This is a game that I've been looking into a lot, but I have a couple questions about the characters.
-How balanced are the characters? Is there specific ones that tend to win a lot more than others?
-My other big question is, is there any character in particular that is significantly more difficult to play? Unfortunately some of the people I play with lose interest the second things are no longer going their way. I just want to know if there is a character I should avoid having them play.
Each character has their strengths and weaknesses. Since each character has his/her own unique decks of cards, they all play differently. The game comes with tip sheets for each character and strategies to use against other characters. It is critical for new players to read these tip sheets.
It is not easy to know who is winning and who is losing as things can change dramatically over the course of the game. Think you've built up enough evidence to prove your suspect is guilty? Well, another player may come along and debunk/remove that evidence, or worse, put a hit on your suspect and possibly eliminate him from the game. Think you've racked up victory points by link paths in the conspiracy puzzle to various organizations. Well, another player could come along and break the chain, making all those favors you've been collecting suddenly worthless.
Just because things don't seem to be going well for a particular player at an early stage of the game, doesn't mean that things can't change later on.
Sounds good, thanks. That definitely answers my question. Everything I see and hear has me leaning more and more towards buying this game. I love how different it is, the strong story base, and the cyber-punk atmosphere. Just wanted to be sure that it should keep everyone involved, and interested.
I'd definitely recommend it, but one thing that's worth mentioning is that, in my opinion, the phenomenon Tsugo describes does affect some characters more than others. Raymond in particular (and, to a lesser extent, Caprice), has a lot that he needs to watch out for, and might not be very fun for new players (for example, I've heard tell of people who pursued a heavily favor-based strategy with Raymond, and lost all their points on the last day).
As a result, in addition to reading the tip sheets, I'd give everyone the chance to look through their dark deck before the game starts, in order to find out what conditions trigger their dark cards and what the consequences might be. That way, for example, people will know that Floyd has two cards that can force him to drop everything and go to Earth (one voluntarily, the other by force), and that if Rachel manages her hand properly, she'll mostly just lose a little time or money here and there (aside from one particularly ugly fight that can short out her hardware).
subochre said:
As a result, in addition to reading the tip sheets, I'd give everyone the chance to look through their dark deck before the game starts, in order to find out what conditions trigger their dark cards and what the consequences might be. That way, for example, people will know that Floyd has two cards that can force him to drop everything and go to Earth (one voluntarily, the other by force), and that if Rachel manages her hand properly, she'll mostly just lose a little time or money here and there (aside from one particularly ugly fight that can short out her hardware).
I agree with this whole heartedly. Each player has a dark card that can essentially end their turn.
I also recommend that for the first game, try to limit it too 3 players, maybe 4. The game seems to run exponentially longer with more players when first learning Android. I would avoid having anyone play Raymond on the first go round. Not only does he have a special set of cards that can be brutal to him. His story does not follow the standard rules/turn flow as the other investigators and it can be somewhat confusing.
Tsugo said:
subochre said:
As a result, in addition to reading the tip sheets, I'd give everyone the chance to look through their dark deck before the game starts, in order to find out what conditions trigger their dark cards and what the consequences might be. That way, for example, people will know that Floyd has two cards that can force him to drop everything and go to Earth (one voluntarily, the other by force), and that if Rachel manages her hand properly, she'll mostly just lose a little time or money here and there (aside from one particularly ugly fight that can short out her hardware).
I agree with this whole heartedly. Each player has a dark card that can essentially end their turn.
I also recommend that for the first game, try to limit it too 3 players, maybe 4. The game seems to run exponentially longer with more players when first learning Android. I would avoid having anyone play Raymond on the first go round. Not only does he have a special set of cards that can be brutal to him. His story does not follow the standard rules/turn flow as the other investigators and it can be somewhat confusing.