One of the BEST hidden gems from 2024 | Rise and Fall Review

hello everyone and welcome back to the board gaming doctor my name is Phil and I'll be your board game doctor today in this video I'm going to talk about and review a game that has been on my radar for a long time I'm very excited to talk about rise and fall this is a game by Kristoff Bolinger who the only game that I've heard of from him has been archipelago which is not a game that I have played yet I've heard it's very interactive and Rise and Fall is no different this is a 2024 release that was kickstarted in 2023 and that's when I first heard about it and it was around the same time that I was playing and learning uh uh roads and boats right the splotter game where it's a very much a logistical pattern of of you know building out routes and putting out different units and and buildings and finding the most efficient way to reach your goals and establish an Empire or a civilization in a more logistical and Abstract way I'll start off by saying that and I've mentioned this many times in my videos that games like that remind me of the past like Age of Empires 2 Not only was kind of a Civ game in and of itself with tech trees with uh competition and and you know military mind but it was also kind of a resource management game where you could trade with your opponents or Allies you can form alliances you can interact with other players in the way that made you know positive interaction interesting when it came to trading and getting resources right uh so that's what led me to really enjoy roads and boats and that's what made me you know very excited to try rise and fall now I did not back it at the time and I've heard that there have been some issues with the game and the company itself be you know providing copies or or help Etc right and then I'm not going to talk about that I'm going to talk about the game itself so as a quick overview this game is somewhat of an abstracted game where you are placing different units onto a modular board the first half of the game is setting up this board randomly or you could set it up randomly but you can also draft the pieces and and place them where you desire if so everyone chip in and places this game board um in a manner that is determined by the players but then the second half of the game is you you know placing these units on and then playing a card representing that unit and being able to take one of the several actions listed on that card for every single unit that you desire to activate on the board at that time a lot of the time you are moving these units around the board you are converting these units from one type to another for example Nomads the uh horse and buggy and cart type of units can turn into cities they can turn into ships Etc cities you know they can turn into the people who ride on tigers for some reason you know so there are and then once you acquire a unit you can acquire that card from your deck and add that to your hand to be able to play actions that are specific to that character the goal of this game is to go around moving these characters activating them once at a time and and I say once you activate them all you retrieve all the cards back to your hand and you can choose which units and cards to activate again the goal of this game is to get out as many of one type of unit as possible to claim a trophy and when you do you get points at the end of the game for that but you also progress towards ending the game as however many trophies are required or acquired that therefore will trigger the end of the game and whoever has the most points wins based off of variety of of aspects such as points from trophies area majority you know if you control a single type of land with a certain type of unit um or units combined you will get points for that as well and and then on top of all of that this game can be further modulated with different uh guilds or asymmetric player powers that you can have one or multiple of to create different ways to uh you know score or different ways to kind of break the rules and be more efficient during the game there are also different uh modules that use structures and other bonuses where like if you build next to this building on the board you gain certain extra points Etc and so there's a plethora of additions that you can add to the base game in in terms of player asymmetry and Central board uh goals and objectives things like that so let's so that's an overview of the game let's get into the uh comparisons and first of all I have to I guess there's one comparison that I can make and that's two roads and boats right and so the major comparison of course is the logistical nature of both games where you have a modular board and you start with a couple of resources a couple of units and you're moving them along and activating them as as you go along in turn order both games are very similar but also have some differences where uh different units of other players can be acquired or interacted with you know you can use the routes that are built by certain units and and resources that are gained in roads and boats whereas in rise and fall all the units and resources tend to be self-sufficient and the only I guess one of the only points of interaction is in movement of these units across the board as well as that area control aspect at the end of the game the uh but yeah otherwise they're pretty similar I would say uh roads and boats is more complex and probably more interactive in both positive and negative ways compared to rise and fall that's the major comparison I you know there aren't a lot of games that are like rise and fall and so moving on to the peer review so after compiling the comments that people have used on Board Game Geek both pros and cons for rise and the fall uh chat GPT summarized the following here so the the pearls of Rise and Fall according to the people who have played it are it has deep strategy and planning uh there's not a lot of luck involved as is evident with the overview of this game the interactivity of the pieces as well is a really cool has a really cool table presence the 3D map that is created is probably awesome and unfortunately I've not had that experience but hope to one day it's an interactive game it's got Euro style mechanic mechanisms another couple of games that people have compared this to are hanza Tuton and Concordia I think Concordia for the hand management and card play and the hanza Tonica aspect of managing a very interactive Central board the rule set is fairly streamlined as well well I basically taught you the entire game and it really comes down to how you utilize the actions that are depicted with iconography on the cards you've got the race aspect uh for those uh trophies as well as the AA control scales well with multiple people and it really accelerates towards the endgame if you if you don't you know pay attention things can ramp up and and end fairly quickly for somewhat of a an abstract a longer looking type of Euro game a lot of people enjoy the quality of the kickstarter version of this game but I will say and jump down to the issues there have been some issues with uh the production of this game and the continuing effort to manage those who have gotten the game now this game is punishing there is an element of player elimination and so it does require some uh you know forethought in the fact that you could be eliminated and would have to watch everyone else finish up the game and so it can be lost by turn one which is very reminiscent of what splotter games are like and so if that is a pro or a con to you it is for me a pro but you know if it's con for you that's totally fine and now you know the initial you know turns of the start of the game can be kind of slow as and and perhaps I've also heard mentioned T kind of rote as well there seems to be one or two tried andrue strategies that you start this game with and it and it really diversifies at the end of the game or the middle of the game you know depending on the guilds and the other aspects that you use to set up the game with but those first kind of turns can be slow and tedious as is true with a lot of splotter games actually uh there you know there's not much tactic flexibility you know once again this is very much a strategic game and not very uh tactical or luck based and so some people for all those reasons feel like it's not as fun of a game you know it it's really an acquired taste and you know if you do enjoy splotter games this game probably would feel closer to home and be more enjoyable so going into my final thoughts here and in the criteria that I have personally for what makes a game interesting and fun for me is overall this game is a 9.2 out of 10 a very high rating and recommendation for me I think the rules of this game are really easy to learn the overall it's a very fun game it it checks off all the boxes that I find very you know personal and important to me in a game it's that really strategic kind of fun a game that I think about after I'm done with it and want to get better at you know it reminds me of the strategy you know depth that games like agrica and and others like that are you know it kind of reminded me of how fun it was to learn and dive deeper into this game and it's a game that I could watch other people play you know I think there is quite a bit of skill in this game and strategy now it it doesn't get a perfect 10 because I do feel like it you know the base game itself does feel quite you know repetitive and I agree with that but I think the added modularity of this game it really makes this game have that variability that's near perfect as well and and it's you know really replayable I think it does it would really hurt this replayability of this game if you're not playing with those who are at the same level and could potentially be kicked out of the game earlier and so for that it's not as you know replayable and as omnipresent of a game for for anyone essentially I think you'd have to play this game with people who want to play it as well as those who are more or less to the same level as you it has a lot of interaction not as much as roads and boats as previously mentioned but just you know quite enough that it it really feels very interactive especially with the endgame area control scoring the theme of this game is not it's fairly abstracted right and so we're taking somewhat of a generic SL there there are some unique aspects of this kind of I don't know um civilization medieval civilization type of theme I mean you have people riding on El elant and tigers right and so that's kind of new and unique about this game but I think I think there are some points to be had with the uh the guilds not not the guilds but like the modular pieces that you can use in this game do give it some flare that I enjoy it's mostly a mechanical game but you know for what it is you know which is a kind of abstracted Civ themed game I think it does pretty well in replicating the the Thematic sense of a game like Age of Empires once again where there is you know you're developing your own civilization but also having to interact with those around you whether it's for endgame scoring in this case uh vying for different territories to be able to utilize them for resources and points later on Etc right and and and the race to get towards certain goals right uh that reminds me of like the races to build wonders in Age of Empires for example so I I do feel like this has some theme it's not as thematic as other people might feel but I I do really enjoy it and give it a high score for that otherwise yeah it's I think it's got enough variability strategically and with the modularity of the board itself as well as the modules of guilds and other pieces to make this game feel different every time we play and so yeah a near perfect game for me very highly rated U as you can see visually this game is uh playable online uh you can play against other people against a pirate AI uh solo mode that is specific which plays really well I guess that adds to the solo Factor as well even if you're playing this by yourself I think the I guess a lot of it is dependent on this AI which really replicates the the multiplayer game very well and you know and there's a lot of added variability in terms of difficulty as you get better at this game to make that solo mode really feel challenging and interactive so I like that as well so you can play this game uh I I'll in the notes Down Below in the description I will put the Discord link to go to the rise and fall official Discord where you can find the instructions to download an alpha key if you want to play it now and hopefully in the future this game will be available on Steam for purchase and hopefully it'll make it a lot easier for a community of dedicated players to play each other and enjoy this game further and deeper so I will include that down below and most likely especially with all the kickstarter issues and production issues with the publisher of this game I feel like this is going to be our best bet to having this game be playable to a wider audience until this game potentially gets a little bit more uh support um analog wise right so all of that to say excellent game I highly recommend it if you enjoy the games that I enjoy I think this is worth a try and but if you have played this game or have just learned about this game let me know what you think down in the comments below thank you for Consulting with me today on Rise and Fall hope you schedule an appointment with your board gaming doctor real soon take