I had a most excellent Christmas this year, one of my best gifts being the Firefly board game that my mom and best buddy went in on together to get me. I've been having a lot of fun "practicing" by playing the single player rules game, but its definitely a practice mode that is not as dynamic or exciting as the full multiplayer experience. So I decided that since I was spending this New Years at home, it would be a great time to break the game out to play for reals with another person, namely my mom, who by the way is as big a Firefly fan as I am.
The best way I can describe the game is that its like a D&D role play game, but played with simpler board game mechanics, which work very well. The game does a great job of mimicking travelling the 'verse doing jobs to get paid so you can keep your crew paid and your ship flying. You can play it straight, dabble with illegal jobs, misbehave, and just be flat out immoral if that's your cup of tea. Misbehaving and immorality certainly have their rewards when it comes to pay, but I find the risk often outweighs the potential reward...but that's just me.
Seeing as my time with the game has been just a couple of single player rules games played alone, and mom has never played before at all, we decided to play the "good for new players" special downloadable card entitled "First Time In The Captain's Chair". For this over-arching story, we were each tasked with first getting "solid" with two different contacts (in other words, successfully completing a job for them), amassing at least $6000 credits, and then flying to planet Ezra in the Georgia system to pay off our debt to Niska to own our ships outright, free and clear.
I enjoyed a lot of things about this game, but in particular, I liked the 'race' aspect of this particular story. Actually for much of the game things went rather bad for me. For the longest time I hadn't even finished a job and mom was well on her way to the second goal. Fortune did finally start to favor me and it turned into a super tight, super exciting race to the end to see who could get to Ezra and pay off Niska first. And while mom was trying to be careful and moseying from sector to sector, I was flying full out, full burn, by the seat of my pants, at the mercy of fate, ship holding together by a thread, trying to pull off one last job. If my gamble paid off, I could finish one last job and just beat her. I land on the sector for my drop off location, NewHope, just a couple sectors adjacent to Ezra...and pull the Reaver Cutter card. Again. For the second time this game, I have to pull a crazy Ivan to get away, using the last of my fuel in the process, and to add insult to injury, the damn Reavers are parked in the sector where I need to make my drop. The drop that would give me enough to pay off Niska! DAMN!
But wait...all is not lost... Two crazy, by the seat of the pants full burns ago, I flew out of Triumph with a hold full of contraband that I could sell to Niska for $800 each! Half of that load would be enough to put me over the mark to pay him off and claim my ship for my own! Mom has made it to the system, but is held up on the edge a couple sectors away when her ship breaks down during full burn. One tiny lucky break for me. I arrive at Ezra on fumes, out of fuel, only able to mosey along...sell the contraband to Niska for a tidy sum of $5600...but I've used my two actions this turn, one to fly in to Ezra, one to do the contraband deal...I have to wait until the next turn to pay off Niska for my ship. Nothing to be done for it as I was short without the contraband deal...Mom initiates another full burn to try and make it the rest of the way to Ezra, and she's already carrying all the money she needs. She makes it without any incident and takes the win right out from under me by one friggin turn! Ah but it was so exciting!
I loved the feeling that I was flying as hard as I could, racing to get there first, when I had been so woefully behind that it almost seemed hopeless. I could imagine my ship, the Bonnie Mae, coming apart at the seams as I pushed her to the limit...It was great! This may have been a beginner card, but I really liked the way it played out. I can't wait to try some of the other stories. The cool thing is that there are different play styles involved depending on the story. What's more they are coming out with expansions for the game that will bring in more play styles and stories, ships, characters, etc. This 'starter' set is more than enough game on its own...I just think its really cool that it can and will be expanded and can grow with new additions. Totally epic game, especially if you love Firefly!
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