic instead of a turn-based game adds a very real level of concerned attention from both players and creates an almost palpable sense of exciting tension. This greatly helps in getting rid of the “down time” between each players turn since you never know how long your break in action will be OR Maybe you need to keep paying attention because you want to steal back Momentum as soon as you have the chance and not wait for your opponent to lose it on their own.

Yes, you can sit down and play a game of this with a friend in about a half hour, quicker for more experienced gamers playing with familiar decks but the real heart is in the tournament-style play of this dedicated combat card system game.

Really, everything about this game does seem to flow easily and sensibly. The mechanics are a perfect fit for this theme. Although a noob can easily be overwhelmed by a more experienced player very quickly that can be said of any deck-building, hand-drafting card-based combat system game. At first glance a gamer not familiar with combat card games might find the rules a tad fidgety but with the use of a player Icon/Symbol cheat card, or the player mat, will help tremendously.

Given a chance to learn the game, as opposed to being slapped down hard by the experienced pros, I think even gamers who don’t play a lot of combat card systems will find the level of excitement generated by both the Momentum mechanic and Cheer system exciting.

I myself climbed out of that rabbit hole years ago and never looked back.

It wasn’t just because most are CCGs and I can’t stand the constant “Cold War” buying of booster packs between friends and gamers. I never really got the swing of deck-building and hand drafting. Only two of these games held my attention for any length of time and that was mostly due to the themes and settings.

Speaking as someone who is not a big fan of the Deck Building/Hand Drafting mechanic I have to admit this game has definitely caught my attention. Not to the point that I’m going to sign up for tournaments but most assuredly as something to play with friends or to show off to new gamers.

IF you are a fan of combat card games then I think you will find the rules and mechanics unique to anything else you’ve played before. Because this is a non-collectable card game you won’t be wasting money chasing down those extra rare and unique cards. This also gives all players a fair and balanced start - potentially, depending on how you build your deck and what your draft into your hand.

Ophidian 2360: Survival of the Fittest is a true SciFi Gladitorial Circus Maximus that redefines the Deck Building Combat Card Game Genre.

Personally, I can't wait to get the complete set of packs and anything else that comes out under this line.

My Nerd Herd, the Twenty-Sided Warriors have actually already started to request this game!

CHECK OUT OUR SIT DOWN PLAY SESSION WITH GAME DESIGNER JASON ROBINETTE

AS HE TEACHES BIG JOHNNY G! AND TOMMY V. HOW TO PLAY

OPHIDIAN 2360: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

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TWO-GUN PIXIE RATING

0 Pixies = I Want My Money Back

1 Pixie = Not Planning To Play Again

2 Pixies = Might Play Again If Asked