Introduction
Though quite a well-known designer on bgg, <PERSON> is mostly known for his games Glory to Rome and Innovation. Both games are famous for their exception-based design style, with cards featuring wild special effects, while being embroiled, as multi-use cards, within a complexly interwoven and wildly interactive execution pattern. Managing to get those wild effects going while building an efficient engine to support or allow them is the kind of ride you're aiming for when playing those <PERSON> classics. One does not simply play a card for its effects and get away with it in one of his games (I refuse to insert a <PERSON> meme here).
4X, in turn, is one of the most strictly defined thematic frame in game design. A 4X is a game that allows you to eXplore unknown chunk of land or space, eXpand your territory, eXterminate your opponents (or miserably die trying), and eXploit resources to do so. Most of those have a galactic empires setting. Among the most popular examples of this rather rigid thematic and mechanic frame, you find classics and hits like Twilight Imperium: Third Edition(which is rather a semi-3x, since it only include an optional and rather poorly thought-out eXploration mechanic), Space Empires 4Xor Eclipse. And those are long games. In fact, doing all figures of the 4x genre in a short or simple time frame, while keeping your strategic and tactical options open enough to turn it into an enjoyable game experience sounds like a contradiction per se.
Impulse is a Chudyk game, published by <PERSON> Asmadi games. <PERSON> has developed the game, and has also collaborated with <PERSON> on Innovation and co-designed Red7 with him. The graphic design of all those games is the work of <PERSON>. In Impulse, its retro minimalist touch brings a welcome clarity to the otherwise complex Chudyk design (if you don’t like it, though, you should take a look at an alternative visual in this thread. 366
Chances are it will blow your mind).
Compared to <PERSON>'s main hits, Impulse is not as well known (it has 10 times less ratings than GtR or Innovation). Yet, Impulse is clearly among the best <PERSON> designs, if not the best. In fact, it manages to keep this peculiar vibe I described earlier, while feeling stylistically quite different from those games, for a simple reason : it is Chudyk doing 4X.
So, to sum up this rather lengthy introduction (and spoil the review) :
-Impulse is one of the best Chudykian designs out there.
-Impulse is one of the best and shortest 4X out there.
Which basically means that Impulse is the bestest chudykian short 4X out there. Which in turn either :
-made you realize this statement has no informative value.
-blew you head up (if you, as a player, are anything like me). Sorry for the stains.
Now let me try to prove my point in this review.
<PERSON> does classic
Impulse is a very peculiar design for <PERSON>. In fact, most of his games have strayed away from the most classical tropes of the board game world. Sure, there are people to say that Innovation is a Civilization-building game, but even if it is, it is done in a very peculiar, almost abstract way (like pure evolving spirit of progress competing among themselves).
Impulse fits the quite rigid 4X bill, and does cover all of its most directly thematic tropes. There's even a map of the Galaxy (made with the game core cards) to compete on, with the mandatory Juicy Center of civilized Space at its heart ! And there are rocket minis !
Yee-pee !
Thanks to this, Impulse, even though its mechanical core is intricate and deliciously capricious to deal with, is one of the most intuitive Chudyk designs to grab. It manages to be both very abstracted in its mechanics, and very thematic in its effects.
And that's the magic of Impulse. It is clearly a 4X : the game does everything needed to fit the acronym. But it is built on an intricate, powerful, but unwieldy matrix (based on a deck of your typical Chudyk multi-use cards) which funnels - dare I say brutalizes - the actions and interactions of the players in a vast array of possibilities.
And it manages to do that through a fluid and encompassing economy of 108 multi-use cards. That, and those cleverly used rocket models which figure both transports when standing and cruisers when lying on their side. Smart. 92