(Spoiler-free) T.I.M.E Stories: The Marcy Case Review - A Dull Slog Through a Michael Bay Movie

It's time to dust off those Pokemon cards and find your old Nirvana CDs because this time we're going back to the '90s. The Marcy Case is the first of several expansions for last years smash hit game, T.I.M.E Stories. Because this is an expansion, you will need the base game in order to play The Marcy Case.

Just like my other spoiler-free T.I.M.E Stories review, I'll be avoiding most of the plot and setting points as best as I can.

However, if it's on the back of the box, it's fair game. Alright, let's get into it.

TL;DR
The Marcy Case was a big letdown, especially after the great experience we had with the first game. They tried to do some new things, and I appreciate that, but I still do not recommend buying this expansion. I was surprised with how this expansion turned out because The Marcy Case has been getting really positive reviews from the major board game websites.

There are worse games you can buy, and The Marcy Case isn't downright unplayable, but it absolutely falls short of the mark set by T.I.M.E Stories Asylum. If Asylum was an 8 out of 10, I would give The Marcy Case a 4 or 4.5 out of 10.

Pros
The art is incredible, again
New features
Very exciting first 10-20 minutes of play

Cons
Playable characters feel very generic
After the first 20 minutes, the game gets dull
Story is not satisfying or interesting
Less map areas to explore
Some map areas have no purpose

Objectives
This time, the Consortium has sent our newly-promoted agents to 1992. Our mission is to save a girl named Marcy in order to keep the future intact. This mission plays more like an action movie than a mystery game, and wastes no time getting right to the guns, explosions, and guts.

We only get four receptacles to choose from this time, and only two of them have a unique ability. If you think back to the Asylum receptacles, all but one had traits and shortcomings that helped flesh out the character through play. This time we're left generic options.

I almost feel bad for complaining about how bland the character options are because each receptacle card has a multi-paragraph biography about the character. We learn their backstory, their motivations, and other snippets of information.

In Asylum we learned who the characters were by their flaws, traits, and the little one-liner quote at the top of the card. The shell-shocked veteran couldn't stand to be around more death and was having a real issue living as a civilian in the post-war society. The bitter old lady hated everybody and refused to die just to spite those around her. Do you see my point? We learned who these characters are by the way they interact with the world around them. It reminds me of the old saying, "Show, don't tell."


The receptacles' three stats are Search, Ranged combat, and Close combat. In this edition, close quarters combat is a bit more dangerous and increases your odds of taking damage, so you'll need to be more cautious before handing out a platter of knuckle sandwiches.


The search skill replaces Glibness from Asylum as your means of investigating the area, which is a bit of a pain. In Asylum, anybody could look for clues without too much trouble, aside from occasionally needing a key or a strength/dexterity roll. In this game, only one character is any good at searching, and one can't even search at all. You'll run into a lot of "Ah crap, it's a search card. Hey, come over here and find the thing." This turns into a lot of extra TU spent going back and forth from card to card trying to roll enough stars on the dice to see things you already know are there.

We get not one, but two flavors of combat in The Marcy Case, which is good because combat makes up the majority of this game's content. Over the course of the adventure you'll get a few new weapons of each type (close-range or firearms) to help you roll more dice and get bigger numbers.

Most of the interaction you have with the setting is move here, fight this thing, go in this room, fight this other thing, but the combat doesn't serve to move the story along. Combat exists only to artificially lengthen the runtime of the game.

Pictured: Real-time, immersive game play

Design
The Marcy Case gives us a handful of new mechanics to play around with.

First off, there are two new icons on the location cards. An orange exclamation point on a card's back represents an interaction that at least one player must visit. The purple trashcan on a card's back represents an urgent situation, and if at least one player does not go to that area immediately, it will be discarded for the rest of the run.


We are also graced with supplies in the form of ammunition and health kits. Unlike our Asylum receptacles, these characters won't have to resort to snorting coke just recover a few hit points. Unfortunately. the game gives you such an abundance of ammo and health packs that you would have to really mess up to burn through all of it, making the combat substantially less threatening.

They've even given us a use for the "Codex" spaces at the top of the game board in the form of an interesting survival-game sort of mechanic that I'll go over in the spoiler version. In short, it's a way to throw more enemies in your path to make you waste more time.

The Main Issue
Trying to do something new is not automatically bad; and I want to be fair here because the series as a whole has so much potential. The Marcy Case falls short in my eyes because I went into it expecting an experience similar to that of Asylum. I wanted to explore areas, collect clues, and solve a mystery. I wanted to feel like there was something secret to be uncovered. There is very little of that in this game. In fact, I would argue that the main plot hook of saving Marcy is actually the least interesting thing about the setting they've presented. I'll go over this point more in the spoiler version.

I compared The Marcy Case to a Michael Bay movie because it hides its lack of substance with layers of guns, action, and explosions. The game ushers you from one scene to the next, where you roll a handful of dice and fight something. The scenes themselves lend little to the progression of the story, unlike in Asylum, where they took you deeper and deeper into the mystery.

It has several "Hah! Got ya!" moments that serve only to waste TU, and all of the "puzzles" are multiple choice that can be easily solved by guessing until you get it right. By your second run-through you likely will have seen every area the game has to offer.

Conclusion
Pass. This expansion was a good attempt at something new, but ultimately was too much of a departure from the mystery solving adventure we loved from Asylum. If you're a completionist or a die-hard T.I.M.E Stories fan, go ahead and buy the game. Otherwise, see a movie instead. Thanks for reading.

(Spoilers) T.I.M.E Stories Review Part 2 - Looking Back at the Mystery, Frustration, and Progression

Alright, the spoiler version, I can finally talk about good parts of T.I.M.E Stories without worrying about ruining it for everybody. It should go without saying, but here we'll be discussing many details from the game's theme, plot, and setting. You have been warned.

I do want to be courteous to people just trying to scroll past this post, so I'll keep it picture-free.

Spoiler Mode: Engaged. For your safety, scroll down to the next spoiler warning message.

So where do I start? In the spoiler-free version we went over the characters, the art, how innovative the game's design was, and how it's a great purchase as long as you don't mind only playing it once. Those are all important points, but we didn't get to cover the real meat of the game, the mystery, the setting, and the gameplay experience overall.

So let's do that now.

Gameplay
Oh, for some context, there were four of us playing. My friends were playing as the cocaine addict, the big punchy brute, the lonely little girl with abandonment issues, and I was the sultry red-head with good communication skills (naturally.)

Right off the bat we were thrown into the Day Room with a stern-looking nurse and a few patients. Something about that first moment in the game's world felt right. It just said "Okay, go," and turned us loose inside this unsettling 1920's asylum. Gaining information in those first stages of the game was really exciting and interesting because we didn't yet know which details would be important later and which ones were just for extra flavor.

In that first play through, we dove headlong into the scene in each area, tying to pry up any bit of information we could. When we found our first pentacle, we spent a good ten minutes examining it, turning it, and rearranging all the letters on the points into a torrent of gibberish that would make Cthulu himself blush.

Then came the second pentacle.

Then the third.

We were getting clues. They didn't make any sense yet, but we were making progress. Now, obviously we ran out of time on that first play through, but we were hooked. We knew something fishy was going on with the doctor and the missing patients. There was still a big chunk of the area to explore, too. Losing our hard-earned items was hard, but getting to keep the additional map areas that we revealed took some of the sting out of it. We reluctantly gave up our keys, journal entries, and pentacles and started plotting the next course, focusing on the more essential parts.

We kept laboring away at the mystery until we realized four hours had passed and we hadn't eaten. The game has that effect on you, and I think it's the mark of a truly great game experience. We spent planned out our next move over dinner, cracked the code and went on to beat the game. The best part of the ending was the reveal of the beacons. Our minds were blown. Hiding something in the actual, real-life box shattered the fourth wall in a way we never expected. "Whaaat!" we yelled in unison, scaring the hell out of my poor cat, and grabbing for the game box.

I think in total we played the game for four or five hours not counting the food break, even though most of the break was spent discussing theories and planning how to proceed once we started back up again.


The Mystery
Let's talk about the quality of the mystery/riddle itself. First off, I'm glad that it was an actual puzzle and not a variation of the Sphinx riddle that everybody knows. Gathering the five pieces, studying them, and using the hints you were given early to bring it all together made solving the mystery a lot more rewarding.

I don't think the puzzle was especially difficult, but that's not to say it has to be. It kept us busy throughout the game, and I saw some comments online of people complaining that it was too hard. One comment said that his group played for several hours with four pentacles and eventually just gave up and called it a night when they couldn't find the fifth, the one on the handle of the key. They had it the whole time, but failed to notice the design. I thought it was pretty clever to have two of the clues be something other than journal pages, since it would have been dull to wander around knowing exactly what to look for. Once a pentacle appeared on the key, we started looking for them to pop up on other items. I was a little disappointed they didn't take that idea further, but it still made the game more immersive. When it came to solving the five pentacles, I thought that it was funny that one of the first things you learn in the asylum turns out to be the cipher for unraveling the whole mystery.

In addition to the pentacles, there's a sort of secondary riddle in the form of the tears of the manticore. This one was a lot more obvious. As soon as we read it, I figured it would either be literal tears from killing the beast, or some kind of gemstone. The most intriguing part of this bite-sized mystery is that we still don't have any clue what the reward from it is or even does. We've just been lugging this cube (I've been calling it the Timecube) from mission to mission, waiting for it to do something. There's even a beacon for it, and I have to admit I'm pretty anxious to see what this is for. Do we get more of them? Will we get a Timesphere and a Timepyramid and a Timecylinder to go with the Timecube?

Frustration
Nobody should ever play T.I.M.E Stories and expect to finish it on the first run. Even if you could, you would miss so much of the game's content that the victory would feel really hollow and anticlimactic. With that said, there's a couple instances of total bull honkey where the game makes you waste some TU and then says, "Hah. Got ya."

First, as most of you have already guessed, I'm talking about the plunger event. In the promenade, there's a dapper-looking man swinging around a lamp post. If you approach him and have the plunger, he confides that he is also an agent of the Consortium. He goes on to tell you that the plunger is a powerful artifact, and if you let him perform a ritual with it, something totally cool will definitely happen.

It seems unlikely, if not completely ridiculous; but you have to try anyways, just to know. Of course, you have to commit a hefty five TU to the cause before the ritual will complete. The next card reveals that nothing happens at all, and now you've got to try to make up for lost time. Better luck next time, agents suckers.

The next instance of tomfoolery occurs later on in the game. Usually when the group is trying to gather a few more last minute clues or explore into unseen territory. Deep in the catacombs, the party has to progress one step at a time, from card B all the way to card E. Of course it wouldn't feel like spooky asylum catacombs if they weren't stuffed to the brim with horrible monstrosities. The monsters have a lot of skull shields and take a while to put down. One actually has a 50% chance of getting right back up when you "kill" it. If you manage to limp your way out of the first two fights, the third abomination instantly deals one heart of damage to everybody, most likely killing at least one player. After you beat the final monster in the terrible trio, it's time to collect your prize.

You turn over the last card, ready for an earth-shattering revelation or some kind of bad ass rocket launcher that fires exploding chainsaws. What you actually get is nothing. You emerge from a trap door outside the grounds of the asylum in an old cigar shop. The card basically says, "You could look around, but this is a dead end." Oh, okay, sure. Even in the best case scenario, it probably takes at least six or seven TU to get to this point, and now you've got to back track and do something useful. Well, at least you're not all dead.

The final one is more of a check to make sure you were paying attention than it is an outright trick. Well, it's absolutely a trick but-- Alright, anyways. At the very end, the girl from the day room asks you join the ritual to open a temporal rift, which happens to be exactly the thing you came here to prevent. If you agree, you lose the game and Bob is super pissed. Way to go, team.

Then you do what any reasonable human does. You turn the card back over and say, "Just kidding! Just wanted to see what would happen." You then choose the correct answer of not opening the rift, because starting over from here is for chumps.

We Played the Game. What now?
So now you're done with T.I.M.E Stories Asylum and you don't know if you should keep it for the expansions and take up precious shelf space, donate it, or use it as kindling for the long winter. The way I see it, you have three options.

First, you could hang on to it. Put it on your shelf and come back to it when everybody feels like playing an expansion. That being said, The Marcy case was a huge disappointment. Every review I read said The Marcy Case was an even better experience than Asylum, which was not the case.

I haven't been able to get my hands on The Prophecy of Dragons Expansion yet, but the reviews I've read said it's not good. Who knows, though, since the reviews were so wrong about The Marcy Case. There's also a third expansion scheduled to come out some time this month, so there are plenty of adventures for you to continue with if you choose.

Second, lend it to your friends. Explain to them that it's basically a murder mystery-type game in a box. Try not to spoil anything for them. In my case, I have friends that live far away, but we use voice and video chat often. I set up the game in view of my webcam and played as the game master while the four of them went through the mystery. I held cards up the the camera so they could see the clues visually and I tried to say as little as possible if it wasn't something written on a card.

Last, you could sell or donate it. You're done with it anyways, and it's not like you're going to forget enough about the game's plot to ever make it worth playing again. Remember though, you will need the base game to play the expansions.

Spoiler Mode: Disengaged. It is now safe to move about the blog.

That's it for the first T.I.M.E Stories game. My goal is for the non-spoiler version to be an informative pre-play read, and the spoiler version to be an insightful post-play reflection and discussion. Thanks for reading.

Indie Spotlight: Honey Wars Teaches Us That it's Hard to be a Bee

This post is long overdue.

Nearly a month ago, we went to the Midwinter Gaming Convention here in Milwaukee. We looked around at the shops, bought some cool hand-made metal dice, and I tried to stop myself from buying every iteration of Super Dungeon Explore. We also sat in on some open gaming sessions, one of which was a game called Honey Wars by Andy Smith and Gold Seal Games.

So What's the Buzz All About?
Honey Wars is a game about bees, as one would expect. It's a competitive card game where two to four (maybe up to five or six) players rush to be the first one to have three hive colonies and twelve units of honey. In addition to being used as points, honey units are also currency with which players buy hive colonies, recruit friendly beekeepers for help, or unleash deadly threats unto the other players' hives.

It's that last point that makes this game stand out. See, the "bee killer" cards are actually based off real-world bee killing issues. Things such as the Vorroa mites, Nosema, poor nutrition, and even the dreaded 'pesky kid with a stick' are all playable cards you can throw at your enemy's hives. The bottoms of the cards have a bit of detail text, explaining what the threat is and how it effects the bee population. You'll encounter all of the issues responsible for the disappearance and death of the world's honey bees represented in the game. They aren't just represented for show though, the deadliest threats in real life are also the worst things to get hit with in-game.

Play
The game itself is simple enough to learn. Each turn is broken into four phases, Defend, Harvest, Spend, Draw.

Defend - If your hive has a negative effect, such as mites, disease, or virus card, roll a die. If the result is equal to or greater than the red number on the bottom left of the card, it is removed. Vorroa mites is a particularly frustrating affliction that cripples your ability to harvest honey and has a target number of five, which gives you only a 33% chance of removing it. It is very difficult to overcome if you get hit with it early on, and it makes you think, "Okay, this is just a card game, but these mites are destroying me, I can't imagine how terrible this must for actual bees to deal with." 

Harvest - Gain honey units from your hives, and then reduce it if you have any negative effects. If I remember correctly, it was normal to get three honey per turn in the early game. However, if you have Vorroa mites, you'll only be pulling in one honey per turn, setting you far behind the other players. Remember, you need three hives and twelve honey to win, and you only start with one. It takes eight honey to buy a small hive and (I think) twelve for a large hive. You're going to need all the help you can get.

Spend - Use your honey cubes to recruit friendly bee keepers to defend your hives, or send predators and infestations to your enemies. Robber bee is a handy card that lets you steal honey from your neighbor and add it to your own supply. Other cards such as Old Queen, Honey Badger, and Tracheal Mites come into play here as well.

Draw - Take cards from the deck until you have six cards.

The art on the cards looks great. It gives you a visual idea of what the harmful effects do to the bees without being overly graphic. Some of the cards (looking at you, Old Queen) are silly and light-hearted. I think my favorite card art is the Robber Bee, who is wearing a bandit mask and knit cap and carrying a loot bag.

In short, the game is easy to learn, quick, and fun to play. It was on Kickstarter not too long ago, and there are some pretty cool bonuses for backing. Additionally, Andy has donated to honey bee research and protection, and said a portion of the game's profits will go towards protecting the honey bees as well.

Try this game you, you might even learn something.

(Spoiler-Free) T.I.M.E Stories Review - The Adventure of a Lifetime from the Comfort of Your Own Couch

Get out your hoverboard and self-tying shoes, because today we're taking a look at T.I.M.E Stories. This review is specifically for the core game of T.I.M.E Stories. A review for The Marcy Case will be posted separately. To keep this review spoiler-free, I'll be limiting myself to only discussing story details that are on the box. I will posting a spoiler edition review of T.I.M.E Stories later on. It will function as a sort of "Part Two" to this review, since there are a ton of cool things I want to talk about that would ruin somebody's first playthrough.

In T.I.M.E Stories, up to four players take on the role of agents for the enigmatic Consortium, a group that watches over the past, present, and future to protect key events from alteration. The agents are sent forwards and backwards in time through the use of transport pods called caissons. These pods neurally link the agents' thoughts into a kind of hive mind, and keep them safe from any actual harm.

They arrive at their destination in a host body of someone from that era, which the agents will use to go about their mission. This process of time jumping takes an extraordinary amount of power and resources (as our supervisor, Bob, obsessively points out) but don't feel bad if you have to take a second run at the objective if you run out of time!

TL;DR
So T.I.M.E Stories is a bit of an odd game because you can only really enjoy each mission once. After you've solved the mystery and know how the clues fit together, there won't be a reason to play the game again unless you're showcasing it for some friends. The cost of the game is less than what you and your three friends would pay for a movie and snacks, and will (most likely) last you a few hours longer, too. If you can get past the idea of a one-time board game, you will have a blast.

The six character options give you a bit of variety in taking on the challenges of the mission. Finding clues, piecing them together, and unraveling the mystery is exhilarating. Gaining new items and keys to open a previously inaccessible area is as much of a thrill as getting a new clue or finding a startling revelation. T.I.M.E Stories can be a long game, so if it's difficult to keep everybody focused for multiple hours, I could see this being a pass. The game does pack up nicely in a way that saves your progress through the mystery, so you won't have to finish it in a single sitting. I think T.I.M.E Stories is a game for just about everyone, despite its one-time experience. Get it, play it, loan it to a friend.

Pros
Well-written story and mystery
Playable characters are different and have their own uses
Art is incredible
Board has an innovative design
Learn which of your friends are the smart ones
Exploration, conversation, and combat are all interesting
The in-game timer adds weight to your decisions
The box is designed to save your progress if you have to stop mid-game
Puzzles are the correct difficulty
"Reveal the cards, do what they say" play style is very simple

Cons
Very little replay value
One game can take multiple hours
Rule book does a poor job explaining how to set up/play the game
The expansions are very hit-or-miss so far
Being unlucky or going the wrong way will set you back

Objectives & Gameplay
As a bunch of rookie agents, your supervisor has given you the simple task of traveling to Paris in 1921 and stopping a 'temporal rift' from opening. You will embody a local person from that era, a receptacle as we call them, so your presence doesn't distort history. Your performance will be graded by how many 'runs,' or do-overs your group needs, and how many temporal units are remaining at the conclusion of the mission.

T.I.M.E Stories is a co-operative mystery game. Explore areas, uncover clues, gather information from the locals and take notes when you learn something. (Your character might have a great memory, but you probably don't.) Temporal Units (TU) represent how much energy is left to keep the agents at their current moment in time, run out of TU and it's back to the beginning for everyone. Don't worry, even the best agents take a couple runs to get the hang of things. It takes TU to move from one area on the map to the next, and it takes TU to more carefully investigate an area you are in, such as looking for hidden switches, having conversations with people, or fighting enemies.  As your supply of TU dwindles, you'll have to weigh the cost of your actions.

The receptacles in this mission have three stats: talking, fighting, and strength/dexterity. Some characters are better at talking their way through a situation, and others are more of a punch first and as questions later. Don't despair if your receptacle has a particularly low value in one of the three categories, you'll have your fellow agents and maybe even a handy item to help you out.

Design
T.I.M.E Stories has beautiful art work and an innovative game design. My group and I absolutely love it. The art on the cards is specific to the mission you are running. In the core game, they convey the dark, mysterious mood through a life-like, film noir-esque art with a focus on details. In the Marcy Case expansion, the artwork is more like that of a comic book. As far as I can tell from the game manual, we have Benjamin Carré and David Lecossu to thank for the wonderfully immersive art of T.I.M.E Stories.

For the actual design of the board, box, and pieces, we'll need to get a bit more wordy. T.I.M.E Stories was created with the intent of being a multi-expansion adventure, so they had to make a board, pieces, and rules that can easily carry over from one mission to another even with drastically different themes. Not every part of the board will be used in every mission.

The board's upper left has a place a four-piece map that is built upon as you reveal more and more hidden areas in the game. At a glance, every player can see the layout of the mission area and determine where the group should investigate next.

Of all the elements of the game, the most impressive is the way areas are revealed. At the bottom side of the board are spots marked A through E, and when the group gets to a near area, they lay out the cards for that area face down on the spots. The art on the backs of the cards all match up to create a panorama of the scene your character sees as they enter. It's incredibly immersive, looks great, and works well with the game. The players can split up from there, with each going to the part of the scene that is the most interesting to them, and investigating it by looking at the face of the card. After a few moments of reading, everybody gets to explain what they found or what happened to them in their own words (reading directly from the card is not allowed by the rules.) This process is repeated throughout the game, and makes the entire experience feel more organic.

Additionally, a surprising feature we discovered while playing was that the box insert is designed to let your store the game in a save state between sessions. This was really insightful of the T.I.M.E Stories creators, Space Cowboys, because a mission can take anywhere from two to six hours to finish. The box insert has a slot for each player to store their character cards and all of their items, as well as a TU counter, map area, and key item holder. You won't have to worry about trying to write down every little detail about the game state, or taking several grainy snapshots on your cell phone to keep your place. The TU counter does not have every increment on it. It has 1-10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. If you're like my group and tried to pause with 18 TU left, put one token on the 10 and one token on the 8.

Conclusion
Absolutely a must for any board game enthusiast. Once you've played through it once, introduce it to others. If you really just can't get over the idea of a one-time use game, check a local game store and see if they have open gaming and T.I.M.E Stories at the shop. They are still rolling out expansions, and this game will definitely be one that everybody is talking about. Thanks for reading, and check back for the rest of my T.I.M.E Stories reviews in the near future.