Android (science-fiction board game)

[Greg Vederman]

I saw a few random posts about this game in other threads, most notably Arkham Horror and Expansions (Lovecraft boardgame)(tl;dr) (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=43425&), but thought it deserved its own thread.

For those unaware, Android (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39339) is Fantasy Flight Games' new grand-scale adventure game. According to FFG, "Android is a board game of murder and conspiracy set in a [Blade Runner-esque] future. Detectives travel between the city of New Angeles and moon colony Heinlein chasing down leads, calling in favors, and uncovering the sinister conspiracy beneath it all. The detectives must balance their pursuit of the murderer against their personal lives and their inner demons. Android's innovative mechanics ensure that no two detectives play alike. Whoever you choose to play, you've got just two weeks to solve the murder, uncover the conspiracy, and face your personal demons."

Sounds awesome, right?

I'd love to tell you that playing Android is every bit as awesome as it sounds, but I can't. Because I don't know.

I had two friends come over yesterday afternoon at around 2pm. Sharp guys. Fellow "nuirds." People I routinely play Cosmic Encounter with. At 11pm – nine hours later – after a full day spent eating snacky snacks, reading the manual (and boardgamegeek.com crib sheets), and painstakingly pouring over the board setup, making sure that every one of the game's 100s of pieces was in the right place, we sat down to play our first match.

My buddy Josh was player 1. He stared out over the enormous game board as if through the steely eyes of his cyborg-cop player character, analyzing his options, running scenarios. Seemingly ready to make his first move, Josh took a deep breath and…started laughing hysterically. It was contagious. For the fourth or fifth time that day, the three of us shared one of those suffocatingly powerful silent laughs where you worry that, if you don't find a way out of the laugh soon, you may pass out or throw up and die. After all of the time we'd invested, we hadn't collectively absorbed enough knowledge to even START the game, and the sheer ridiculousness of that fact tickled us.

We're going to try Android again next weekend after we've all had a chance to re-read the 48-page manual. I don’t know how much fun we'll have actually playing the game, but sweet god, the Sunday we spent trying to figure it out will go down in history as one of the silliest, most enjoyably frustrating days of my life.

Has anyone fought their way through to the game on the other side of Android's instruction manual? What's it like? Is it even half as awesome as the description?

-Vede

[Jasper]

I read the .pdf manual, but didn't much care for it, and so passed on the game.

It's supposedly a detective game, but you don't actually deduce anything, instead the players themselves define who did it along the way. Great setting, but unfortunately the bizarre and gamey mechanics just don't fit it -- it's considerably less than half as awesome as the description.

[Rimbo]

man, i totally thought this was going to be about android (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Pinball)

[Xemu]

I've played it once (as the sole person who had read the rules, to boot).

It's trying to fit about 10x the rules / mechanics as will fit in the game structure, IMO. WAY too many pieces, way too many different competing ideas. The conspiracy game or the detective game or the "plot" game would have each made a fine game kind of by themselves, but all three blended together is just kind of a game mechanical slurry that doesn't really ever come together.

Then again, I'd probably be willing to play it at least once or twice more, so who knows? Maybe if everyone knows what they are doing it gels better.

Like Arkham Horror, I recommend a house rule that you are required to read all the flavor text out loud. :)

It really takes a lot of active monitoring of what other people do, to try and figure out when you can play your dark cards, where they might be headed on the map and with their conspiracy pieces, and what their hunches might be. Way more than any of us could keep track of. We had a full 5 though, it might actually be a much better game with just 3.

So yeah, it's a lot more interesting in concept than in execution, I think. It takes a long time to play too -- easily in the Arkham Horror / World of Warcraft / Civilization category of needing to set aside 5 hours minimum. It's a game I really WANT to like, but I think it dilutes a bunch of great ideas with too much "stuff".

[Calistas]

Which reminds me - is Mystery at the Abbey anything other than a last-turn-rush to accuse a monk first? There seemed less game than Cluedo, to me.. :/

[Tracy Baker]

A lot of board games are obviously not playtested enough, but I think Fantasy Flight's are starting to have the opposite problem. Those folks play the hell out of their games during development, which leads to stuff like Android that seems like it would only be fun if you've played it a zillion times and know it by heart. I used to automatically snap up nearly everything they produced, but I just have way too many other games to play to consider something with a 48-page rulebook that has a long setup time and requires multiple plays before it clicks.

[JZigish]

I played android for the first time, and it took us 3 hours. We made it 1/3 of the way through the game, then gave up in disgust.

There were several good mechanics in the game (I like the movement mechanic, I like the hidden evidence, the plot stuff is a good theoretical idea) but it puts them together in a way that is just way less than the sum of it's parts. Oh, and there are a LOT of parts.

[bigdaddygamebot]

This is JUST what I've been waiting to hear! Android's siren song has been pretty persistent when I walk into my local game store. I like complicated and I like lots of fiddly bits.

+1 sale.

It can't be as complicated as Advanced Squad Leader and even if it is...awesome. :D

[Jonathan Crane]

There was a game of Android going on a few tables away from us at Unity Games (they borrowed my copy of the rules). We managed to play through an epic game of Battlestar Galactica (http://http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=49511), as well as Cosmic Encounter, dinner and Lord of The Rings while they were still hacking away at it. The rules sound very interesting, and I bet once you "get it" it might be really great. I don't regret the purchase, but I think this may be like buying the rules for a RPG you'll never play.

[bigdaddygamebot]

I'm trusting to the fact Android will get much faster to play in subsequent playthroughs like Twilight Imperium or the first time we tried Arkham Horror with all the expansions.

Who knows? Maybe we'll even get all the rules right by the third time we play through it? ;)

[Alan Au]

I've heard mixed things about Android, as evidenced by the comments on BGG. Of course, I've developed a slight distaste for the long (>3 hour) Fantasy Flight games, so that might have something to do with my own personal reservations about the game.

- Alan

[Xemu]

Gamebot, it's complex in a totally different way than ASL. ASL, while it really is just trying to use humans as a temporary computing substitute, has a purity of vision / focus. That game knows what it is about, and what it is about just happens to require a zillion fiddly rules and counters.

And even ASL, while it has a lot of counters, has fewer *classes* of counters in many ways than Android, and fewer totally disjoint mechanics. Been a while since I played ASL, but the closer example to Android would be if you had all the rules of ASL, plus also you had a detailed logisitics game to supply bullets to your dudes, plus you had to manage their emotional relationships and navigate their battle trauma. Each of which might even be an interesting game, but if you want to do them all at the same time, you can't just staple the three together and get something fun -- you have to design a game which makes tradeoffs to accomplish all those things and still be coherent.

Which is overall maybe too harsh on Android -- it's an interesting game but definitely not for the faint of heart and as from a design perspective I just find it full of good ideas with clumsy overall execution. It did get me to think a lot about what does and doesn't make for a good boardgame, so I highly recommend any aspiring game designers (board or software) at least try it to learn something.

Edit: humans != computers. At least for now.

[Jasper]

This is JUST what I've been waiting to hear! Android's siren song has been pretty persistent when I walk into my local game store. I like complicated and I like lots of fiddly bits.

+1 sale.

It can't be as complicated as Advanced Squad Leader and even if it is...awesome. :D
Consider that I too like complicated games with lots of fiddly bits...

Unfortunately, complexity and fiddly bits do not in and of themselves make for a good game. Android's various mechanics felt grafted together, and as if they'd fit better in a different game. It's a detective game that's more about framing than investigation -- it just feels wrong.

Anyway, I definitely recommend checking out the rules .pdf (http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Android/android-rule-book.pdf) before buying.

[fox1]

I love Ameritrash games, fiddly bits, Arkham, Twilight, etc, and I'm not sure I'll ever play Android again.

It's not that it's too complicated to PLAY, from turn to turn, I just can't imagine ever investing enough time in the game to know which of choices A through ZZZ would be in any way a good strategy, or who around the table was doing well and who wasn't.

It felt like we sat around throwing darts at a spinning target, blindfolded, for three hours, then took off the blindfolds, added points for 30 minutes, and discovered that the dog had won.

[mkozlows]

Which reminds me - is Mystery at the Abbey anything other than a last-turn-rush to accuse a monk first? There seemed less game than Cluedo, to me.. :/

No. It is a broken non-game, Fluxx in a bigger box. If you want a real deduction game, get Sid Sackson's Sleuth.

[bigdaddygamebot]

Gamebot, it's complex in a totally different way than ASL. ASL, while it really is just trying to use computers as a temporary computing substitute, has a purity of vision / focus. That game knows what it is about, and what it is about just happens to require a zillion fiddly rules and counters.

And even ASL, while it has a lot of counters, has fewer *classes* of counters in many ways than Android, and fewer totally disjoint mechanics. Been a while since I played ASL, but the closer example to Android would be if you had all the rules of ASL, plus also you had a detailed logisitics game to supply bullets to your dudes, plus you had to manage their emotional relationships and navigate their battle trauma. Each of which might even be an interesting game, but if you want to do them all at the same time, you can't just staple the three together and get something fun -- you have to design a game which makes tradeoffs to accomplish all those things and still be coherent.

Which is overall maybe too harsh on Android -- it's an interesting game but definitely not for the faint of heart and as from a design perspective I just find it full of good ideas with clumsy overall execution. It did get me to think a lot about what does and doesn't make for a good boardgame, so I highly recommend any aspiring game designers (board or software) at least try it to learn something.

Thanks for the analysis! I should have been more clear in the fact that I didn't think it would be similar to ASL but just that if my group and I eventually pounded out how to play ASL, then we could do it with Android as well.

With that said, FFG can get a bit...exuberant with their games regarding ideas and concepts but not actually bolting them down in a way that you can actually play the game in a logical and efficient manner.

Consider that I too like complicated games with lots of fiddly bits...

Unfortunately, complexity and fiddly bits do not in and of themselves make for a good game. Android's various mechanics felt grafted together, and as if they'd fit better in a different game. It's a detective game that's more about framing than investigation -- it just feels wrong.

Anyway, I definitely recommend checking out the rules .pdf (http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Android/android-rule-book.pdf)before buying.


I can agree that lots of "bits" does not a great game make. However; one of my "happy places" is opening a new game and punching out all the bits and then trying to figure out how I'm going to get them all back into the box.

It's very meta. xD

thanks for the link to the rules. I'm going to give them a glossing over at lunch today.

[Greg Vederman]

It's not that it's too complicated to PLAY, from turn to turn, I just can't imagine ever investing enough time in the game to know which of choices A through ZZZ would be in any way a good strategy, or who around the table was doing well and who wasn't.

It felt like we sat around throwing darts at a spinning target, blindfolded, for three hours, then took off the blindfolds, added points for 30 minutes, and discovered that the dog had won.

That.

It's not that Josh literally couldn't make his first move, it's that he couldn't -- none of us at the table could -- articulate why his taking any of his myriad possible actions would have been better for him or worse for us.

That's when we called it a night and decided to hit the manual again during the week.

[bigdaddygamebot]

That.

It's not that Josh literally couldn't make his first move, it's that he couldn't -- none of us at the table could -- articulate why his taking any of his myriad possible actions would have been better for him or worse for us.

That's when we called it a night and decided to hit the manual again during the week.

After reading the instructions...wow. O_o

It's lightyears beyond Twilight Imperium BUT, when we first started playing T.I. we were all kindof overwhelmed by the options as well.

We had two "trial runs" about two hours each, feeling out the game and getting better line of sight to what sortof of impact our decisions made on the game as well as our opponents. Then when tried the third time around "for keeps".

It seems like that will be necessary for Android.

[Greg Vederman]

I can agree that lots of "bits" does not a great game make. However; one of my "happy places" is opening a new game and punching out all the bits and then trying to figure out how I'm going to get them all back into the box.

It's very meta. xD

Could not agree more. Part of "Android Sunday" that I didn't mention in my original post was our trip to the local sports mart to find the perfect tackle box to house all of the game's bits. Ultimately ended up using ziplock snack baggies, but still.

If all I ever get out of my Android purchase is that goofy day spent carefully unboxing the game and waging a hilarious and ultimately losing battle against the rule book with my friends, I'll have gotten my money's worth.

Actually playing the game is gravy at this point. ;-)

[Greg Vederman]

After reading the instructions...wow. O_o

It's lightyears beyond Twilight Imperium BUT, when we first started playing T.I. we were all kindof overwhelmed by the options as well.

We had two "trial runs" about two hours each, feeling out the game and getting better line of sight to what sortof of impact our decisions made on the game as well as our opponents. Then when tried the third time around "for keeps".

It seems like that will be necessary for Android.

Agreed. The plan for now is to give the game a trial run or two on Saturday in the hopes of actually playing a full game on Sunday with some level of clarity and strategy. And rather than picking new player characters each time, we're going to keep them constant for now, since each investigator seems to have its own layer of added opacity...

[bigdaddygamebot]

Agreed. The plan for now is to give the game a trial run or two on Saturday in the hopes of actually playing a full game on Sunday with some level of clarity and strategy. And rather than picking new player characters each time, we're going to keep them constant for now, since each investigator seems to have its own layer of added opacity...

Please give us (me) an update here after you've given it a spin. After someone was kind enough to post the instructions, I'm going to hold off on buying it until i get a few more impressions of it.

Also...shame on you for using ziploc bags. You are a peasant, sir.

[mkozlows]

Also...shame on you for using ziploc bags. You are a peasant, sir.

Ziploc(tm) brand interlocking bags, especially the Snack Size ones, are critical for game storage. I think I've gone through two boxes of them, along with 80 or so plastic card deck holders, various counter trays, and a bunch of Plano.

[Greg Vederman]

Please give us (me) an update here after you've given it a spin. After someone was kind enough to post the instructions, I'm going to hold off on buying it until i get a few more impressions of it.

Also...shame on you for using ziploc bags. You are a peasant, sir.

I'll definitely let you know what I think after the weekend. And as for the ziploc bags, yeah, believe me, I looked really hard for a tackle box that would fit all the bits and still fit in the box. Couldn't find one. So I'm stuck with several dozen little ziploc bags for now. :-)

[malkav11]

A lot of board games are obviously not playtested enough, but I think Fantasy Flight's are starting to have the opposite problem. Those folks play the hell out of their games during development, which leads to stuff like Android that seems like it would only be fun if you've played it a zillion times and know it by heart. I used to automatically snap up nearly everything they produced, but I just have way too many other games to play to consider something with a 48-page rulebook that has a long setup time and requires multiple plays before it clicks.

There's lots of internal playing, sure. One of the perennial problems the company has, though, is that there is very little -external- playtesting of many of the games, and even when there is it's very common for the designers to be so wedded to the way something works that they refuse to listen to the feedback they get.

I game with the guy who's currently heading up Talisman and similar adventure board game development and used to game with one of the art directors. I've playtested some of their stuff when he brought it over, back when he wasn't running anything, such as Runebound and been quite frustrated that the core design issues that I was seeing couldn't be budged. I'm hoping that he's at least changed some of that in his end of things.

(Weirdly enough, I'm listed in the playtest credits for the first expansion to their new edition of Talisman and I am quite sure I have never played it...I've played Talisman enough with him to possibly deserve a playtest credit in the main release, but haven't got one. But the expansion? Nope.)

[Tracy Baker]

(Weirdly enough, I'm listed in the playtest credits for the first expansion to their new edition of Talisman and I am quite sure I have never played it...I've played Talisman enough with him to possibly deserve a playtest credit in the main release, but haven't got one. But the expansion? Nope.)

Maybe he realized he forgot to put you in the base game credits and was trying to make up for it. :)

That's cool that you game with the crew. I interviewed a few of them several years back for an article I was writing and they all seemed like genuinely nice guys. Of course, making board games for a living never hurt anyone's disposition.

[Andrew Mayer]

This game sounds not so good. Say what you like about Twilight Imperium, but after six hours we had finished the game...

Even if you count the 2-3 hours it took me to break up the sprues and put them into individual ZIPLOCK SNACK BAGS, that's still a win.

[malkav11]

Maybe he realized he forgot to put you in the base game credits and was trying to make up for it. :)

That's cool that you game with the crew. I interviewed a few of them several years back for an article I was writing and they all seemed like genuinely nice guys. Of course, making board games for a living never hurt anyone's disposition.

Not "the crew". Just a couple of people who live in the area and wound up working for Fantasy Flight. The Talisman guy's been coming to the weekly gaming party I go to since he worked at Shinders (a local newstand chain, now defunct). It was quite a (pleasant) surprise when that new job he landed was with Fantasy Flight. And really goddamn awesome when he hooked back up with them after a hiatus and was hired to be in charge of Talisman. Considering how much he (and I) loved that game in the 2nd edition, that must be one hell of a feeling. I mean, he was so into it that he created an entire fan expansion (with board and everything) based on Warhammer Fantasy - specifically the Realms of Chaos. (not that we'll be seeing an official version of that ever - Fantasy Flight owns Talisman now, but not Warhammer tabletop anything.) And the art director was a friend of a friend.

I still can't believe they're based here in town. Hardly anything else of gamer significance is. (Okay, Atlas Games, but they're not -nearly- the force that FF is these days.)

[bigdaddygamebot]

I'll definitely let you know what I think after the weekend. And as for the ziploc bags, yeah, believe me, I looked really hard for a tackle box that would fit all the bits and still fit in the box. Couldn't find one. So I'm stuck with several dozen little ziploc bags for now. :-)

Yeah, I'm just being overly bourgeousie. Infact, there are ziploc bags that are half the size of normal ones and generally they're ideal. I have no idea why my wife bought them but they worked perfect for board games.

Seems like every FFG game I buy these days has a tackle box purchase coinciding with it.

[Andrew Mayer]

Infact, there are ziploc bags that are half the size of normal ones and generally they're ideal.

These are SNACK SIZED BAGS. They are not easy to find.

I hoard them and love them.

[Calistas]

Three hours is to long for a board game for me unless there is some awesome payoff. The only exceptions are wargames - but I have trouble finding people with the stamina for 'em.

[Lizard_King]

Yeah, I'm just being overly bourgeousie. Infact, there are ziploc bags that are half the size of normal ones and generally they're ideal. I have no idea why my wife bought them but they worked perfect for board games.

Probably for drug distribution, like everyone else (http://hightimes.com/news/ht_admin/3954). I'm dismayed to hear about the complexity of this game, especially relative to Arkham Horror which could easily be described the same way. I find I have irrational levels of love for games like these, but end up playing simpler, shorter games like Hive most of the time. Naturally, I'm just waiting for my latest order at my dealer to hit critical mass before I go pick up my copy of Android along with other games I won't play for years.

It sounds a bit like the tormented monstrosity that is Titan, a game that comes with a tray for its parts that seems to be physically incapable of containing anything close to the full amount that is included. On the bright side, Valley Games did get around to my email and sent me the pieces that were damaged in mine, so if I ever do more than just stare at it that will be nice.

[mkozlows]

Probably for drug distribution, like everyone else (http://hightimes.com/news/ht_admin/3954). I'm dismayed to hear about the complexity of this game, especially relative to Arkham Horror which could easily be described the same way. I find I have irrational levels of love for games like these, but end up playing simpler, shorter games like Hive most of the time.

Well, you can play Arkham Horror (or whatever) once, or like six other games, so it's hard to justify.

Also, I think Arkham Horror is really helped by the fact that it's co-op, so you can a) explain as you go, b) play "together", and c) not worry too much if you get something wrong. A competitive version of Arkham Horror would, I think, devolve into everyone's turn consisting of "Wait, let me see that rulebook for a second... *five minute pause, with riffling* ... okay, I thought so, you did that last bit wrong."

If it got that far, because nobody'd want to start without knowing what they were supposed to do. Don't ask about the Die Macher game that we never did quite ever play...

[Lizard_King]

Yeah, that's the main reason I stayed away from other FFG rules explosions like Tannhauser. I thought Android had a coop element, or at least was not a direct conflict game, but I guess competition can get just as ugly.

[malkav11]

Well, you can play Arkham Horror (or whatever) once, or like six other games, so it's hard to justify.


-shrugs- To me it's an easy call - would I rather play one really awesome game, or six other games none of which come anywhere near that level of fun?

The only fast-playing game I can remember really loving is Race for the Galaxy, and I'd still rather play one round of Arkham than six rounds of that (one or two in a gaming session is plenty, and incidentally can be tucked in to round off the evening post-Arkham.).

There are definitely games that outstay their welcome, of course. And some games (Advanced Civilization, anyone?) that are just too long to be practical to play at all regularly even if they're consistently fun for that length of time.

[mkozlows]

-shrugs- To me it's an easy call - would I rather play one really awesome game, or six other games none of which come anywhere near that level of fun?

Well, obviously, mileage varies. On a per-unit-of-time basis, there may be no game I enjoy so much as Dominion, so.

But that aside, variety has a certain virtue all its own, eh?

[malkav11]

Sure. Which is why I'd rotate long, complicated games instead of playing the same one every time. But the short stuff almost never does anything for me. Unfortunately, I've found that even as I've gotten less and less interested in those games, everyone I game with has started focusing on them to the exclusion of the stuff I do want to play.

I haven't played Dominion, as I don't buy board games - don't live with anyone to play with - and the people I game with haven't bought it either, for reasons I'm unclear on. Possibly haven't heard of it, possibly wrote it off as too expensive (I don't know what it costs, but that's why the host of my regular gaming group doesn't own Agricola, even though it is exactly the sort of game he'd like if he did buy it). Possibly just haven't gotten round to it.

[Calistas]

No. It is a broken non-game, Fluxx in a bigger box. If you want a real deduction game, get Sid Sackson's Sleuth.

Yeah.. damn it. Long game for not much reward. It was a gift. Nice try parents.. but it really didn't work for us when we played.

FWIW, Queen's Necklace is a fun little game. Not complex, but there's an amusing bit of bluffing in the middle. Good for wives and kids too. Plays fine with 2P as well.

[Greg Vederman]

Please give us (me) an update here after you've given it a spin.

We weren't able to get in a full game this weekend, but we did get several rounds into our first match. Since walking away from the table last weekend in defeat, we'd all re-read the manual, watched a bunch of YouTube vids, read the community FAQs and tip sheets. This time, when we sat down to play we really knew what we were doing and why. (Mostly.)

We didn't get far enough in for me to give it a definitive thumbs up or down, but my group has definitely enjoyed its time with Android so far. In fact, we're trying to get together again next weekend to play. That'll make three weeks in a row. We're hooked!

The game oozes style and story; there's a TON of interesting flavor text to read and it's really neat learning about the detectives and their motivations. Unfortunately, if you're *too* beholden to the story, the game may break for you – so much of Android's gameplay is out of sync with the narrative. For example, there is no "Prof. Plum, in the library, with the candlestick" reveal at the end of this game. You're not solving a murder at all really, so much as framing a suspect. At the end, if I played well, my suspect was the murderer. If my buddy played better than me, his suspect was the murderer. You can even fail to "solve" the murder entirely and still win the game. These discordant aspects clearly turn off some players.

For my group, this wasn't a big deal – or at least it hasn't been so far. We all love the setting (it was the reason we first became interested in the game), but are now primarily motivated by Android's "gotcha" gameplay elements, which run deep and are super brutal. You're really encouraged (pretty much forced) to fuck with other players as a means to victory. We love that. Unlike a game of Cosmic Encounter where cooperation and competition are in balance, and playing a powerfully negative race like Hate can get you killed quickly as everyone at the table bands together to stop you, in Android everyone is free to be as wicked as they want to be without worrying (as much) about overwhelming reprisal.

Goooooood times. :-)

I'll close with a little advice for new players: Read the entire manual, REALLY know what you're doing before you start. If you and your group are forced to fumble your way through your first game of Android without a clear understanding of the rules, you probably won't be back to play your second game of Android.

-Vede