Saving the World from Catastrophe Or The Everrein Game Review

 The world sank. Endless downpours caused by a sunken god rising from the abyss threaten to engulf the last bastions of human civilization. Only a few brave captains can stand in his way - to set off to find out the cause of the eternal downpours and stop them. They have to fight, chart a course, investigate and trade in order to win. Everrain is a co-op game for 1-4 players set in a bleak apocalyptic world engulfed by the ocean and Cthulhu-like sea monsters. Game time — about 3 hours + 1 hour for each player, except for the first. There is an elaborate plot, engine construction and placement of workers.

GAME PROCESS

 Your task is to collect evidence. Up to 5 evidences can be mined in ports, which will speed up your progress. If you collect the required number of evidence (usually 16), then you win. You are faced with a game timer; if it reaches zero, the Drowned God avatar will appear, and the players will only have a few turns before the avatar destroys the world (destroys ports, sinks ships, etc.) and everyone loses.

 Evidence can be obtained in several ways: by exploring the surrounding world, completing quests, exchanging for artifacts, randomly finding in the moon and buying at the port. In general, there are many options; In terms of freedom of action, Everrain is almost a sandbox.

 Obstacles in your way will be the fatigue of the crew members, the attacks of the enemies (both ships and boarding teams), as well as the mechanics of orders. Each turn you have 3 orders recharged, which you can use to control your team, move and attack your ship. But you can give at least all orders per turn, only 3 will be recharged. This adds tactical depth to the game: you have to think about which orders to recharge and which to leave later.

 Team management is also not an easy task: crew members must be in certain locations so that movement and attacks are as effective as possible. But at the same time, the crew members accumulate fatigue, which can then be removed either in the port or by letting them rest in the cabin. However, orders are constantly running out — and you won't be able to get all the tired crew members out of the locations in time.

 And, finally, the construction of the engine. The engine is your ship, which can be modified (due to upgrades found or purchased at the port) in many different ways. You can make him a powerful monster hunter who extracts evidence by studying defeated enemies. You can make him an explorer by building the fastest and most maneuverable ship capable of turning around at full speed. There are many options. And considering that there are also many ways to obtain evidence, you can make a ship to your liking. You can also hire specialists with powerful useful features on the ship, which, however, are more expensive than ordinary sailors, for example, a ship's doctor or a navigator.

PLOT AND ATMOSPHERE

 Perhaps the main advantage of Everrain is that the game is very atmospheric. The stunning illustrations and style perfectly convey the atmosphere of a sinking world with Lovecraftian elements. You feel like you've been transported to an alternate 1800s: upgrades, names of guns, passengers and ports, events - these are the bricks that make up the creepy world you've entered. It's easy to get lost in Everrain.

 Also, the game has a well-thought-out mechanics of quests, which are revealed gradually, in the course of their execution, due to the addition of new cards to already existing decks. The game even has tiny positive and negative trait cards for each crew member, which adds to the atmosphere and affects the gameplay.

COMPONENTS

 The quality of the components is excellent, albeit with a few minor gripes. The minions of the crew members and enemies are excellent, the models of the ships are excellent and in dynamic poses. The illustrations are very beautiful and thematic. In general, the quality of the components is at the level of the best boards, but in some places convenience has suffered in the pursuit of atmosphere. Especially in the case of the dice: the enemies' dice have 3 very similar symbols that are even harder to read due to the contrasting tones (red, engraved on black...). Some tokens are also too similar to each other.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE GAME

 The game has its flaws. As mentioned, some components are easy to mix up. The game is long: even in solo it takes 3 hours. And the first game will take even longer because the rulebook has a bunch of little nuances that are easy to forget because of their illogicality (for example, enemies roll one attack die except on their first turn). The rulebook is structured so-so; although it contains all the information you need, finding the right section is not that easy considering how many there are.

 The game is still too easy. After several games, I never even saw an avatar: by the time the final act begins, you already have a ship capable of extracting evidence on such an industrial scale that in the last 2-3 turns you don't even have to do anything special, and then you win. No final boss fight, no unexpected plot twist... nothing spectacular.

 Everrain wouldn't hurt the final boss, though on the other hand it would further bloat an already massive game that could take a whole day to play - especially if there are three or four of you. Also, while it's formally a cooperative game, there's almost zero interaction between players. There is also the problem of the snowball building up in the middle of the game: the first act takes as much time as the other three combined.

CONCLUSIONS

 Everrain is a great game, but very large. A party can take almost the whole day, and learning how to play and teaching others will also take a lot of time. On the other hand, the gameplay is very exciting, themed and fan-based - especially when you upgrade the ship by buying new guns and battering rams. Everrain is worth trying if you can: traveling through a sinking world, collecting crew and hunting for treasure is very interesting.

 Everrain is an ambitious game that has achieved its goals. I happily spent hours traveling around islands, battling sea serpents and Lovecraftian monsters. It also goes well in solo, and noticeably faster than in a large composition.

 Would love to see an add-on that raises the mid and late game difficulty. Giant monsters and more varied enemy ships wouldn't hurt either; Now, ship-to-ship battles are unfortunately quite rare. All in all, if you want a massive co-op engine-building adventure in an eerie light setting that takes up a solid chunk of your weekend, then Everrain is the game for you.

USEFUL LINKS

Everrain on BGG

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/252315/everrain

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