ULTIMATE SCHEME
Design by Rich Baker
Published by Sasquatch Game Studio
2 – 5 Players, 1 hour
Review by Greg J. Schloesser
My hesitancy, which often borders on outright disdain, for the Kickstarter process in regards to publishing boardgames is well known. While I readily admit that there are some fine games being published via this method, for each good game there seem to be a multitude of mediocre to poor ones. Slick videos narrated by James Earl Jones clones seem to be all that it takes to open the wallets of what appears to be a sea of gullible gamers.
That being said, every now and then I am pleasantly surprised. Ultimate Scheme by Rich Baker is one of those surprises. The game was sent to me for review—something I generally do not do with pre-publication Kickstarter designs—but the theme sounded interesting, so I overcame my usual avoidance. I was warned by the designer that the copy I was receiving would not be a finished copy, as final artwork had not yet been completed. However, it wasn’t the lack of artwork that frightened me; it was the reading of the rules. Oh, the rules were clear and easy to understand. The uneasy part was that the game sounded too simplistic; too, well, vanilla.
Once again my skepticism was unwarranted. There is more to the game than I surmised. No, it isn’t a deep strategic challenge, but it does present players with numerous choices and forces them to adjust their plans as the game progresses. But much more important than that, the game is simply fun to play…and you get to play the bad guy!
As a criminal mastermind your goal is, of course, to take over the world. In order to achieve your ultimate scheme, however, you must first accomplish a number of lesser schemes and meet the conditions required by the “X-Factor” card in play for the current game. Fortunately, you have minions to help you achieve your dastardly schemes.
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The People You Play Games With – Eric Edens
Board gaming is a social hobby. Yes you can play some games solo but for the most part, the hobby requires personal interaction. Like actually being around…people…yuck. If I want to play an auction game, it pays (get it? pays? That was a joke…fine, not a funny joke, but a joke nonetheless…) to have other players.
There are very few games that involve auctions which can incorporate a “bot” in place of other humans. One example is Power Grid’s solo variant. But even then, it is predictive and boring compared to other people. So here is our problem. We need people to play games with us. And for the majority of us, we need them to be physically in the same room to play those games (yes I know some of you play online games but even then you need a person on the other side of those series of tubes we call the internet). So now we have established we need other people for this hobby to work optimally. Cool. That was easy. So we are done here, thanks for reading.
Wait, you want more? Ok fine. What I really wanted to talk about here was how those people can affect your gaming and what you can do about it. And no, I am not going to talk about the jerk gamers, the unshowered players, or the annoying Jerome…You know who you are Jerome. Stop being so ANNOYING! Sorry. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. How do people make or break your gaming? It all comes down to what you like and what they like. Continue reading →
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