Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles Review

After a couple of games of Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles played in Tabletop Simulator, I decided to share my impressions of the game and the solo mode.

GAME DESCRIPTION

Perseverance takes place in a setting reminiscent of "Stay Alive": a cruise ship is shipwrecked on a mysterious island inhabited by dinosaurs (?!). The game consists of several scenario episodes (there are 2 so far) that tell what happened to the involuntary settlers. In Episode 1, you fend off rampaging dinosaurs while trying to settle on an island. You act as leaders who simultaneously participate in collective defense and try to recruit as many followers as possible (bring victory points).

In the plan, the Perseverance mechanic is a worker placement game with an admixture of area control. The action takes place mainly in two zones - the community zone and the defense zone. In the first, you increase influence by placing cubes and settlements, and in the second, you participate in semi-cooperative tower defense, placing soldiers and fortifications. There is also a small third area where players can influence the ship's officers to gain some bonuses and followers.

GAME PROCESS

The player's turn consists of:

• draft dice from the general pool, consisting of neutral dice and dice of the main action players;
• its placement in one of the four community zones;
• appearance of new dinosaurs;
• choosing a secondary action;
• dinosaur attacks (as well as a breakthrough if the defense is not strong enough).

 When the dice pool runs out, it's assembly time: in each of the community zones, who has the most influence (cubes, settlements, and leadership) is tallied, and the winners are rewarded with followers and resources. After three gatherings (or two in a party for two), the game is over. Whoever has more followers wins.

 As with other Mindclash games, the rules are hard to digest. There is no simple central mechanic that ties together myriads of nuanced rules, unlike Lacerda's games. Mindclash games consist of loosely connected groups of mechanics of varying difficulty, sprinkled with a bunch of icons. But once you get the hang of it and start to understand how well-rounded the game's core is, it's impressive, whether it's performing tricks in Trickerion, building infrastructure in Anachrony, public and private objectives in Cerebria, or fighting for an area majority in two zones here.

 According to Turczi, one of the authors, the complexity of episode 1 is about the level of basic Anachrony, and episode 2 is slightly less than Trickerion. While I haven't gotten around to episode 2 yet, I'm inclined to agree with the first statement; the only thing is that mechanics in a fantasy setting are easier to digest than here. For example, the resources food/debris/stories are less intuitive than the resources water/generator power/building materials. The situation is saved by a generally excellently developed rule book.

 Your main task is to ensure that the community zones have as much influence as possible, while at the same time spending enough on defense so that settlements (primarily your own) are not destroyed by dinosaurs. Their attacks are very predictable (it is Euro after all) and the timing of when each zone will be attacked adds interest to the game. In general, imagine something similar to the fire mechanic from IKI, only there are still soldiers, traps and walls. The game doesn't put much emphasis on worker placement - more emphasis is placed on interaction, and that's a good thing, because the worker placement genre is already crowded.

 However, there are a lot of rules here. Not only does the game have several ways to mine resources (including soldiers), but there are also tons of ways to use them. You can easily get distracted and disperse your forces with too thin a layer. It is much more effective to focus on your strengths, focus on certain areas and try to win the meeting. There are also many small nuances; not that they are difficult to remember individually, but because of their huge number, the first games will certainly be played with mistakes. However, when I finally mastered the rules, the gameplay became noticeably more fluid and understandable.

SOLO MODE

 In solo mode, there are Discords, two NPCs who can't win the game, but can be enough of a hindrance to prevent you from becoming a colony leader. There are four possible endings here; all require achieving a certain number of points and avoiding instant defeat (if N settlements are destroyed). If you're familiar with solo modes other than Turks, you'll find this very useful. Before you is a hybrid of AI with Cerebria and Kanban. In terms of complexity, it is somewhere between them; luckily a bit closer to Kanban than Cerebria.

 As intended by the author, when playing solo you have to take into account the same factors as when playing with live people. Two dissenters use the same deck of cards and behave only partially predictably.

 I lost because I relaxed too much in the beginning and allowed myself to destroy too many settlements. For almost two-thirds of the next game, everything hung in the balance (1 settlement before defeat). As a result, I managed to get enough followers, but not enough authority (the number of followers + modifiers received). In general, solo mode is much easier to play than two-player, and I was able to delve much deeper into the mechanics of the game. Looking forward to the arrival of the box, especially the "Chronicles" mode, which gives you bonuses that will be reflected in the next batches.

EPISODE 2

Episode 2 takes place a few months later, when the colony has stabilized, the dinosaur invasion is over, and you start going deeper into the jungle (and somewhere deep in the jungle, there's a... temple waiting for you?!). The mechanics of placing cubes are almost changed, and instead of tower defense, the mechanics of research appear. Players can create new cube slots by clearing the jungle (while approaching the mysterious temple). You can also now capture and tame dinosaurs to protect your growing colony and its expanding territory... and then what? I don't know yet, but episodes 3 and 4 should be released on Gamefound in the fall of 2023. So far, I'm moderately optimistic.