Eldertide: A Thousand Lights Review: Spirit in the Sky
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel.
I'm Chris Ye.
I'm Mike Leio.
Today we're taking a look at a game from Esper Game Studio uh called Elder Tide a Thousand Lights. I counted them. Uh there's also three designers here. Rodrigo Esper Yofiendra D Indraana and Mahari Singh Dylan.
I've played games by two of those designers that I'm aware of.
Esper Games Studio. Have they done other games?
Joi.
Joi.
One of the designers is a designer of Jogi and the other one is a designer of a game called Biohack, which I know you've played as well.
I have played both of those.
That's true. I do remember. I actually see some biohack DNA in this particular game.
Agreed.
In this game, you are in some civilization who is doing something. They're building resources and outposts and there's a storm.
A storm that, by the way, will get enraged halfway through the game.
It'll get even more stormy, right? It builds up. It collects all of the electricity in the in the skies. There's a fair bit of lore in the rule book if you really care about that. All
righty, let's take a look at how it plays. Each person gets their own asymmetrical board where you're going to keep track of things. You're going to have resources that you get over the course of the game. There are four different kinds of resources that you can get. Resources can be transformed into buildings which you're going to go around hubs. You'll start with the central one and you can get more hubs as you go on. You can also move up these tokens as time goes by which will give you bonuses. But at the end of the po at the end of the game, having a token all the way up at the top will give you three points for each building that you have here. You also have your chi over here. You'll start with 10qi and it's capped, but there are things that can raise this which will allow your chi to go up farther. And as it goes up farther, it will unlock extra slots for you to store resources. And then you're going to keep track of your points down here. And you also have a token that will give you an ability once you reach whatever the bonus is here. For example, I need to build um basically a lighthouse out there and a spot for you to get tools as well as a special bonus action. This player, for example, uh starts with this token, which they can spend to get an extra turn. Now, you're building a board here that has the capital port and a storm and then other buildings that are randomly around it.
Each person has a ship that's going to start in the capital port and in each round of the game, players are secretly going to bid how muchqi they're going to spend that turn. And they'll keep it here and they're going to spend that amount. And that's going to be a couple things. It's going to give you movement, which will allow you to move on the board. Although moving through other ships cost extra chi and as the game goes by, the storm is going to damage ports and those will also cost an extra chi to go into. But when you get to a spot, you're also going to be taking an action on that spot depending on how much chi you spend. So, for example, if I spend one chi, I'm going to get a food. If I spend three or more, I'm going to get a food for every farm that I have built. And if I spend five or more, I'm going to get that. And I can fulfill an order. When fulfilling orders, you'll be placing the resources on the card, getting the points that is next to these resources. Although, whenever you do that, it's going to move one of them down. So, this will be constantly changing. Please also show extra hubs that you're able to get to put on your board that will give you points at the end of the game. After all the players have gone, you'll be able to roll a dieice, which is going to tell you the direction that the storm moves.
It will switch places with a port and will damage that port, which means it can't be used in the future until it's repaired. Players have a chance to go to ports and pay a repair, one of their tool tokens that they've gotten to get a bonus and five victory points. And this bonus can be multiplied if the port is damaged multiple times. Uh ports, the storm can also damage your ship if you're in a spot that a storm goes to where you will get little tokens to put on your chi track which will take down your maximum chi and you'll have to again spend tools to repair that. Other than that, there are all different spots here on the board to go to. You can see this one moves you up on the different tracks. Some give you different resources. Some give you the tool tokens and move up your chi marker. Some let you deliver goods at different spots.
You can also spend no chi and go back to the capital. If you show this symbol, you go back to the capital where you get to raise two different tracks and you can convert resources into buildings, refill yourqi, and get a tool. And then you go back out again on future turns. This is going to go over 10 rounds. And at the end of those rounds, you'll have scored points. There's some endgame scoring for your ports that you have, the extra ports you've picked up, and a few other things. And whoever has the most points is the winner. A couple more things before we go to the review. I do want to mention that when you send your ship somewhere, you're taking that action based on the chi that you spent. Um, but you also get to do a minor action, which is a level one at any of the adjacent things. Or you can spend a tool to build a beacon. You build the bottom half, then someone else will build the top half. If once uh or you can build the top half, too. Once a beacon is finished, players are going to get to choose from a a sideboard of a whole bunch of different bonus tiles that they'll get. Also, a beacon will protect that area from a storm so the storm won't destroy it again. All right, let's go to the review.
By the way, at the beginning I mentioned a storm gets enraged halfway through and that storm is going to move twice every turn. Not quite sure where it will go the second time. The first one you can narrow it down. Yeah. After that, who knows where it will go.
Mhm.
Um the component quality for this game, it's very pretty, very good overall. I have my my biggest complaint is that it's too deluxe sort of in the sense of those ships.
They're just too big.
Oh, okay.
They block you seeing. I'm like, "What does that spot do? I need to move your ship all the time." They I get that they're nice and big and beautiful. Half size would have been fine. Or even a little wooden meatball. They are. Yeah, they're very big. They are beautiful. And I do like uh screen printed uh acrylic. Um yeah, and that's definitely going to be an issue the first game, maybe your second game. Once you kind of know what the ports are, it maybe I don't I don't find it as big of an issue, but it I think the storm is a bigger issue actually. That's the biggest one.
That's a big piece. If the if the ships congregate, you have to do a little bit of that like apart the curtains.
Yes.
So, Elder Tide is a game where it has this it's an interesting mechanism because it it I think it's
for some reason it seems like there's a bit of a hurdle to teaching it. Like you're spending chi on your turn
likely unless you go back home. It's you spend spend recycle spend spend recycle. I'm saying spend spend as if you only did two. You could do six turns and really slowly move. Um,
don't uh I've play Yeah, I've definitely played this with people who are like, I'll try one at a time and about five turns into the game, they go, "Oh, I am playing a third of the game." You should take big actions and reset to some degree. Don't don't try to make that 10 chi stretch stretch the whole game, for example.
And I have found, and this isn't going to work for everybody because not everyone's familiar with the idea or concept of action points, but when I've taught the game, I've kind of related it to an action point system. Yes. Except that confuses people then because they feel like when they're moving,
they're spending those points
and they're and they're not, which is
you're not. And I and that's what I'm talking about. That's where it gets confusing for people. I'm like, you move.
You have that much movement.
Also, it affects your action. And I'm telling you, I think that that's going to be a hurdle for a lot of people just to get that through because not a lot of games do that. A lot of games say you have seven things. I spend three to move and now I have four left. Yeah. But that's not how this game works.
No, I really like that system, by the way. But I understand it's not as intuitive.
I'm not saying anything negative against the system. I'm just saying that. And and I think I feel like that is maybe the biggest hurdle for this game. And now that I realize it's the same company, Gizogi, I I get it.
This game is definitely a game that I think is going to throw you off the first time you play on how the systems work and how everything goes together.
Yeah.
Um and as there's just a it's different. It does not feel like many other games at all. No, it has a strange I think it has a very unfortunately bad rulebook. Uh
yeah, I was going to get there for sure.
And that affects your first play. It affects how you teach. It affects how when you're teaching people ask you questions, you go that's a very reasonable question. Let me look that up.
Oh, so I think it has a very odd Sorry to steal that point from you, Mike. It ties into Tom's point. It has an odd onboarding kind of process to it. Well, a good example of that is there are there everything's asymmetrical, but I think there should be an asymmetrical version of the game for people because the one person, for example, has a you can do your turn twice. When should I do that? I I you know, and and a couple of the other ones again aren't explained very well. We spent a long time discussing over if there's one guy who can stack two. It says you can stack two on one. And we're like, does that mean one of his slots can hold two of the same or all of his slots can hold two of the same? We decided all of them because one seemed pathetically weak.
And then his objective seems impossible. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. No, I I think the rule book is by far the worst aspect of this game. Uh, and that's unfortunate because that's going to be most people's Well, everybody, I guess, unless they're being taught by the designer, which I was not. I learned through the rule book. Um it it was a hurdle to have to cross and that's an unfort it's an unfortunate thing because the game is different. It is unique and it's not going to reveal itself on the first play for sure. Um but it has that initial hurdle and and and and that could have been fixed. That's the part that's a little bit frustrating. It's like you could have made it so that the first impression is a little bit easier especially for the person teaching who is going to have to refer to that rule book. And sometimes the answer's not there and other times it's not in the place you would think to look for it.
Right. But I'm not even just talking about I mean I'm I'm not as hard on the rule book as you guys are, but I I think there's issues. It's just that you're playing an asymmetrical power.
You get these three tiles. They're like pick one. One gives you endgame victory points. One gives you immediate stuff and the other gives you like things every turn.
I don't know. Can I wait till I complete this goal to pick one of those? And so that's that's your second game. You'll go this is what I want to do. This is where I want to go. So keep that in mind when you go in your second game. You'll be more comfortable going through.
I think it's a really good point. I think that yes, you are expected to kind of have some kind of a strategy before you've played your first game and you're not you you just have to kind of accept that I'm going to go with limited information. I don't know. I'm going to go and do the best I can with what I've chosen. Now, the game is going to is a very not sandboxy, but it's like, hey, go around and do whatever you want. There's very other than other ships kind of getting in your way and or players fulfilling orders before you and getting hubs before you and things like that. Um, other than that, you kind of can go do whatever you want.
Mhm.
And so, if you like that freedom, I think you'll enjoy this a lot. I think that this game, there's a few little clunky things to it and I'm trying my best to separate like the rules, questions, all that stuff from the actual game play,
but there are some parts of it that just make me laugh, right? When the islands get hit by the storm and they flip to the damage side, like, "Oh, I can't go there. Oh, I can. I just have to make sure I have a tool ahead of time and then I can repair it. I get a repair bonus." And then you just take the rest of the normal turn. Mhm.
If that island gets hit by the storm multiple times, it is very funny to me that it doesn't cost more tools to repair it. The people there are just more desperate for help.
Yeah.
So, they give
they'll give you more.
They give you more,
which I think is one of my favorite things about the game. The fact that these islands get hurt, you're like, "Oh, man."
But now there's a reason for me to go there and fix it and get stuff.
I like that a lot.
Me, too. Not only can you go there, you're incentivized to go there. And I think that that storm system I think at first blush can seem just like overly punishing, arbitrary. And I don't I don't necessarily think that's the case because I think
is arbitrary. I think it's arbitrary.
Well, anything that involves a die roll and it's going to go in the direction of the die is arbitrary in that sense. But what I'm saying is it's not there just to be a punishing aspect. I think what it does is it incentivizes you to make repairs. It also incentivizes you to build those beacons which are vitally important. Sure. And I think if that wasn't in the game, I think people maybe would not go as heavily into the beacons as as you have to otherwise the whole place is going to get wrecked, right? That's what protects them from the storms and protects your ships from those ports.
I think it keeps the game a little bit more interesting.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah. And you had that shared incentive of if multiple people build a lighthouse together, then they each get one of those token benefits. But once again, this is another one of those aspects where the game is a little bit overwhelming. Like, okay, we did that. Now, pick from this large tray of all these benefits. Like, wow, I could get five more chi right now so I could keep taking actions. Is that better than grabbing this thing, which is going to give me like all of the like tools so I can go repair more islands? It's It's nice having so many options and yet also kind of overwhelming, which can slow the game down if people don't just kind of make choices quickly.
Yeah. Yeah. You got to decide what to do when you go back to the home port. I can be like, I'm turning all my resources into buildings. Yeah. And then you go, I probably should have kept a couple, you know, and and and so there's decisions like that. Or I do keep a couple and I'm like, I should have turned those into buildings cuz now I'm going to this place where the farms give me stuff. I should have built some more farms.
So again, we're we're talking the the complexity of this game is not I mean, again, it's pretty basic. you spend, you move, you do action that you get bonus action. But it's the knowing how to do it that's that's trickier.
And the onboarding, I think your first game of this, unless you're taught by somebody who's very comfortable with the game and is good at teaching games, will probably be your worst play of it. And that's a hard thing, right, is that when your first play of a game might be your worst play of it, a lot of people won't go to a second play. And it's a shame because I do think there's a lot to offer in this game. The game has that feeling of how in the world am I going to get this much done in 10 rounds? And yet, you do actually pull off quite a lot because of those bonus actions, because of those benefits from building the the lighouses or by being able to take a level one action adjacent to where you land seems
pretty good. And there's times where that is pivotal. Yes. And so, yeah, you do accomplish a lot more than you think. One of my other little issues though with the game does kind of come down to scoring where
it's scoring feels like it's a little bit disconnected for me from the stuff that you're doing in the game. That's that's fun.
And I don't dislike the scoring, but yeah. Oh, sell goods is is good. I can go to the market and sell those goods. I'd rather build up my island and do all this stuff that provides me more feedback loop and is really cool, but you don't have enough time in the game. you better go sell some goods quickly and kind of get those points in the middle of the game.
Grab those little uh those gear bonus what they're called, the the extra outposts and stuff.
And I'm not terribly convinced out of the box that some of those are balanced. I think that Mike you've actually read up on
Yeah, one of them was not it was too it was too strong. And so they they told me about
and they said and it's this is on BG but it's not again it's not in the rule book yet. It's in the living rule book online, but basically it was changed to you can do this one time a game where otherwise you can have done it done in all three of your outposts. That's a pretty big difference when it's one-third of what its original scoring was going to be. At least it's possible scoring. The game is really pretty. It gives you a lot of options. It doesn't overstay its welcome. Even though players will be a little confused and a little bit maybe their first playthrough, the game says 90 minutes. That's pretty close to accurate. Well, I don't think it's 90 minutes with five players, but
it shouldn't be five players anyway.
Um, I I think it's fine. I'm giving it a six. And I I'll tell you,
I don't mind that whole, well, the second game you get things more, but I I do wish there was a more basic. The asymmetrical powers are very asymmetric to the point where I'm like, I don't want to play this character
this way. Well, I guess I'll take this one. You know what I mean? It's I want to kind of do the game my way, but if I play the one guy with energy, guess what I'm doing? I'm I'm doing energy. I don't really have an option on that. And also, I'm not as thrilled with the complete disconnect from other players. More like Mike, get out of my way. Is the main focus of that. We are all doing our own things. You're keeping track on your own board with a score, which I don't necessarily love either. Like, how many you have? 34 points. Did you accidentally slide your slider a little bit?
Yeah.
Um, and this comes down as more negative than not. I do think the idea is interesting. I like that the storm switches with the islands. I like that there's some movement. It's not a ton. Yeah, but but the different buildings might move around. I like fulfilling orders.
I it all the stuff that the the dual layer boards are really cool. The increasing your chi, deciding whether you're going to do that or unlock, which helps unlock things. Um there's only 10 actions I'm taking over the course of a game really. So, which ones are they going to be? and that repairing feels very satisfying. So, it's a decent game. It's just a little too
weird for me, I guess, would be what it comes down to, which is I'm giving it a six.
I'm uh I'm coming at a 7.5. I like it. I definitely there's aspects of it that I love that that uh selection of how much you're going to spend in the the action point type of thing to it. I love how much you can accomplish in that time frame. For me, the reason I'm not scoring it higher than that 7.5 is I feel like the scoring things to do are a little bit disconnected to the point where you talked about, you know, you track scoring and you're like, you look over at someone, you have 34 points, I guess, right? I thought I was doing a bunch of good stuff. So, it's odd how the different elements of the game come together. I agree with you. It's a little bit of an odd game, but it's fun through and through. I love that returning to that Capitol Island is when you can kind of accomplish a lot even it feels like a reset turn. I enjoy these games that have those reset turns where you're actually doing quite a lot. And this is one of them and that's like that's a highlight of it to me being able to build up that chi pool that you have and like fill it up with like 16.
You're like I'm never gonna have to come back to shore maybe. We'll see. And I love that dynamic. But all around all that stuff, 7.5.
Yeah, this is a game that I'm coming in at an eight and I think it could have been higher. Um because I really do like the core loop of the game. I like that system where you are not only is it the number of points that you're going to have, it's also the initiative for the round. I really like that a lot. It's a it's a simple enough system that although it takes a bit to wrap your head around, once you get it, it's really smart. Like I really like that because sometimes you're going to be overspending just because you want to go first. I really like that as a core element of driving the game. I like the asymmetric powers. I agree with you though that they uh can be a little bit more on rails than I would like. In other words, if you want to play this faction to its best, you kind of got to do what it's built for.
Um and the rules just need to be better. Honestly, that's that's the bottom line is that the rules need to be better. I don't know if it needs to be more blind play testing. I know it's a small uh publisher, but that needs to be something you focus on because that's going to be the first interaction with your game that people are going to have. It's going to be a rulebook. So, I think this is a game that I still really like. I want to keep playing. I like introducing it to to new players because now I feel like I know it well enough that I can make that onboarding a little bit easier for them. But for people that are just getting it for the first time, just be aware that it it gets better than that first game. Um, as it is, it's still an eight for me. I really do like it.
Also, if you're one of those people who say games coming out today are all the same, check out stuff from Esper Game Studios. They're doing something different.
Agreed.
So, if you want something different, check out Elder Tide Thousand Lights. I'm Tom.
I'm Chris.
I'm Mike.
See y'all. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this video. If you like this review or whatever you just watched, wasn't it amazing? Uh, check out our channel, Dice Tower. We have all kinds of things. We review games, we do top 10s, we play games live. It's all about board games, but especially the people who play them. Check out Dice Tower YouTube channel.