Observatory Preview! (Rolling and Writing the Stars!)
Transcript
Hi everybody. Hello. I'm Ryan. I'm Bethany. And we are Ryan and Bethany board game reviews. And today we'll be previewing Observatory. This is designed by Chris Williams and is published by 25th Century Game. But before we talk about that, we just want to remind you to subscribe so you can see all our videos as they come out. All right. So before we go any further, I want to mention that this is a preview copy and therefore it is advanced art. Uh so any of the things that we show you are subject to change. Any of the art is not final art. So, keep that in mind. But I kind of dig the art just as it is and half the art you make yourself in this game because this is a roll and write style game. In your turn, basically what you're going to do is you are going to roll these dice. And these dice are going to determine coordinates on the board where you are able to lock in a star. And then from there, you're going to kind of basically keep on building more and more stars until you can combine them to make a constellation. Uh you're given a variety of cards. Uh there's kind of small constellations and large constellations. And large ones are obviously worth a ton of points, but they're kind of hard to map in there and figure out how you're going to com put them all together. The small ones are quick and easy points, but uh you know, they're just not as lucrative, right?
So, you need to kind of do a combination of them if you want to really score the maximum amount of points. Uh also, you might get some special abilities when you complete these constellations as well, being able to place extra stars, extra special abilities, things like that. All right, so in addition to uh being able to map those coordinates on your board, you are also going to be filling out these research tabs. These research sections are going to give you extra special abilities that you're going to unlock as the game goes on that are going to give you a new ways to create wild dice or maybe they're extra stars that you can place on the board or just flat out victory points, right? So, all different kinds of things that you can do as you are rolling those dice. When it is your turn, there is one extra special dice that you get to roll and just you get the results of it. That is the orange shooting star dice. Uh but everything else which you roll, basically everyone else gets a chance to kind of use those on their turn. So basically when you are when it's your turn, you get the extra special ability.
No one else does, but all the other dice when you roll them, everyone has access to them. They get to choose how they use them. You do not have to repeat each other what they do. Uh so then basically what you're doing is you're trying to score as many constellations as possible, both large and small. Based off the number of players, there is a round tracker. That round tracker is going to tick down and down and down to the end of the game. So once the round final round comes, we're gonna make sure that everyone has an equal number of turns over the course of the game. And then we're gonna end. We're going to see who has the most points. And whoever has the most points, of course, wins the game. Of course, they win the game. Of course, you win the game. Anyway, so I do appreciate how you always get something with the die roll. It's never like something when the die rolls, you can't do something with that. I just really like whether it's on um like when it's on other players turns that you are still active. It's not like you're just waiting for everybody to go. you're still interactive and playing during the whole time even while everybody everybody's rolling. So you're never just like um filling up space with your thoughts. You don't have to do that because you can just play the game. But I do like that. I like that you're always doing something um regardless of whose turn it is and you're always thinking and you're always trying to plan ahead. So I kind of hinted there are two decks of cards, one for the small constellations, one for the large constellations. But even within the deck of the small constellations, there's something even smaller. These are the little asterisms. These asterisms are like kind of miniaturature constellations. They do not score the same thing as everything else. All the small and large constellations basically
tell you how many points they're worth. You complete it, you get three points and you get a free star or you get 16 points or whatever the case is. The asterisms don't tell you how many points you're going to get. But how that works is the more you get, the more points you get. It does that thing where if you get one is worth one point, two is worth three, three is worth six, six or four is worth 10, that whole thing. Uh it does that level of scoring. So that way the more you get, the more you can really ramp up those points for those asterisms. Uh so don't don't sleep on the asterisms because they are they can be very lucrative if you get a lot of them. I also like how you can always work on something. There is never a time in all the games that we played where I felt like a die roll happened and it was pointless. Like I can't progress on anything. and I can't do anything. That never happened. Even if you can't get where you want things to go on your grid, there's this research that you can take as well. And even one of the research ones is just crossing off a number. You just get a point for everyone that you cross off. Um and all the games we played, I never used up any um all of any of the numbers. I never felt like a turn was wasted, which is a really nice feeling cuz sometimes in rolling right games, um you just feel like you're out of luck and that you can't do anything with that. But I did not get that at all when we were playing this game. I felt like I was able to do something. I was able to progress towards something. I never felt like a die roll was like, "Well, that's pointless. Can't do anything with that."
And it also really helps that all of the ones are wild. So, you even have more um you can have more flexibility on your player board as well. Uh there's very little direct interaction in this game. The interaction basically is in the form of kind of rolling the dice and everyone gets to choose from that pool that's been rolled. But you can also all double up. It doesn't really matter. So, the reason why I think that's a good idea is in this case, the solo mode is identical to the multiplayer mode. There's nothing you have to change because you are just still rolling the dice and then dealing with the results. You're rolling the dice and dealing with the results. So, I don't do a lot of solo gaming, but this kind of solo game is just so easy to get to the table for me. You just need the pad of paper, the dice, the cards, and you're right there going. You don't have to like do some big grand setup or, you know, whatever it is. You're just playing. And then you you compare, you know, compare your own um score against yourself. So, it's really really easy to get into the solo mode of this game because of the fact that it's kind of multiplayer solitire anyways and uh yeah, you're just ready to go. Yeah, this was a fun one. Um I had mentioned it and hinted towards it many times, but you're always progressing in this game, which is a really good feeling. If you know me at all, you know that's all I want in my games. I don't necessarily have to win. I need to feel like I could win. I can I need to feel like I can accomplish something. But like Ryan mentioned with this solo game, I now just keep a game in my purse at all times. A solo game that I can play that's travel friendly. And like I would totally swap out the game I have in there right now and put this one in.
This would be my go-to travel solo game right now because if you're a woman like me, you have a bag big enough for this box. It's not a huge box. Yeah. No, it's not a huge box, but it definitely fits. And so, I almost want this to be my go-to new solo travel game that I just keep with me at all times. Some people keep books in their purses. I keep games in my purses. And books, let's be real. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, we live in a city. It's It's not a huge city, but it's a city enough to where there's lots and lots of light pollution. We don't get to like look up and see stars. Just a reality. Uh, but we're also in a in a place where we can get to places where you can see stars relatively easily. Uh, so one of my favorite things is having those camping trips or having those events where they take you outside of town and just looking up and seeing constellations, just seeing stars, seeing the Milky Way, all that stuff super super clearly. nothing like I don't know just something something like religious in my soul you know that just to see just the wonder of the galaxies you know spinning around you uh of course we're spinning within around them or whatever you know but whatever you know what I'm talking about you know what he's trying to say okay it's just so cool to look up and see all that you don't get to see at least where we are on a daily basis so this theme of seeing the constellations and building the constellations uh is near and dear to me I like it a lot I think that this is a theme is a hit for me but at the same time the roll and right mechanism really
works well as you're trying to grid this all out because that's basically what's happening in the sky too is you know as they're kind of inventing the constellations they were just mapping out everything and and writing it down what they saw so that's kind of what we're doing in a in a dice way mimicking history uh so I really enjoyed that I enjoyed the flavor text I kind of mentioned I I love that constellation-y stuff and being able to see all the little many asterisms and the small constellations and the large constellations and kind of the flavor text as far is where they are in the sky, who discovered them, what they're meant to represent, whatever the case is. I love reading all that. I don't always read favorite flavor text, but I was reading it like crazy for this. I enjoy that a lot. I think this is a smooth running game uh that also has a theme that I drive with. Everybody, thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe so you can see our videos as they come out. Until then, follow us in all of these places. You guys, thanks for watching. We will see you next time. Bye you guys. Thanks so much for watching. Uh, this game was provided to us by a publisher for in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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