Rob's first look at Cysmic : an Independant masterpiece !

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0:22 You know, how you doing everybody? Um, this one is really special to me and I'm going to talk a real lot about this on the other side. I have always had a soft spot for independent developers, especially a one-man show that has given, you know, over 10 years of his life to something. Star Reach Games has created an incredible game that we're going to go down to the table and take a look at. It is Seismic. Uh, and it's amazing what one man can do. Uh, a one-man show creating just an incredible, amazing experience that we're going to talk about. Now, we're going to go down to the table, we're going to take a look at all the components and everything like that, but I'm going to explain a lot of things on the other side that we're going to do with this and we're going to talk about this. Uh, right now I just want to show you the incredible enormity of this game.

1:17 Uh, and it's incredible what one man can do. Anybody with a dream and the passion and the heart to do something like this. So, let's go down to the table and take a look at Seismic. I think before we start anywhere, we we just have to show how the cover comes off of this bad boy. And as you can see, it's had a ton of backers behind it. I'm just trying to move this out of the way so I can do that. Uh, as you can see on the top and your game is actually going to be here and it's going to slide out. So, I'm going to move this out of the way. Um, and we're going to pull out um the factions themselves. Okay, uh you're going to have different colors. There's six different factions that you're going to have.

2:05 Um this is going to be your um tableau here and you're going to have different abilities and and be able to pick different things. You're going to have cards that are going to go in the slots here. Okay, and what you're going to be able to do is depending on that color, you'll be able to get an extra action uh as you do it. And once all these cards, because you're going to have 10 cards, you're going to put one down face down and then have one face up. And you're going to go through each section, which is really pretty pretty incredible. Um the quality is just through the roof. Uh construction of your ship, how you're going to be getting the different parts.

2:50 I'll show you the ships themselves very very very soon. Uh the parts of the ships are in here. And and

3:00 [snorts]

3:00 you are going to be fighting in this game. And I do mean you are going to be brawling for sure. And you're going to have all kinds of different units. I mean, look at this guy right here, right? I mean, just absolutely beautiful. But also in here are the parts of your ship. So, um you're going to have certain things like harvesters, which are going to harvester um materials. Um you're going to have miners. Uh you're going to have soldiers. You're going to have power max like I showed you. You're going to have all kinds of different soldiers that you're going to be fighting battles with. You're going to be trying to get all the different pieces of the ship, and I will show you where all these go. Uh and I'll just take this one out for now uh to [snorts] show you that.

3:46 Um with this, and we're going to put this on top here, and just try to keep everything nice and neat um without tearing everything up. Uh you're going to get up to six factions, which uh there are three other factions here. Um also you are going to have an extensive rulebook. They're going to show you how to put everything into the tray. There's a I'm going to show you the board, but I'm not going to put all the board together because there's an outlining part for the board. Um and you you're Just trust me, you're going to you're going to see this. Uh your ships, um your terrain tiles, uh mountains are going to be there. I'll show you all that. A very extensive rulebook, which really does it It's an easy read. Uh I was surprised at how easy you were able to read this. Uh your quick start guide is going to help you set up and get going.

4:45 It does not take you long to get this going even though it feels like, you know, uh it it there's an enormity there. Uh your dice You've got your dice in here. Uh you've got your markers uh for conquering certain things. Uh cards You're going to have uh different types of uh for instance, you can be uh different different factions, and there are a ton of factions that you can pick. Uh some of them are are suited for two-player game. There's going to be a little a little thing here that's going to tell you either two-player, three-player, uh or four-player, five and six, but all these are are you know, for the most part, there are a lot a lot of um of different factions. For instance, you've got the trickster. Yeah, and it kind of each one of these has a different type of thing. You know, the the backstory to this is really incredible in how they found this planet and they took all the the best of people, entertainers, politicians, uh engineers, and and and and different religions and and leaders, and all came to terraform this particular planet. But what happened was as they terraformed and changed it, of course, humanity became humanity as it always does and takes things to an nth level. And

6:16 and then, you know, the planet started falling apart. The terraforming went wrong. And now everybody's racing and fighting against each other, okay? To get off the planet cuz the first one that leaves the will cause the planet to disintegrate and uh that's the end of it. There are no victory points. There are no no uh win conditions. The only win condition is survival and only one of you will survive. Uh the each rain and that I mean just absolutely gorgeous. I'm just going to put this over to the side here. Uh this here is just really incredible, the size of this board. And this is going to take up some room. I mean, it is going to it is going to fill up your table. And that's why I tried to get the the camera up higher so you could take a look. And these are going to be split into sections and each section is going to have a certain material, uh you know, like desert, water, and so forth and so on. And then you're going to lay out these incredible tiles um on on to it. And you know, there's tons of different cards like um like I I had said early earlier and stuff like that. You're going to put um this around.

7:39 Um the components are are through the roof. I mean, through the roof. I mean you look at some of these these these absolute nothing's cardboard. There's no cardboard in here. I mean this is this is one man's dream and one man's passion not that just make something cheap but something something unbelievably put together and and incredible metal you know these these metal tokens and and and and just you know I just can't say enough about this. It's it's absolutely mind-blowing. You know how everything works. So you know you're trying to save as many colonists as you can and get off the planet safely.

8:24 [snorts]

8:24 Um the main thing is you're trying to build that ship and ship construction is the heart of this heart of this game. You're trying to do it. And you're going to have uh first of all you're going to have your seismic counter and this this is all going to be filled and it's all going to go until a complete fracture of the complete planet. And as you can see I mean all the cutouts everything just done perfectly and one of the things I want to do is I'm going to paint these up because uh first player button launch I mean just all in all just absolutely fantastic. And all these things I mean you're looking at the gray part but um they all look like they've been uh uh sun dropped. Uh here are the uh parts for each of the planet.

9:20 And I try to keep the these on uh so they don't go flying all over the place which I I've done pretty well. Uh just broke that one unfortunately. But as you can see all these will be distributed out and you'll have certain areas that you can you can you can start at and certain areas that you cannot start at. Oh, ripped the doggone thing. I didn't want to do that. Um again, you're the the components are through the roof. Like putting Every time you complete a piece of the ship, you are going to be continually adding pieces in. And as you see, they they they stay in magnetically, which is which is pretty doggone cool.

10:08 Uh we're going to put that one there. I think I got them right so far. I may not. Who knows? Um but again, you know, just just another absolutely fantastic uh amazing masterpiece. Um as you try to build this ship in in its completion to get off this planet. Um and uh I'm going to talk a little more about it in on the other side of this of how much this reminds me of a certain movie that I absolutely adore. And um after reading it and watching um a ton of videos and and just kind of uh playing around a little bit and trying to figure it out myself. Um and that's why, you know, we're doing we're doing the component overview and just showing you the quality of this fantastic stuff, which has been absolutely mind-blowing. Um an incredible incredible production and absolutely something I am 100% into and um I really think you would enjoy this as well. Uh it's it's amazing that one person did this. Um and you got companies uh filled with up to 100 people that are putting out things that don't have as much passion as this particular one game has. But, we're going to be talking about this. I've got to get all the rules down 100% and we'll do a play through. We're going to do a

11:40 painting of of the ships and the launch pads and and the soldiers and stuff like that. I think it'll be kind of cool to do a couple factions. We'll keep their majority of their color, but I think there's a lot of things that just be touched up and really done to really bring out what what this person has absolutely put so much passion into. Um and and you know you just you know, Jason has done Jason Blake has done such an incredible job on this. A one-man show that has just made an incredible experience and gave a good part of his his existence to create something. A man The most amazing thing um is a man with a dream. So, let's go up top and get my final some of my final thoughts here on our initial look at Seismic.

12:35 [sighs]

12:36 I've reshot this ending like three or four different times. Um since I did the unboxing and I was showcasing things and and and talking about how I was messing the game. I had a chance to play the game. Um and it just confirms everything even more of what I felt in my initial learning the game, going through the components and everything that has gone with Seismic. Um one man's incredible incredible passion. Giving up, you know, 10 you know, 10 years of more than 10 years of your life and doing it all yourself to make your dream come true and and be able to you know, have a successful um I don't know if you went on Kickstarter or me if I'm I'm right or wrong or or Gamefound, doesn't matter. You know, a crowdfunding and being able to do everything and put your life into something that means so much to it. And you know, we had a chance to kind of chat back and forth on on on um email a bit and I was very impressed with who he was and and and you know, how hard it is. You You don't understand when big company makes a game, it costs maybe $10.

14:00 So, what is it to send it out to a bunch of creators? Um you know, you know, some of them will do a good job, some of them don't care, you know, that's just the way the business is. But for this guy who had to put so much into each game of his own money and then to put his trust in me to take a look at it, um speaks volumes and the other people that he he also trusted, praying that that he has to sell a certain amount to make up for it. And I I really hope you go out and buy this game. Not because of of of uh you know, anything that has transpired between Jason and myself, but because of what this game is, what it does. It speaks volumes about humanity.

14:48 It's not a game where you're you're sitting there and it's all about victory points and things like that and and stuff like that. It is you trying to be the best of humanity, both good and evil, and trying to get off a planet and the minute you lift off, that planet is going to fall apart. And it reminds me and it really hits home because I'm a very big science fiction fan. And it reminds me of a couple of movies from the '50s, particularly When Worlds Collide, when everybody and the last of humanity was was trying that had a lottery and we're trying to decide who can go on that ship to go to the new planet. Okay? To keep humanity alive because the planet was going to die and everybody else on it was going to die.

15:35 And the good, the evil, the rich, the politicians, the entertainers and all these people that make up everything in this game were doing the same thing to be the last survivors. Both good and and and and bad and and just trying to take the best of humanity to start have a chance to start all over. The incredible backstory of this game, okay? Where it's hey, we're going to terraform this planet and all these different people from all different walks of life and everything was really good for a while until the terraforming took a weird turn and now everybody's trying to get off and there's fighting and so forth and on, but there's also that bit of humanity that you may be trying to lift off and if you roll that die, you know, there may be some things that that you may not be able to lift off because of your humanity to wait for you know, to make sure that you have everybody from your faction on board, okay? You know, not cutting your losses and things like that. That you know, because there's there's certain things that can happen and and stuff like that if you try to take shortcuts. It's and each faction is the good and bad [clears throat] of who we are. And what this game does is just incredible. And all of you sitting that are at the table do trying to take each other out and be the last one to take your your people off this planet

17:06 unfortunately with with maybe guilt or maybe no remorse at all of the people that you've left behind to die. An incredibly well-thought-out masterpiece. And um like I said, I shot this three or four times because I wanted to make sure I convey to you out there, the people that watch me and are maybe thinking about this game or looking at the price tag and trying to justify it and I'm telling you it is justifiable. Uh you saw the components. I didn't show you everything. Um even though that was a few days ago. But I'm trying to remember at least. But this game This is a game that you'll play. It's one of those games that you'll play and [clears throat] it'll stick with you for a while.

17:57 You've played those games. There's some games that you play and you put back on the shelf and you forget about it. And then there's some games that you play and you sit there and you look at it and it sticks with you because of what it does, how it does it, and how well it does it. And the beautiful and incredible components. Uh you know, at the end of June um um matter of fact, I'm shooting this on on the 1st. Um I'm going to start the painting videos and then we'll do um by then I'll play it like three or four times with my kids and then I'll be able to do a little bit of a play-through or maybe we'll tape some of that and then give you a third video on top of this so you get the full feel. But if you have to go off my initial video, I suggest that you get a hold of this.

18:46 This is something special and that's why I'm talking so long about it is because I really believe in it and I'm amazed at Jason Blake for what he himself has done by himself what a lot of big companies can't do. And that's give you heart, passion, story, and a a thematic masterpiece. Until next time, it's your old pal Rob. We'll see you soon, everybody.