I really like the game Android, but I like it far more than I like playing it. In other words, I love the scale, scope, concept, and aesthetics of the game far more than I enjoy actually teaching and playing it.

Judging by the reaction of others in various game forums, and the extensive Director's Cut rules (which are all wonderful, by the way), I'm not the only one who feels this way, although I for one wasn't exactly sure what was bugging me until recently. When you get right down to it, despite all the positive qualities that game has, there are five main problems with the game, and although the Director's Cut does a lot to fix the first, it doesn't do enough to offset the rest:

1.The game isn't balanced.

The conspiracy puzzle and favors contribute far too much to victory. Despite the ways to hurt eachother, unless you really gang up on someone, it isn't usually possible to force someone to get a really bad ending unless they were doing something wrong. Evidence is a little too random to be consistent, unless you're playing the Director's Cut rules, and similarly, unless you're playing with the optional rules, you'll find that over half the spaces on the board are never used, since the favors are too valuable to warrant trading them in for anything else.

Characters also have an imbalanced level of power, with Caprice being the most powerful, Floyd being the second, Rachael being third (she'd be second if it weren't for her favors being mediocre and her car breaking down), Blaine being fourth (drop ship tokens, and focusing on favors rather than his plots, can help offset his weaknesses though), and Raymond Flint being by far the weakest (little to no favors, the fact the conspiracy puzzle is almost always completed the first week, and extra dark 'memory' cards handed to each opponent to boot).

Again, the director's cut rules help offset all these above problems. Nevertheless...

2. It's too long.

There's way too much time between everyone's turns, but that can be solved with the Director's Cut rules. That aside, not every boardgame has to be four hours long, and for the life of me, I don't see why this game has to last 12 turns. 8 turns would've been better, and I usually do half games (6 turns) when there's a new player (with point awards redone a bit, of course). Sure, Fantasy Flight's cooperative games can run for 4 hours or more, but those feel more like a mini-roleplaying session than a game. Most competitive games, on the other hand, usually only run 1-2 hours, making Android seem far too long for many players.

3. It's over-complicated

Sure, there are plenty of good games that take 4 hours or more to play: Risk, Axis & Allies, Warhammer, etc, but these games have depth and strategy to warrant this playtime. Android is far too random to warrant any in-depth strategies, mostly thanks to the dark cards. Since utter ruin or trouble can arrive at virtually any time, and there's really no way to protect yourself from it (other than memorizing all the dark cards), victories feel more random than earned. A simplified light/dark card and plot system would have helped.

4. The story has nothing to do with the gameplay

We could be in the wild west, medieval Europe, a zombie infested mall, or the bottom of the ocean. The characters, plot, and environment literally have nothing to do with the gameplay/mechanics. The Director's cut rules help make the game feel more like a mystery, but even then only by a little bit. Overall, we're collecting icons, placing points on cards, and filling in a maze. The only sci-fi elements we really seem to be using are flying cars, and even then we don't really seem to fly. We might as well be driving and hopping a train between two cities. The game itself wouldn't change at all.

5. This was the wrong format for the story

With such a great cast of characters, and a wonderful overall concept, I would've loved for Android to have been either a roleplaying game or a cooperative boardgame similar to Arkham horror. As a competitive boardgame, it just doesn't seem to work, or at least not work as nearly as well as I'd like. It's a shame though, considering all the effort obviously put into it, and the complexity of all the pieces.

It just goes to show, when you have a flawed basic design, there's no amount of story or 'home made rules' that can make up for it.

I'm flattered! Thank you very, very much for the compliments.

I completely agree with you; the concept and scope of the game is amazing - I love it (which is why I'm dedicating so much of my time to it). But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the implementation, it just could have been so much better. It could have been one of the most original Ameritrash games of recent times, where instead it was made into a weird area control/resource management/tile laying game.

In response to a few of your other comments:

I personally don't mind the length of the game, though some of my gaming group do think that it can start to drag towards the end. We usually only play 3-player too. I'd hate to think how long a 5-player game would go on for! I've decided that if we ever play 5-player, each "week" will be a day shorter. Should help some.

There are many more modifications I've made to my copy of the game that go beyond what you can read in The Director's Cut variants (I semi-jokingly refer to my copy as "The Final Cut"). I've modified the board, updated all the conspiracy bonuses, altered the murders, changed all the events and am even in the process of re-writing all 200+ twilight cards. Obviously I would never expect anyone would want to go to all the trouble I'm going to, so I won't bother publishing it, but I may upload some pictures to BGG for anyone who's interested.

One of the changes I'm making, as I mentioned, is indeed to re-balance and simplify the twilight system. With my redesigned cards, the twilight costs only range from 1 to 4, with most cards only costing 1 (and usually only one 4-cost card). The effects the cards have are also much more proportionate to their costs; it always amazed me that there's a Louis card that allows him to place an alibi (extremely useful, usually costing the equivalent of 9 Time if you use the location on the board) that only costs 2 twilight, but then there's a Caprice card that lets her look at an opponent's hand (next-to-useless) that costs 5 twilight. Where on earth did these numbers come from?? With a few other rule changes, such as not allowing discards to pay for twilight cards, all twilight cards costing 0 Time to play, and not allowing certain twilight cards to be played during the climax, the twilight system is made more viable and the randomness is brought a little more under control.

I've also completely redesigned how murder-specific events are brought into play, to give more of a story to the story. It struck me that none of the murder-specific events were actually murder-specific in any way; you could really just shuffle the entire deck of MSEs at the start of any game and choose one, as neither the theme of the cards nor their effect text was at all related to the murder you have chosen to play. So the new system I created works like so:

Each murder has three MSEs associated with it, all of which will (probably) come into play during the course of the game. Each of the three cards has a "incident value", ranging from 1 to 11 (on average, the three cards will have incident values of 3, 6 and 9). Additionally, half of all the conspiracy tiles have an "incident marker" on them. As soon as there are enough incident markers shown on the conspiracy board to match the value shown on the next MSE, it enters play.

So for example, the murder Evil at the Estates ("...the body was mauled beyond all recognition... it was probably someone close to the victim...") uses the following three MSEs with these values:

2 - Cardinal Rees has Asked to Speak with You ("...Eve and I have a special relationship... please don't let them take her from me...")

6 - A Virus is Making Bioroids Go Berserk ("...Androids are going crazy all over the city...")

10 - Haas-Bioroid has Issued a Recall ("...just a safety precaution...")

So as players uncover the conspiracy they really are uncovering the story behind the murder. Of course, the murderer may not end up being the one as stated on the MSEs... but then there wouldn't be much game otherwise.

Also, have you tried the alternate plots that I have created (also available in the file section on BGG)? They add a lot more theme to the game, rather than just using the overly-abstracted mechanic of discarding dark cards or sacrificing Time to create "plot".

Anyway, I've probably been waffling on a bit too much. I'm very glad you've enjoyed my variants - even if it's only one person, that makes the effort worth it! And disagree that if you have a flawed design then no amount of house rules will make up for it... it's just a lot more than you might think.

All the best,

Chris.

....my 2 cents on the issue:

I don't think the game is perfect...no game is! I do think, however, that many of the issues people have with Android stem from expectations that the game would be a Blade-Runner RPG in a box.

I played last night with 2 other players I met courtesy of the FFG board. 3 hours (we all knew how to play), and we all had a good time. Gameplay was smooth, with only occasional disputes about rule interpretation. As we are all mature adults, no one got upset, even when certain rule interpretations cost them points at the end.

There are a number of game mechanics that work well with the future-noir theme, too, and would not, I think, work well in other motifs. Floyd's directives, Rachael's cyberware, Caprice's card-peeking, all are from various SF novels and tropes. Others, like Louis and Ray's personal problems, find their themes and plot mechanics in other SF stories, ie.: an alcoholic P.I. is a staple in 1940's pulp noir, but many gamers associate it now with the character of Decker from Blade Runner. But such a trope is not in medival times, age of steam, or other genres.

When I appraoched the game as a strategy game, rather than as an RPG, I had a great time. Playing with the variant murders adds a different challenge too ("Crap! The Races murder keeps dark-shifting me all the way! Do I risk getting into a Dark Card war with Louis so I could light-shift, or burn these other cards I could maybe use later, to lower the card cost?").

As for unbalanced characters, I've heard people complain that Ray is the most powerfully unbalanced character. And others say Louis is. And some claim it's Caprice. As I've heard different people list wildly different characters as being the 'backbrakers' in the game, that says to me that they are actually *balanced*.

I also don't mind that the game can be 'stolen' near the end, and not only because I won my most recent game due to such a move. For me, the game's unsurety of a winner until the very end works like the ending of a suspense movie, where you only find out at the very end if the hero's plot machinations have 'worked.' Yes, you may have stocked up on Corp favors, and they currently are worth 4VP each becuase of the way the Conspiracy has shaken out. You look like a shoo-in for the win, but.... oops! Ray's the one who pegged the murderer! And Caprice is totally sane...with two happy endings! And those are worth an extra 2 VP each...

Plus, I've seen some players who don't mind coming second, so long as they make the plots come out with Happy Endings, or if they catch the Murderer, or they prove Cardinal Reese really is a scumbag. Or...get it? Literally, this is the *first* boardgame I've ever seen where a player is actually *fine* with losing the war, so long as what they consider to be the more important battles are won.

In other words: I like it. House rules can always add to something, and BL's summaries in particular have been a helpful accessory. But with Android and the times I've played it, I haven't found andditional/different rules were needed . At least not yet.

I think in the end, it all comes down to taste. For me, a game like Android works great. Multiple routes to victory, cool references to a common culture for players to banter about, and gameplay that is four parts skill and maybe one part luck, all go a long way with me.

-J-

Some of these criticisms are, I think, more damning than others. For example, the fit between story and gameplay seems no worse than in any other FFG game; you may be collecting clue tokens or playing points to forestall a cylon attack, but much of the real thematic traction derives from the tension of one's situation and the flavor text on the cards. I too have been hearing that the characters are unbalanced in very different ways, that Raymond and Louis are super-powerful because of their conspiracy and favor situation, and that Caprice is unfocused, vulnerable, and her light effects mediocre.

As for the randomness of the dark cards, there's something to that...though personally I feel like the game does get very interesting once you really know what's in your dark deck. Yeah, it sucks for Raymond to lose all his favors at the end of the game to a memory card, and one might see that at a "random" event, but he should know that this is a possibility and how to avoid it, and under what circumstances it's a risk he should be willing to take. That's an extreme case, and it's not to say that one needs to memorize all the cards per se; if you're Caprice, it's enough to have at least a general sense that major and seedy locations are really dangerous for you, for example.

Chris, though I'm not generally inclined to try most of the changes you've proposed, I am really excited about the incident marker idea. Thematically very "terror track," and plus it makes the conspiracy that much more strategically interesting. (Also with fewer events that trigger on day n, one could decrease the number of days with that much more impunity, if one were so inclined (though I always worry about the effect this would have on the plots).)

In terms of gameplay, it does seem a little odd that the players would know, for example, that cardinal reese will intervene once they reach a certain point, and then a virus will hit, etc, so it might be nice to add a partial randomizer to the process, though I'm not sure how best to implement that.

Here are the details of the Murder Specific Event variant. Note that the values I have assigned to things should be taken with a pinch of salt, as these values are based on the game effects of my event cards (which are all different to the originals). So...

You'll need to make some kind of mark on some of the faces of your conspiracy tiles. I think the easiest thing to do is buy some sticky circular labels (about 0.5cm in diameter) from a stationery shop and use those, as they can also be easily removed later without damaging the conspiracy tiles. You need to place one mark on each of the following tiles:

From the "shift" pile:

Both "T" shaped pieces without a bonus

Both "+" shaped pieces without a bonus

From the "favour" pile:

Both "+" shaped pieces without a bonus

The "L" shaped piece with the shift conpiracy tile bonus

The "I" shaped piece with the physical lead bonus

From the "baggage" pile:

The "T" shaped piece with the documentary lead bonus

The "L" shaped piece with the testimony lead bonus

The "L" shaped piece with the favour conspiracy tile bonus

The "I" shaped piece with the favour conspiracy tile bonus

Then, you need to arrange the Murder Specific Events into the following groups for each murder and mark them with their incident numbers. You can either put the cards into sleeves and mark the sleeves, or just reference this list each time you play:

Evil at the Estates

Cardinal Reese has Asked to Speak to You (4)

A Virus is Making Bioroids Go Berserk (6)

Haas-Bioroid has Issued a Recall (9)

Last Call at Roxie's

The Haas Family is Blocking Us (4)

Thomas Haas is Holed Up with Human First (7)

Androids are Being Attacked at Random (9)

Mons Wolff Massacre

The Martians have Shut Down the Beanstalk (3)

We've Got Martian Dignitaries in Town (6)

The Martian Embassy Just Called (9)

Freetown Fright

Jinteki's Giving Support to Mark Henry (4)

The Clones are Refusing to Work (7)

Terrorists have Struck the City, People (11)

Revenge at the Races

Protests Over G-Mod Restrictions have Begun (1)

The Mafia is Stepping Up their Operations (6)

Vinnie's Friends are Helping Him Out (9)

Murder on the Midway

New Angeles is Burning (2)

Noise is Cooking Up Something Nasty (6)

Armitage has Hired a Lawyer for Noise (10)

During the game, as soon as there are enough incident markers showing on the conspiracy puzzle as the incident number for the next Murder Specific Event, place that event in play and discard any previous MSE that was in play.

Any effect text on an event that specifies a time period (such as "for the first three days of this week") is ignored. Instead, the event simply has its effect until the next MSE enters play.

And that's it! Simple as.

By the way, anyone who wants to see my modified Android board can find it here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/520019

Now wait, wait. I've owned an Android copy for a few weeks so far, still not able to gather friends for having a game of it - and veeeery busy with Arkham, that's why. But I often check the rules not to forget them and I check this forum too, in case of... and its been a while I noticed the existence of these Director's Cut unofficial expansion/modification, which I partly read and realized it was an impressive work, a work which I shall keep beside me the day I played a few games of the original version and agreed that it was not that good, and needs the DCs. Not before.

ANYWAY, all this to say that, today, reading that topic, I had a big doubt : Bleached Lizard, you would not happen to be the game designer, would you ? This question never occured in my thoughts until now, and I always thought "Director's Cuts" was just an eyeblink to movies and all... and the no-need-to-be-named-Kevin Wilson appears to be the creator, right ? So you're "just" a humongus fan of the game, happening to have so integrated the game's mechanism that you actually could create a remarkable transformation of it... "nothing more", right ? I just want you to reassure me on that topic

Hem said:

LOL! Correct - absolutely NOT the designer. The title is just for the Blade Runner reference.

Ok, good, thanks for the quick answer. Now, I wonder what does KW think of all that. Of all the complaints about a great potential but not well managed, about the huge work some guys like you did to improve it, on all of that...... we might actually see an Android v2.0 (Second Edition) in stores in the forecoming times, eh ?!

Hey guys,

My first post here in a while, since the game was launched really (back when Bleached first launched the Director's Cut , which at the time I couldn't understand because he launched it before the game was even released ... crazy man) and the topic caught my eye.

My 2 cents:

I loved this game with a passion. I wanted it more than any **** board game in history, because everything I'd seen about the story, the concept, the rules and the gameplay I thought was going to be brilliant. I actually LIKE the competitive storytelling. I agree that the game would ALSO be amazing as an AH style co-op, but I actually think the competitive system works fine also.

The Twilight Cards were the key. They are the magnificent secret to enabling competitive, self-balancing storytelling.

....Except they are completely screwed. The only reason why my (initially very enthusiastic) gaming group has dropped this title is because of the 'take that!' nature of the dark cards (props to Scott of board games with Scott for picking this early).

I agree with many of the points the OP raises, but only this one actually breaks it for me.

AND THIS IS WHY WE NEED AN EXPANSION. What the final instalment of AH proved is that you can issue new cards and mechanics for an old game to correct the flaws of the past. The story system - which is clearly ripped from Android - has breathed new life into that game for many many years to come. By issuing a new mechanic for every character ever invented, the designers have introduced a final 'patch' that balances all the cumulative inequities between the characters.

An expansion for Andriod could signficantly rework the twilight decks and improve the pace of play, and that would be all that is required to see the game assume its rightful place as one of the greatest games of all time.

...if I can ever convince anyone to play it again with me

Omnisiah said:

I agree with you. I recommend you write to Kevin Wilson, or make a sacrifice of yourself on some cursed altar so we can have it. I'd like an expansion for it... probably as much as for Cosmic E or Dracula.

deffinetly NOT an expansion.

A revision.

Android 2nd edition.

what the game needs is a replacment for anything unbalanced within the game (the locations, the cards, the plots, the conspiracy...), not an addition of "more balanced" items.

Technically, "Directors' Cut" IS such a revision - but making this revision globally avaliable is a problem without FFGs' resources.

The game IS an original and innovative piece of work, regardles of teh drawbacks, and it would be a deffinite shame for it to bediscarded due to flawed design. A well-designed Android game is a virtual portal to a highly expandable (think Arkham Horror) and entretaining world - But no-one would ever buy an Android expansion before the gme itself is reworked to a better basic design.

Omnisiah said:

Okay, it wasn't quite before it was released... but I guess it was quite quick.

Omnisiah said:

I can send you the pdfs of my completely revised twilight decks, if you like...? Depends if you have the patience to cut up 200+ cards, though...

I've got to agree with all the points Joker made.

There are a few people in my gaming group who are hooked on Android. We can be a very competitive group. We are all aware that there are "take that" cards that can be played on our characters. This element dictates our game play. Players will avoid dangerous locations without being properly armed with cards that can prevent the dark card or we go in full aware of the fact that our turn could end.

The conspiracy can be over powered, if you let it go unchecked, but players have successfully shut it down, or at least prevented favors from turning into a gold mine of victory points.

Most of the games we played came out very close, with only a few points separating the winner and the next highest scoring player.

Additionally, we typically play with only three people and most of the games only run about 2.5 hours.

As of yet, no one has felt the need to make changes to the rules or the way the game is played.

Urliam said:

Look what Twilight Imperium's expansion Shattered Empire does for the game. Not only does it add stuff, but it completely changes certain aspects of TI3's basic game (role selection doesn't get more basic than that) because either it fits better with the expansion content, and/or they agreed with fans that said certain aspects of it were broken. There is president, an expansion could certainly fix these flaws.

Desco said:

precedent. yes.

I am so close to buying this game. I love the concepts and style of this game... but from all the comments I feel like it's a risk at the moment.

If there was a 2nd edition or an exansion that addresses the unballanced issues in the game I would be all over it.

Some of us, including me, do not believe the game to be unbalanced. Sure the characters all play differently and some gaming groups seem hooked on trying to complete the conspiracy very early. However, I have found no evidence that they are in the majority.

Hein99 said:

I could not resist. The game seem so good that I went out and bought. I still have to learn the rules but I am excited about it.

Welcome to the club. Please report from your first session if you beat me to it.. I will have mine the 28'th of december.

Keep us all informed, both of you. It feels good to have good news from that game (new buyers, good reviews and all), so that Kevin Wilson can cheer up a bit and definitely realize that his deeply personnal games ARE good.

Me likes Android