Last Aurora Review - with Zee Garcia

Zee takes a look at this post-apocalyptic game of scavenging and survival.
00:00 - Introduction
01:15 - Game overview
13:22 - Final thoughts
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[@KarimTheilgaard]

This is definitely a gem of a game. I’m glad you’re giving it some well-deserved attention. A couple of points in your review I thought I’d remark on: 1. You only take contamination on the Level 3 location if you take the Get Fuel-action. Otherwise it will only be noted on the location card wether you might take contamination or suffer a damage to your convoy if you visit the card’s location. 2. When players shoot I believe you also have to check wether you hit the enemies and where you hit them on the next face down targeting card (just like when you check wether they hit you and where). This often means it takes several players to fire and hit or several rounds even to destroy enemies, especially the higher level 3-6 enemies resulting in a fair amount of combat in my playing experience. There is also the PvP mini-expansion allowing players to target and damage each other if you want more head-to-head and combat in the game. 3. The small red cross denoting the decontamination action is referencing the largely universally-known symbol for the Red Cross / medical aid / healing,m so I understand the designer’s choice of symbology and found it quite clear. 4. This is a fairly highly complex game. There are quite a few more ways to score than mentioned to consider IMO. But considering the complexity weighting of the game I found it pretty smooth and fast to play after a round or two (I’ve played it with up to 3 people multiple times). The miniatures/resource upgrade pack is great and clearly illustrates the resources to go with the illustrations. There are also more mini expansions with new enemies and loot as well as the big box expansion Project Athena. I rate this game a 9.

[@ZeeGarc]

About 2., the players don’t need to check the back of the deck to see where they hit, as the enemies don’t have a top or bottom row. Players only check the weapon rating on the revealed card and see if they hit, miss, or if the weapon jams/misfires.

[@KarimTheilgaard]

@@ZeeGarc You’re right I had initially played without having to check outcome when hitting an enemy like you but had then had the use of an outcome card pointed out to me when shooting enemies, which made it much harder to kill enemies as I pointed out. But then I re-checked the rule on BGG and confirmed you don’t need to do so as you say. I suppose one can use it as a variant of killing enemies is too easy - particularly at higher player counts.

[@Drewkas0]

Great review! It inspired me to try this on Tabletop Simulator. Really neat game, but, as Zee pointed out, they need to do something about the ease of play. My friends and I had our noses in the rulebook a ridiculous amount of time for what amounts to a pretty simple game. Hopefully someone can make a nice player reference sheet, because it really needs one.

[@boardgameknight2791]

Is it just me? I assumed when I first saw this game that it was a Fantasy Flight game, based on the box cover....

[@Forza1988]

I’ve never heard of this but now I want it

[@levihoppe388]

Fun looking game. Thank you Zee, Always giving us great content!

[@koalabrownie]

Why hasn't Zee ever reviewed the Expansion, Project Athena?

[@paranoiarisinggames]

Love the cover art on this one.

[@jonaskissling8343]

Dont you think it looks like a LCG game box from FFG?

[@joseg.6187]

Zee's new game for every top ten! Haha. Thanks for the review Zee. Game does look great.

[@GlorifiedGutsyGaming]

I just bought this recently!

[@lylejackson645]

This definitely looks like a game designed for me! It looks like a great mix of mechanisms that I love, so I’m definitely looking forward to giving it a try.

[@KickstarterRadio1024]

Epic Kickstarter and so happy to see the Kickstarter extras make it to retail.

[@michaelmitchell2123]

Very good review

[@MattyWarbucks]

I enjoyed this one. I bought a late kickstarter "all in" copy (due to you mentioning this in the surprises of 2020 video) but have not played with the expansion yet. I love the way that you play your character cards like workers and then you cannot use them for the next round unless you feed them at the end of the round. It makes for some tough decisions about which characters to prepare. I very much agree with the lack of ways to score in this game. It doesn't look like the expansion fixes these issues but we will see. We need more thematic post apocalyptic games.

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

I gotta look this one up.

[@theearlyresetband]

Still gotta bust this out and play it!!

[@spiderjerusalemOX]

Portal Games are putting out a Polish (and maybe European?) edition of this and they’ve folded it into the Neuroshima Universe. The game is the same and it looks like even the artwork is the same, but they slapped Neuroshima on the cover and made Moloch the enemy faction.

[@npckse8508]

Have this sitting on my table ready to play solo. Glad you liked it and looking forward to getting it to the table this year!

[@KarimTheilgaard]

The solo mode works really well and feels like playing a real player but it is REALLY tough! One small tweak I implemented when playing solo was not allowing the A.I. To draw automata cards for any contaminated characters it had on its convoy. You might also consider starting out with one loot card.

[@douglassmiley3454]

How is the solo play?

[@ZakiJeppe]

I really like it as well. 8/10 for me. There was an expansion with the KS, The Athena Project where you are driving through a military base with turrets shooting at you. I think it's an AI trying to kill you.

[@douglassmiley3454]

How is the solo play?

[@S.Kapriniotis]

I had my eye on this from the KS, alas I couldn't afford it. Nice to see that it really is as great as I thought it would be!

[@williamgarcia-medina9989]

Me neither.

[@jamescampbell9890]

Has Zee made a video of his top ten post-apocalyptic games?

[@seanmorgan2257]

good price too

[@DatScharger64]

German version is pre-ordered, as it looks accessible enough that my parents can play it with me. :) But just like the review, I wish that there were more items, especially more cars. So far, there only seem three, and the cover alone shows us more types. Why not a car, for instance, that can pull nothing and is fragile, but very fast instead? Or even a semi-truck that's slow, but heavily armoured, armed, and can pull the most? Also, why no combat between players? This could also bring a tactical component into the game, deciding if one should try to slow down their competition or save the ammunition for bandit attacks.

[@8dickylai]

I'm waiting for this cool game!

[@JamesD2957]

that's one glossy box

[@mkietzmann]

Less than $40 on Amazon, but shipping is way too expensive to my neck of the woods. Such a shame.

[@andreavigiak]

retail distribution is arriving.

[@mkietzmann]

@@andreavigiak Just managed to get it locally today. :)

[@marcosfernandesdesousajuni9576]

I wanted to back this game but the shipping cost was so freaking insane that i just refused to play double the game's price in shipping... T_T

[@andreavigiak]

Base game is coming in many countries at retail distribution

[@marcosfernandesdesousajuni9576]

@@andreavigiak That's great I'm a all or nothing guy though, i won't be able to enjoy a "stripped down" version of the game knowing there are better, more complete versions of the game out there.

[@truelazerlight]

You said you would wish for more ways to score points, but why do we need points at all in a racing game like this. I'm generally not against victory points, in a lot of games they work just fine. But in this it rubs me the wrong way somehow. The players are racing to get to this ship before it leaves. What does fame/glory have to do with that? Why not make the game so that there's only room for one more convoy on the ship and whomever gets there first wins?

[@Brettballett]

I really wanted to like the game. But unfortunately it completely failed for me. The game is (on my channel) unfortunately one of my flop 12 titles of the year :-(

[@repeataftermeme75]

Could you give reasons as to why it failed for you and ten why you believe it failed in general for anyone looking into possibly getting this game?

[@Brettballett]

@@repeataftermeme75 In principle, this is just my opinion and I can't say that this is basically the same experience for everyone. I think opinions are different and my personal opinion is always subjective. However, I find the game quite inelegant. The rules are really badly written and in all my rounds there was no real flow to the game. The combat system wants to be innovative card-driven, but is rather unnecessarily bulky and complicated - not that it is complicated now, but simply unintuitive - you know what I mean? In addition, we didn't have a real race, so there was no tension. Actually, we were always tied, so the end was also very close, but we didn't care because there was never any tension anyway. I love the artwork, the basic idea is great, but unfortunately the game experience was very sobering.

[@repeataftermeme75]

@@Brettballett thank you.

[@Forcsythe]

@@repeataftermeme75 So Very Wrong About Games discussed it on their podcast. It's in episode 147, 32:00-37:40. It later showed up in episode 150 on one host's "bad games you liked" list for 2020.

[@ryanbrown9102]

@@Forcsythe do you have the specific position in episode 150 ? The information doesn't appear in the main menu (while in episode 147 it does)