Nemo's War
A game for solitaire play designed by <PERSON>.
"A strange twilight world opened up before me, and I felt as the first man to set foot on another planet, an intruder in this mystic garden of the deep."
― 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Introduction
I was given a BETA copy of this game by the very nice folks at the VPG booth during BGG Con this November. My thanks to <PERSON> for getting a copy made for me and a special thanks to <PERSON> for providing me an opportunity to try this game out prior to the Kickstarter launch, which is apparently coming on or around the 29th of December, 2015.
I am not by nature a solitaire board gamer. There are several things that contribute to this, including but not limited to:
• I don't have a space in my house where I can leave a game set up for a long amount of time. Our family lives in a relatively small space, and the one spot I can really set up a board game is also the dining table. d I compete for that space not only with meal times, but also with various other activities such as craft projects and homework.
• I lack the patience to play a game alone for more than about an hour. I can knock out several games of against <PERSON> et. al. in , or <PERSON> et. al. in . As a bonus, I don't need to set things up and pack them away - I just flip the cover of my iPad shut. If it's going to take more than an hour, I'd honestly rather do something else. Like write a review. Or an article for Yaah!
• I've never really been able to suspend my disbelief (or preference for one side over another) to play any kind of multiplayer game solitaire.
I know there are lots of people who can take any game and play all sides against the others and get a lot of satisfaction from it. 92
I have an abiding admiration and occasional moments of envy for the members of the, but I'm just not wired to be part of that tribe.
On the other hand, I can and do enjoy solitaire board games. I particularly enjoy them when:
• They are specifically designed to be played solitaire. That clearly includes the original. It also includes classic paragraph driven games like, or. I also enjoy games like, and have enjoyed several of the , such as,, and. [Click on any of those underlined links to go directly to my review of those games.]
• The game can be set up and put away in about an hour.
• The footprint of the game is reasonable.
There are also games that include solitaire variants, like, and. I like trying those out sometimes too.
One final note before I press on is that I have played the original, and I picked it as in my 2014geek list. I can sincerely say that Nemo's War is my favourite solitaire game.
With that long preamble out of the way, let me get into the game itself.
The Components
Clearly I cannot provide a definitive list of components for this game, but based on the BETA copy I received, the final product will be gorgeous.
BETA complete copy of all components. Photo credit <PERSON>.
First and foremost, I cannot say enough nice things about the art of. You absolutely need to check out his work at his website . The cover art above is but a hint of the goodness to come inside the box.
Here is a photo I took of my most recent game showing the central map area:
BETA map and components
The second edition of Nemo's War does take up more table space. Here it is laid out under the original map:
BETA map and components
While the second edition does take up more table real estate, it's still manageable. I can't see myself taking it to the coffee shop while my kid's in her after school activity, but that's ok.
One of the nice things the second edition will have are unique ship tokens for every vessel in the game.
BETA components. Photo credit <PERSON> (mo7189)
From a graphic design perspective, everything in this game is qualitatively better than the original edition, and it's clear that a lot of time and effort, not to mention labours of love on the part of <PERSON>, has been put into this redesign.
I have some very minor niggles.
• The action point cost isn't printed on the map. It's in the rules, and you'll remember after your first few plays, but given the game uses action points as the lifeblood of what you do, it would have been nice to have it on the board.
• The victory levels aren't printed on the epilogue sheet. 92