Intent of this Review: To provide a context for the game, using comparisons to hopefully known games in the industry, helping people who allready understand how games work and if the game works decide if they will LIKE how the game works, while remaining a short and sweet review.
What it is: Neanderthal is a small box game where you guide your particular species through a tumultuous time, trying to grow them in the face of adversity and develop them for success in order to win by VPs at the end of the game, VP goals vary based on specific choices you make about your species in the game.
How it feels to play the game: Tense. The specifics will vary significantly from game to game, but there is the definite feel that even when you are 'doing well' you're still one or two hard knocks from being on your back. The good news is that everyone is in the same boat, and it's comparative VPs at the end, not some specific goal that determine winner. This is a game where you can win by having two dudes with a stick left because your opponent has one dude left and he's missing an arm(metaphorically)
Will it Play?
This is the part where I attempt to enumerate what to expect, and what not to expect from a game, hoping to help you decide if your money is well spent here.
* Do you like to be in control? Then you should avoid Neanderthal. I think the game does a brilliant job of simulating just how difficult the transition to 'modern' man must have been, and that means that there's going to be times you won't do it.(none of us have yet in our plays) Just got yourself 4 new hunters from a good hunt? HAHA Chaos wipes them all out! Finally got that new elder worked up? Blizzard kills him and one of your daughters off! Want to hunt in the south? All you've got is large game and that European lion who's just staring at you licking his lips. Neanderthal is about making the most of what you have, but being attached to nothing. If you can't let go, you'll be miserable.
* Do you like SCIENCE? There's a lot of interesting concepts in Neanderthal. It's a hallmark of Sierra-Madre that they take a concept and simulate it first, then try to work the game in around the simulation. This is not a good or a bad thing inherently, it's a design choice and you need to figure where you fall. Neanderthal keeps this up, with talk of language portals in the brain, snippets on the cards about the development of particular cultural elements or megafauna long extinct. I wouldn't call it pure hard science, much of the anthropological stuff seems there, but I believe the development models used are theoretical, strong theory but still just one of several plausible models. Hard facts about what happened don't exist, but I think you'd do yourself a favor absorbing the concepts and taking it for further reading on your own.
* Do you like Big Boxes(And you cannot lie)? Well then you're out of luck! Neanderthal joins Pax Pamir, Pax Porfiriana, and Greenland as a heavy game in a light package. 528
5" square and 2" deep is as much box as you get, stuffed full of a game with a reasonable footprint. For those on the go, or those suffering from gaming indecision when hauling things to game night(guilty as charged) this is a Godsend. Scoliosis begone!
* Are you competitive? You'll need to be (well you can play the co-op mode, but I'm talking base game here!) There's limited space, limited resources, and everyone is playing in the same space. This isn't some peaceful little 'build my farm' scenario. Every daughter you get is one someone else can't. Want to hunt in the same biome as someone else? Then there's going to be a fight. And sometimes, mixing it up just makes sense for you. There are times where your survival means another species' downfall. I feel that with all the hard knocks distributed liberally by the game itself the whole 'punch your neighbor' thing has a lot less sting to it, but some will just be unhappy.
* Have a low player count? Awesome! Neanderthal plays 1-3, and it doesn't take that long either. Once you know what you're doing this game can fit right in between other games at a game night. Arrive late? Game finish Early? Grab Neanderthal and have some paleolithic(probably wrong era) fun while waiting for the next break. {put it at the beginning while waiting for others to show, or at the end when things are winding down and it fits perfectly there too!
* Are you good at reading Stereo Instructions? It will be a valuable skill. 528