Sorry if this was already covered, but I was wondering if Android was playable with only two people. I'm sure it is better with more, but I really was curious if the game simply wouldn't work with only 2 players. Has anyone tried it with just 2 players or noticed a rule or mechanic that would make a two player game pointless? Most of my gaming is done with just my girlfriend and so I tend to stick to games the two of us can play together. Thanks in advance guys.

Kevin Wilson said it was possible but not tested that way. The interaction between Light and Dark cards being played would probably be the biggest impact since they would be directed at each other instead of a 3rd or 4th or 5th party.

What I can guess so far, placing the evidence gained through following the leads would become quite dull in 2 players game, as the two would get two of possible 3 parpetrators who commited the crime, so it would change the game into a contest of who places the more evidence on his/her guy.

That is not quite correct. There is always one more suspect involved than players. As such, in a two player game, there would be three suspects.

However, with only two players, it will still very easy to tell the other player's hunches from what he's placing on which suspects. I assume a two player game will only half as fun as a 3+ player game.

That´s what I thought... there are 3 suspects, but only two players, so two hunches... the third one is seldom geting any evidence places on it (well, it can be someone´s innocent hunch), but still... it would easily devolve the game into beating your opponent´s placement of evidence, be it plus ones on their guilty hunches, or negative ones on innocent. I just think this very game is imposible to translate into 2 players experience.

Darn thats a shame. I'm still interested in picking this title up, it just wont be able to hit the table as often as I would have liked. Who knows maybe someone will come up with a clever variant, I know I'll still give it a whirl. Thanks so much for the feed back guys, I would still be curious to see if anyone has actually made an attempt at two player game.

Zadok13 said:

It doesn't quite fit in my pefect gaming set up either. We almost always game in couples so the only group I can target is 4-pleyr with this one.

But given Kevin's penchant for expansions, I am hopeful that he will come out with expansions that can bump this to 6 players and give some solid official variants on making 2 work. So i plan to get it to get as much use out of the 4-player I can and then hope for the best.

You could try it. I thought Galactica wouldn't work with three, and I was surprised to see it works well (we humanity lost by centurion boarding at distance 1, after being this close to lose by damage at distance 0)

Obviously I'd like to try the game with 3-5 first, but it might be possible to try:

* Play with 4 suspects (as if you had 3 players) and hand out one guilty and one innocent hunch as normal to each player.

Hi there,

The game is just available in France.

Has anybody finally played it in a 2 players mode? (and if yes, with what variant?)

Just saw also a reference to Battlestar Galactica in a 3 players mode : thought it was a normal mode, isn't it?

Kratos38 said:

I'm hoping to find out tomorrow if it's a lot more fun with more players (it seems like it would be).

Rooboy said:

Ooh nice, I am sure its more fun with a bigger group, but as long as its not broken with just two and still entertaining thats good enough for me. Thanks so much for the feedback. If anyone else has given two player a whirl please add your two cents.

Yes, BIG THANKS for this feedback ))

Will order it right now, am so fan of the BLADE RUNNER style!

Well, you should be careful if you're playing a two player game and one of you is better than the other. It's a VP game, so the person who best balances VPs is the person who wins. If one of you isn't as good as the other one, then you might implement some kind of handicap, but I saw nothing in the game inherently worse playing with two players than with three.

For playing though, it seems fine to me. At most, I would seed a few evidence tokens on the suspects (Honestly, I don't see that that would hurt in a regular game either other than the fact it would increase the randomness of it all.

Since the story/RPG aspects are what sold me on this game (my copy arrives next Tuesday) I am glad to hear that it can be managed with two-players. My wife is actually quite interested, and I may use our two player games as means of learning the game myself (before rolling it out to my group.)

Since the story is the draw, as long as none of the mechanics break, we will give it a whirl.

Awesome news. Though I'll probably get most of my games as 4 or 5 players, it's good to know it works well with the whole range.

Now I need to get a hold of it. The store owner said at some point next week.

Most of FFG's games (at least the big ones) work better with the maximum number of players, and are rather iffy with two.

All the positive feedback for this is going to make me try it with my girlfriend. We often end up playing 2 player games because we can't always get more people to play.

Just waiting for it to arrive :x

I just wrapped up a 'one week' training game with 2 players, getting my skeptical friends hyped one at a time, and the mechanics worked just fine. It makes it a little easier to blow an entire turn to dump bad baggage on someone's plot and feel like you got your AP-worth, and less cards end up in play, but it can still be played through and be fun with just two, it is just more about playing for fun as opposed to playing for a win.

That said, it is clearly meant to be played with more, adding entirely new depths of complexity, strategy, and general awesomeness with each player that joins the mix.

Kias said:

Well here is my situation. When I do manage to play with a bigger group, we play to win and so forth. When I play with my girlfriend, which is much more often, we play to try new things and experiment. Neither of us would approach the game as a victory point engine when its just the two of us. For us it would be about creating our own stories and seeing what unfolds. With that in mind, after your experience do you think our approach to the game would work better than if we were trying to play to win?

Also thank you for your response, you gave me some hope for this game.

Zadok13 said:

It sounds like Android will work just fine for your approach with your girlfriend. As you play, at least from what I can forsee based on my limited experience, the biggest challenge of two player would be certain situations/abilities (i.e. looking at evidence to find someone's hunch or placing hit tokens, etc.) that would make the game semi-unbalanced. When playing for fun, these situations are easy to avoid and will give you a better idea of the big picture when you do get lucky enough to get a big group together (I am still piecing together reliable board gamers in my neck of the woods, so I understand how much of a challenge this can be without a pre-established group).

Kratos38 said:

Hello !

you talk about France, are you french ? because i am, i bought Android few days ago and try it this sunday

)

Something I wondered while thinking about Android. I think a lot of the problem with two players would come from the fact that there are only two detectives, only three suspects, a limited amount of evidence, etc. Something one could try was to give each players TWO detectives., and forbid them from playing dark cards on 'your other' detective.

No, the problems for a two-player-game definitley stem from the competitive nature of the game. Your proposed variant will not work either, because it constructs a team game in which the aforementioned competition is reduced again.

Seems that the common balacing issue on the "Geek" was the 3 suspects in the game. It needs a minimum of 4 suspects so that you can spread the love around so to speak. I just ordered this after reading a few 2 player reviews (not that I can't get 4 players) and think I will play with 4 suspects minimum when playing,