The Last Droids Review - Maybe What You're Looking For...
Transcript
Hey everybody, Zee Garcia here and today we're taking a look at The Last Droids. This is a card game in which we are going to be drafting robots. We're going to be repairing those robots with resources we have or discarding that robot to get resources so we can repair later robots. That's the main conceit in the game is which ones do you repair so that you get their victory points and their special abilities and which ones do you let go so that you have stuff to do something with later on in the round. Let me show you what it looks like on the table. Give you a quick overview. We'll come on back. I'll tell you what I think of it. Here we've got the game set up for three players with everybody having their own board with a few starting resources and space for more and then two of these house robots on one side and two on the other side that they're sharing with another player. Uh you've decided on a starting player. Uh though most of the game is going to happen simultaneously and you are ready to go. So this player over here is going to draw a number of these cards equal to the number of players. They're going to give everybody one including themselves and then everyone will simultaneously do the the next part of this. So let's say I I grab that. Well, I give that player that. I give this player over here this one.
Then we are each uh going to do one of three things. You can repair the thing. You can dismantle it or you can get rid of it and then construct one of these around your player uh board. So uh the first thing you can do is construct it. You can pay the resources down here to construct the robot. You're going to get a number of victory points and you're going to get either some ongoing ability or a one-time ability. So again, discarding the resources from your player board and building the thing, putting it into play. The second option is dismantling it. You discard it and you get these resources right here. From the general supply right there and putting them onto your board. And then lastly, the final option is you can just get rid of it and you construct one of these as long as you can pay all the resources that thing requires. And that's the only time you're really going to need to worry about turn order. Normally, you can kind of do these things uh on your own. If it matters, then you can check the turn order and slow that down, but usually everybody gets a card and everybody does one of those things simultaneously.
Building a thing or chucking it and getting resources uh and so on. This is going to continue uh with the players going through this phase one deck that has the the one on the back uh until you get to a divider card that happens in between one and two. This card right here. As soon as you hit that card, everyone is going to get one of these extensions and this goes at the top of any one of the columns you want and allows you to keep one more of that thing. And then also, whoever has the most of these flowers built is going to get a battery. Now, batteries are going to be wild for any of the other things, so you can always spend a battery when you need to construct something and you don't have that thing. The flowers are down here. Whoever has the most is going to get a battery in between one stage of the game and the other one. And there are three stages in the game. So, that's what those are going to do. They also give you victory points at the end of the game. Now, one thing you can always do on your turn when you're dealt out your robot before you decide to construct it or discard it and build one of these, you can do this conversion right here. You can do these as much as you want to. A battery, as I already said, is one of the other ones as many times as you want. You can also give up two matching things for a different one.
so I can give up two of these circuits for uh the oil, for example. The other thing on the back of this card is the scoring at the end of the game. So, on the back it'll explain basically things you're scoring for all of the different kinds of robots, whatever victory points they list in the corner. There's a specific kind of robot, these guys right here, that score based on how many are in play across everybody. So, be aware of those. The houses over here, they'll score based on something, like this is just straight up 12 points, but some of the other ones are going to care about specific things. This one here checks for how many of uh that kind of robot you've got, which is this guy right here. And then if you have that, it shows you in the top corner right there what it is. If you have three, four, or five of those, you get six, 10, or 15 victory points. So, there's that. It also is worth four anyway. Uh if if you can't make it at all, it's at least four or one of those. Okay. Uh and then uh the flowers, whoever has the most flowers is going to get three victory points at the end of the game. And then for uh having leftover stuff, you're also going to get victory points for that. So, that's the way the whole game goes. You're just drafting or you're being given, really, these cards, chucking them or keeping them or building one of these. And the end game is triggered when either someone has none of these around them, so both of these got done by either play by either one of these players, and both of these got done by either one of these players, or we go through the deck,
and then you figure out your score, and you've got a winner. So, I'm going to start by talking about the look and production of the game. I think the artwork in the game is spectacular. I love the the charming, whimsical look of all of the robot cards. I love the resources, the different things they went with. I think the entire thing from a visual point of view is really, really cute and clever and just charming. Now, the box is a bit of an acquired taste. This comes like this. It's It's literally cut out as you can see here. And you are meant to have the deck of cards sit there and I guess this the other spot here next to it is the discard pile. Then in here is a little box. It comes with a box that holds all of the resources.
Uh and you just keep them in the box, which is cute. It's It's fine. Um But And And this is okay while you're playing the game. This is all right. But when you're storing it, the box is kind of missing one of its faces and the cards are going to move around a whole lot. It's a good playing insert. It's not a great storage insert. And so, I don't love it uh for that reason. I don't know if it needed to be this clever. It's sort of clever for the sake of being clever, but you could have just put the deck out on the table somewhere and put the resources on the table somewhere and you're good. I like this box. This is cute, actually. But the the cut out of the hole, I don't love that. As far as the mechanisms of the game, um the drawing and then giving everybody one is okay. I think there might be a more interesting way to divvy out the cards rather than have, you know, the players take turns drawing three or however many players you've got and then just giving people one. That's fine, but I think just openly drafting from the table might have been might have been equally interesting.
Um Might have been a little more turn angst there, a little more interest, maybe. This isn't really, though I've seen it described this way, this isn't really an I split I split you choose game. I keep seeing that sort of being the online description of the game. It says that on on BoardGameGeek, but it's not that. It's not an I split you choose game. It is an I pick for you game. Which again is fine, but it feels like a path of least resistance kind of mechanism as opposed to something that could have been a little more clever. Um so it's neither here nor there. And that's kind of how I feel about a lot of the aspects in the game, though I do like this game. I enjoy playing it. But many of the moments, many of the ideas do feel like they could have been a little more I don't want to say refined, but they could have been a little more interesting. They could have been a little more oomph behind them, a little more turn angst, like I said. The different robots come in quite a few different categories listed here in the rulebook. There's the water management droids. They just give you victory points. They're That's it.
They don't do anything else. That's great. They give you more victory points or, you know, restoration points, whatever they're called, recycling points. They give you more recycling points than the average for the other robots, and that's cool. There's the harvest ones that give you those little plants, and I like that. There's the communication droids. They score based on how many are at the table generally, among everybody. That's okay. The shed droids, they give you something right away, more storage for your board, things like that. The collection droids give you conversion rates, things of that nature. The market droids do something similar to that, and then the the house droids are those unique ones that you can discard a droid from your hand to take that guy and build it.
Which also messes with the simultaneous thing, which is fine. That's That's okay. I do find the scaling in the game to be a little boring because you're mostly doing your own thing. So you don't have to pay a whole lot of attention to what anybody else is doing. Um except for maybe those purple droids. Everybody else is going for them, why wouldn't I then start investing in that? It's one of those things when somebody opens those floodgates, sure, me getting one now is suddenly this many more points, I'll do that. That's literally kind of the only thing you need to look up for across the table. And so, I wish that there was a little more interaction between the players. I wish that it mattered a little more what other people did. It really does not affect me pretty much at all except they might take one of the house droids that I might be interested in later.
Well, it doesn't matter, you know? Um, I like this game because I like the charm within it. I like what I am doing in it. I like the I like the the binary nature, mostly binary nature, of discarding a thing I don't care about because I need the goodies to then put them into a new upcoming guy. But, I wish the drafting was I wish there was drafting, I guess I should say. I wish there was something more interesting to have me take the robots. And I wish there was just a little more oomph, a little more interest between the players. As it is, I like it, but you got to go into it knowing all those things. If you're showing this game to somebody, you should probably let them know this is very multiplayer solitaire.
This is not going to have a lot of interest between the turns, um, it's a it's almost cozy in a detached, emotionally detached, kind of way. And you kind of have to know going into it if that's something that's going to appeal to you. To me, yes, I like it, but I like the charming sort of vibes of the whole thing. I like the robots. I like the artwork. I can sort of get lost in that part of it and then pull up when I we're done at the end and be like, "Did I win? No? That's okay. I had a good time anyway." It's that kind of thing. So, for me, this is going to get a seven out of 10. Uh, I find it attractive. I find it uh, disarming in a way, the play of it. And I love the robots thing, the the recycling robots.
Uh, it's it's a sweet sort of theme and a sweet setting as opposed to usually when you have robots, they're going to be attacking you or something, you know? Uh, so, The Last Droids, seven out of 10 from me. That is a seal of approval. Uh, if this is the one that's speaking to you, if you're looking for a cozy game that is not a nature theme, then maybe this one is going to do it for you. Uh, there you go, folks. The Last Droids in English anyway, and then in French, that is the French cover right there, the original language. But, that'll do it for now. Thank you very much for tuning in and checking this out with me. My name is Zee Garcia. I'll see you on the next one.
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