Above and Below

EvEvanstar2,5

This is a really tight worker placement game where you don't have time to achieve what you want to do. In the game you are trying to make time to hire new workers, buy buildings, gather different goods and go adventuring. The adventuring mechanism is a big luck element. You send 2+ workers, draw a card, roll and die, and then another player finds the matching result number and reads the story snippet in the storybook along with two reactions the player can react with along with the difficulty rating of choosing that reaction. It's unusual, but possible to completely fail, as each worker sent rolls a d6 to see they contribute successes. Rewards can range from a few bucks, to valuable resources, to special characters. The unevenness in the value of the rewards can give certain players opportunity advantages over others. The obvious comparison for this game would be Tales of the Arabian Nights, which also uses a choose your own adventure style book, however the two games have very different feelings. In Arabian Nights, you have a character, and when you are presented with a story choice, you think, what would my character do in this situation? In Above and Below, you are mostly looking at the numbers. If one decision requires 4+ successes, and the other has a different result that would succeed with 3+ or 7+, what I'm doing is looking at how many successes I think I can roll based on the workers I sent on the adventure. Not as much at the story choice. This isn't a problem with the game per se, but initially I was thinking that this game would solve the problem of Arabian Nights, where it's mostly story and not much game. Nobody in my group felt particularly passionate about this game, but I'm excited to see where this style of game goes from here. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :nostar: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment

MeMestremutenstar6,0

Rating: 3/5 Production value: 3/4 Is the game in my collection/Love to have?: 0/1

Elfrikijugonstar8,5

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