Review Of Expansion Decrypto: Laserdrive
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A LITTLE ABOUT THE BASE GAME
To begin with, it is worth briefly talking about the base itself, suddenly someone does not know. Players are divided into two teams and receive four clue words per game, arranged in a strict order. Each team sees only their own words. The goal is to either get two white tokens or two black ones.
White tokens are given for correctly intercepting other people's encryptions. What is encryption? In each round, one of the players becomes the captain and draws a card with 3 numbers that only he can see. His task is to come up with three association words, according to which his team, based on the hint words given at the beginning of the game, must correctly guess these numbers. But since the captain invents and pronounces the word-associations out loud, the opponents also hear them. So, if the opponents were able to intercept, that is, guess these three numbers before your team did, they receive a white token. They won two - their victory.
Guessing the numbers is easier for your team, because they have something to base their reasoning on - four starting words, clues, visible to the captain; therefore, his associations adapt to them. But the opponents act randomly at first, but with each new round they have more and more information about your words (since they do not change during the game).
The second option for victory is black chips. It's even easier here - if you don't guess your captain's numbers, you get a black token. Got two - the opponent's team won. That is why the captain needs to come up with associations that correspond to your clue words as precisely and transparently as possible.
The whole strength of "Decoder" lies in the ability of players to be able to guess such sophisticated associations, which are both transparent to their own players and incomprehensible to their opponents. It's quite difficult to explain in words and may look like the rules of some ordinary verbal nonsensical patty game, but if you've tried Codenames, you'll perfectly understand the difference between a tru deck with clear rules and "Mafia" with its "psychology". "Decoder" is about mechanics and rules, and at the same time it remains a real game, where all participants are cheerful, cheerful and involved in the process, even the most gloomy ones, because the challenge of the board is very unusual - each round invent more and more perverse associations, preferably confusing opponents and not leading to a stupor their own
NOW ON TO THE EXPANSION
And now the most interesting thing - what's in this little addition? New mechanics appear in the Decoder: Laser Disc box. More precisely, one - laser disks; these are tokens that can be obtained in a cunning way and with their help win the game in another way.
So, there are disk cards in the box. One such card is revealed from the deck at the start of each round, and now one of the associations issued by the captain to his team must match that theme. This is a mandatory condition. Well, it would seem that there is such a thing - restrictions were added and added, however... However, players had the opportunity to match all three of their clues to the theme and receive a treasured laser disc token for it (regardless of whether their friends guessed the code or not).
Why do you need these laser discs? If you collect two pieces, you can spend them to try to correctly guess your opponents' clue word. That is, you can throw two discs and say: "Your first word is "Bird" - and if it turns out to be true, then your team will receive a white token. And two white chips, as we remember, is a victory.
Thus, another way to get tokens appeared. It does not affect the other options for victory, but the additional possibility is nice. On the one hand, the game became a bit more difficult/easier (depending on which way you look at it) by limiting one of the associations to a theme, but on the other hand, it also brought more opportunities to use some tactics thanks to the discs. In fact, the captain was given even more functions - and with his wide horizons, he will be able to pull out his teammates at the expense of a brilliant idea that dawned on him.
On the other hand, coming up with all three associations suited to one theme is not only difficult enough, but it also gives your opponents more information about your clues. Undoubtedly, there are tricksters who are able to come up with such triples on a regular basis, but this is already some other level of the team - very high.
Is this addition good and is it necessary in principle? Decrypto, like Codenames, is a very self-contained thing. But those who want bells and whistles for their favorite game (and there are many such people) are always missing something. So why not make them? =) Yes, probably, the author of "Decoder" thought too, adding a little more options to the basic version.
If you've played this board game, you no doubt know that the most common question at the end of a game is: let's guess your clue words? Almost everyone does this, and, apparently, in the author's tester groups in particular, so he decided to make this element part of the mechanics. Why not? This is just my guess, but it sounds plausible, doesn't it? The idea lies on the surface, and in "Laser disc" it is well implemented.
You can not consider this box as a mandatory addition, but if you managed to get it and mix it into the base, then there is nothing to remove from the gameplay - extra features are not superfluous, unless they are sewn with white threads.
USEFUL LINKS
Decrypto: Laserdrive on the BGG portal
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/273938/decrypto-expansion-01-laserdrive
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