Caught in an enigmatic storm, a modern-day luxury ocean liner crashes ashore on an otherworldly island. As one of the ambitious survivors, you soon learn that the island is home to a multitude of majestic and fiercely territorial dinosaurs. With the cruiser beyond repair, you have no choice but to establish a foothold on the island, withstand the onslaught of the dinosaurs, and sow the seeds of what will one day become a strong and tenacious community capable of discovering the mystery of the island.
Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles introduces the first two episodes in a series of euro-style dice-drafting / dice-placement strategy games. The saga will ultimately consist of four episodes, telling the story of a group of survivors becoming a mighty civilization on a hostile island. As each episode features unique characteristics and a different game feel, they are playable as standalone medium/heavy games but also as a continuous campaign. The theme and story unfolds through evolving game mechanisms across the episodes, also making the rules easier to learn. In the campaign mode, the outcome of each episode influences the next, but the game has no legacy elements and no hidden rules; the whole storyline is infinitely replayable.
In Episode 1, players are striving to develop and protect the foothold town of Perseverance, besieged by the dinosaurs of the island. By building walls, traps and settlements, mounting defenses and partaking in the early political power struggles of a forming community, players gain followers to establish themselves as leaders. Episode 1 introduces the signature dice placement / area majority mechanism that evolves and spans through the series, and also features a defense mechanism against waves of attacking dinosaurs, unique to this episode.
In Episode 2, the survivors have successfully defended the city of Perseverance, completing a massive wall to stop the dinosaur onslaught. Under the guidance of the ship’s senior officers, the players now set out to explore the surrounding wilderness, expand the settlement beyond the walls, and chart a path to the mysterious structure on the horizon. This Episode adds new actions to expand the core mechanism and allows for a deep customization of your Leader and faction through dozens of unique skills. The previous episode’s defense mechanism evolves into hex-based adventuring and expansion, allowing you to build outposts beyond the city walls, but beware - the dinosaurs are still not your friends...yet.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's about 90% of what it is we're trying to do. Okay.
- So, here is my answer to you, George, and to everybody else out there.
- We sometimes feature games that are obscure, uh, like maybe an incorporated or like a Granville or anything like that to highlight it so that it might get picked up and reprinted.
- The star of the show is whatever game we're featuring. That's what's the star.
- It's a logistics card game for two players.
- I have no affinity for Star Trek or Star Wars for that matter. Different animals, I understand. Don't don't yell at me. I'm just saying it.
References (from this video)
- Each chapter is a fully developed game, not just a scenario.
- The whole storyline is infinitely replayable.
- No legacy elements.
- Survival and civilization building
- A hostile and dinosaur-filled land, possibly near the Devil's Triangle
- Story-driven elements unfolding over four episodes
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dice Drafting — A euro-style dice drafting and placement game.
- Worker Placement — A euro-style dice drafting and placement game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- by my estimation there are 3.6 million games released each week which doesn't sound right now I say it out loud but there are a ton aboard card and tabletop games released each month so it's inevitable that some of them are going to slip the cracks like some kind of determined eel or greased baboon
- Chaz is created a mysterious an intricate programmatic formula which assigns each of these games an underdog score ranging from 1 to 100 while it is true that I don't fully understand chances formula I've seen it it's a lie and I think it might be sentient possibly evil
- MKULTRA was proven to be real and it's not just me thinking this TVs can see you all pigeons are Holograms now that's only imported because there's also this evil demon horse radishes only came into existence five years ago it's the mandala effect Apple computers are reverse engineered technology from a downed alien spaceship the Berenstein bears fun not today Internet
- Yes well done Chaz what a way to treat a classic cornerstone a modern board-gaming with the respect it deserves
- please I can't stress this enough never represent yourself in court ever
References (from this video)
- Unique concept of episodic gameplay
- Host questions the replayability of earlier episodes once later ones are completed.
- The structure is seen as 'weird' by the host.
- Survival, potentially dinosaur taming
- Island with dinosaurs
- Episodic, with distinct 'chapters' or episodes
- Lost
- Jurassic Park
- Turmoil (game)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Story Driven — The gameplay progresses through distinct narrative chapters.
- Survival — The theme involves surviving on an island with dinosaurs.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- mind clash is all about making their games just over just overboard with production values and just making them cool cool cool
- the art is neat it's original um like i say it's hard a lot of these games you look at it and you're like oh well that's that's back to the future you look at this you're like oh that's star trek but this one it's hard hard to put a finger on it isn't it
- if you know trickerion you know what's what's happening and then they did something really really smart and really really sneaky
- the components are amazing i like them i really like the feel them
- my first live stream thank you for joining me
- i'm a storage nerd
- this is a kickstarter product if you couldn't tell
- it's a loan but it's a fun loan
- the future is a scary place folks
- whoa what happens when you need to burp or fart on a live stream do you know
- Look at this thing this is crazy
- Mineclash is all about making their games just overboard with production values and just making them cool cool cool
- The vision, the artistic vision, is so weird, it's so funky and out there
- If you're a geek and I know you probably are this game is for you
- These are the coolest things, and they'll look better once I get them out of the bag
- I was so disappointed when I bought it... and then I played it and it's wicked, I loved it, it's so cool.
- It's like kitchen sink game design and people have faulted it for that.
- Perseverance is like Lost meets Jurassic Park
- It seemed like a really unique concept to me but weird, is that weird?
- and they said this will never be available at retail and then they released a version of it at retail I was like damn you
- they said we will we're not going to do gollum versions of these other games and then they released them
- Spacious and component-heavy
- The host notes that Nemesis requires more space than the Anachrony Infinity Box, and mentions a friend's extensive collection of 'Too Many Bones' components.
- Expansive and modular
- The game consists of a base game and numerous expansions, allowing players to customize their experience.
- Audacious (Collector's Edition)
- Social Deduction
- The host compares it to 'werewolf' and questions if it includes a literal clock tower.
References (from this video)
- brutal and merciless
- not nice
- no magic
- tribes, tramplers and raptors
- island full of dinosaurs
- Above and Below
- Paris
- The Loop
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- attack events by dinosaurs — dinosaurs trampling and eating people
- tribe-based survival — tribes washed up on an island facing dinosaurs
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's now or never
- paris, yes a tile placement game set in paris
- there aren't any dinosaurs in it
- it's a cooperative game through time
- this is my sort of game
- it's brutal
- there's no magic
References (from this video)
- Beautiful looking
- Fantastic production values
- Intriguing premise (landing on alien world with dinosaurs)
- Disappointing
- Cumbersome game experience
- Joyless experience
- Two heavy games in one
- Dry thematic integration
- Did not come to life
- Survival and exploration on an alien planet.
- Alien world with dinosaurs
- Anachrony
- Neom
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Resource Management — Managing various resource types.
- Worker Placement — A core mechanic, noted as being a favorite type for the host in other games like Anachrony.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- role players are deeply frustrating game for me uh for many reasons
- the thing that sort of causes me a bit of I don't know dissonance with the game is the whole narrative that it's about making up a character because for me the important part of making up a character are you know who they are their identity their motivations their drive it's not the six stats they get and that's what this focuses on
- to me that's not character creation uh that's just rolling numbers
- Santa Monica is another pretty yet ultimately forgettable game that I just kind of got rid of because didn't really do much to justify its existence
- I found this a very cynical and very tepid game
- very very forgettable and just totally uninspiring
- Thunderbirds danger zone is a game that makes me a bit sad because Thunderbirds 50th anniversary is one of my all-time favorite games
- with parts it's just not good it's just not a good game
- it's just a waste of a really cool IP
- there were just models were backing up
- most of them are pretty pretty average
- weights Knights post-apocalyptic game it's got some really good writing in it too
- the problem is the mechanics are really arbitrary
- weight nights in particular it just felt so arbitrary who was having a good game and doing well and who wasn't
- core mechanics of the game were just a crap shoot and not that much fun if you ended up on the bad side of it
- and the final game on here is welcome to the Moon the big sequel to welcome to which is like a 10 part rolling right game with a whole bunch of different games in it
- if I'm not enjoying a rolling right game
- was I too harsh on some games uh I probably was but you know this is my opinion
- if you did hear me talk about something and go actually I think you would like this game really interested to know about that sort of stuff
References (from this video)
- We have only played episode one so I don't know if Episode Two was heavier.
- I didn't find I I thought it was a highway Euro I didn't think it was an ultra maybe the episode two is more heavy.
- Dinosaurs
- Europe
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — There are area control elements.
- Dice Drafting — An essentially dice action drafting game.
- Shared Objective — There are a lot of shared objective elements.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we are going to rank our top 20 heaviest games that we have played according to BGG rating whether we agree or not we'll tell you later
- delving into that ever controversial ever amorphous topic that is BGG heaviness ratings what do they mean no one knows no one can explain
- the fact that you can ruin your game very early on and this is is one of them
- it was hard to feel like you were achieving anything as well
- that's a real signal of how tough the entry point to this game is
- the bass rules are so dense and adding dog Arts Academy to it adds a whole extra thing to do
References (from this video)
- Mechanically episode two was better than episode one.
- Too overcomplicated
- Too fiddly
- Problematic solo mode
- Impractical
- Packaging sells two games in one box
- Focuses too much on miniatures
- Expensive
- Takes up a ton of storage space
- Uneven action design (some actions take ages, others just get two resources)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — last time I remember there were actions in the game that literally ranged from, oh, I've got this one action that takes up ages and gets me these cool combos. And then, here's one of my 16 actions in the game, and it's take two resources.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The artwork is very pretty.
- it's an aggressive area control game.
- This expansion is fixing a fundamental flaw of the original game.
- I am salivating at the mouth for this one.
- This game is the theme done justice in tabletop form.
- I do have to temper my expectations because I think Valheim's going to be a little bit trickier to bring to tabletop.
- There's not a lot of innovation in games anymore.
- But when I played it, it's like, 'Okay, that mechanism I like. Let's find out.'
- This is a very long podcast.
- But remember, it's only a game.
References (from this video)
- Two-player mode provides competitive depth and clear turn structure
- Engine-building and diverse action economy per turn
- Dynamic area control with landmarks, cities, and wilderness
- Prototype minis and ongoing component/production improvements hinted
- Not final rules or artwork; tabletop simulator version is a prototype
- Prototype nature implies potential changes before release
- dinosaur domestication, exploration, and territory control within a crafted island empire
- Isolated island/landscape with cities, landmarks, temples, wilderness, and dinosaur habitats; castaway-led factions vying for control
- prototype playthrough showing setup, actions, and scoring across a two-player game
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- adventure_resolution — Adventures are drawn and resolved by placing influence and rolling/using resources; artifacts provide bonuses tied to the bottom half of adventure effects.
- Area Control — Area control is achieved by coloring districts from landmarks to underlying cards, creating a territorial footprint.
- area_control — Area control is achieved by coloring districts from landmarks to underlying cards, creating a territorial footprint.
- assembly_scoring — Assembly scoring uses a progressive tile track where first place yields three points, second place yields a supply, and others yield fewer points; scores are tallied across city, landmarks, and holdings.
- combat_and_capture — Combat costs and methods to capture a Shield head (using Rangers, taming a dino, or sacrificing leaders) with fatigue rules for leaders.
- Compound Scoring — Assembly scoring uses a progressive tile track where first place yields three points, second place yields a supply, and others yield fewer points; scores are tallied across city, landmarks, and holdings.
- Dice Placement — Roll two dice per color; place a die onto a notebook space in the city to enable two of three actions; a third action may be unlocked by placing a dinosaur.
- dice_worker_placement — Roll two dice per color; place a die onto a notebook space in the city to enable two of three actions; a third action may be unlocked by placing a dinosaur.
- dino_taming — Dinos start untamed (white); taming places a color-tamed dino on your board; saddles indicate taming; taming is used to enable certain actions.
- end_game_goals — Private goal cards and a shared goal at the bottom influence final scoring.
- ranch_and_artifacts — The Ranch is a major tableau area; artifacts grant bonuses and may modify mechanics (e.g., replacing dice, unlocking bonuses).
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's like Jurassic Park before it all went wrong
- not final rules not final artwork
- looks so juicy
- we're playing the two-player versions