Now Or Never - An Introduction

 Now Or Never - An Introduction

Game Specs

• Advertised Player Count: 1-4
• *Actual* Player Count: I'm sure the automa is fairly good, but I don't know that I'll ever play this game solo.
• Playing Time: 45 minutes per player.
• Feels like they're telling the truth about this playing time! Once players get past learning the game, it moves pretty well and while there's certainly the possibility of analysis paralysis, I don't think this game design lends itself to that. In fact, it can sometimes feel as though I didn't do *enough* on my turn and I must've missed something! More on that later.
• Age: 14+
• Premise: After being chased from their ancestral home by aggressive and invulnerable alien invaders, players have heard rumors that the aliens have been weakening and now is the time to return to the homeland, rebuild it, and drive the remaining invaders away while protecting those pilgrims who would also seek to return.

Thanks for providing us with a space for our inaugural Now or Never play, Game Nite!

I've mentioned in a couple of other places that I've been waiting for this game for awhile, and now it's finally here! It's the third in a trilogy of games designed by Ryan Laukat and produced by Red Raven. I recently wrote about learning and playing its predecessor, Near and Far, and how much I enjoyed it. While all three games take place in the same place and timeline, I believe Near and Far and its predecessor, Above and Below, are very different games. But as Chad pointed out, Now or Never is much more similar to Near and Far than the latter was to Above and Below. Now or Never does have elements of building in the form of tile placement, much like Above and Below. However, Now or Never sort of also feels like players are always adventuring (unlike in Near and Far, in which players would venture out and then return to town as needed). None of this is criticism, by the way! Just observation. As with the other games in the trilogy, the art is fun and firmly ensconced in the mythology Laukat has built for this world. The art style is bright, engaging, and is very much a signature of these games.

I mentioned above in the section regarding playtime that I sometimes worried I had missed a step in my turn and double-checked the rules in a couple of those instances. I point that out because while there is plenty to do in the game (players are building their tableau, recruiting specialists, recruiting villagers and housing them, taking actions at the market, battling enemies, filling orders, buying new items, learning new abilities...seriously, there's a ton for players to do in this game!), turns are actually fairly straightforward and just a bit limited at first. Also, the game only lasts for 6 seasons (rounds), so it's got a clock on it. What we learned about halfway through the game (much to Chad's chagrin and to my satisfaction) is that while combat is important for gaining rewards, what gives players more to do each round is recruiting more (and better!) specialists. See, on your turn, you're actually only going to take one action at a time and there are only three actions from which to choose. The first is taking a specialist action, which might be paying to build something or gain resources or heal or simply gain a coin. But there are a couple of different ways to take a specialist action, because you can pay a specialist on your board, pay a specialist on another player's board (in which case, that player gets paid a tax from the game), recruit a new specialist and immediately perform their action, or rest one of your specialists. So there are some bullet points underneath that action, but it's still only one action with multiple ways to execute it. The second action is a hero action, in which a player moves their hero, may choose to play a Quest card from their hand, and then interact with the space in which they ended their movement. That interaction may be with the space itself, it may be to fight an enemy, or it may be to Search if there's a Search token there. But again, these are all bullet points under a single action. The third action a player can take is to pass. Passing means you've got nothing left to do (or nothing you want to do) and so you're finished until this season ends and the next season starts.

So though this may just be my experience, it may feel a bit counter-intuitive that there's so much to accomplish, but each turn features only one action which really isn't that complex. It might be easy for one to feel as though they're missing something. I know I did! But the action in this game is really pretty clean overall! It's kinda easy to forget that there are some really slick, tight game designs out there. Don't get me wrong: there are some kinds of bloat that I kind of enjoy in a game, even if it makes the game a little clunky. Sometimes, it just works for me or for the people I game with. But overall, it seems as though Now or Never is a really tight game that presents a lot of options for advancement through very few action options. It was nice because, for the most part, that kind of design feels as though it cuts off analysis paralysis at the knees. A player can only take a specialist action or a hero action (or pass if there's nothing else to do), so once a player has decided between those 2 things, they're already sort of halfway through what they're doing. It doesn't feel like hand-holding, but I think it has a similar effect.

What of things like trading resources for money or leveling up or putting a villager in housing? Well, those are Anytime Actions and players can execute them at any time! It may take a minute to truly integrate this into your game simply because there's only one rule book and new players are likely to be second-guessing themselves. But once you've got the hang of it, it's nice to be able to sort of take care of your own upkeep while other people are going. It really maintains the tight pace of the game and gives players things to do when it's not their turn.

Ultimately, this game is won by whoever has the most victory points at the end of the game, and those come from your buildings, your coins, your housed villagers, completed quests, and completed orders. There are a couple of other essential elements to the game, such as the Production Phase that happens at the end of each season, but that's some game play I don't feel the need to explore here. The one thing I do feel the need to expound on a bit is combat!

I think the combat in this game is fun, easy, and interesting. Basically, each enemy has a level (indicating difficulty), health, damage they deal, and the rewards for beating them listed on their token. You know where the enemies are so you can plan accordingly for combat with them. Each player board has four different attack abilities. While in combat, a player will roll a 4-sided die and each die result corresponds to a different attack on the player's board. So you roll, you check the result against your board, and deal that much damage, shield that much damage, etc. Players can upgrade offensive capabilities by purchasing red abilities or gear (by spending experience or coins at the market, respectively), and those new capabilities replace old ones on the player's board. There are also blue abilities and gear that offer defensive capabilities. For instance, it was really nice to reduce any damage I took via Searching every time I chose to Search as part of my hero action; if you get that ability early enough, it really adds up over the course of the game! Enemies deal damage simultaneously and then the next round of combat begins. Combat continues until the monster is defeated, the hero is defeated, or the hero retreats. Sometimes, the better part of valor is discretion. It doesn't always feel great to run away, but sometimes, it's the right call. Anyway, yes, combat is dice dependent. But in such a way that it feels (to me, anyway) that you can really anticipate how your combat will go. It might go better or worse than you expect, but it's not like in a game such as Descent or Imperial Assault, wherein you've set up a brilliant attack with all sorts of buffs and the possibility of chaining together important abilities, and then you roll the dice and whiff. I know that's part of the game but man, is it ever disappointing! And sometimes, supremely frustrating when it happens multiple times over a short span of time. In Now or Never, it's true the die may not do exactly what you want. But as long as you've got decent abilities in each of your slots, you'll always be doing something, even if it's not exactly what you wanted to roll.

Bottom Line: Now or Never is a really fun game and was absolutely worth the wait! It feels different enough from its two predecessors that it's worth buying, it's a tight play, and it feels like a very fitting conclusion to a solid trilogy of board games. I hope to get this one to the table frequently and with a bunch of different people! It also has a story mode which I'm interested to explore, but unlike a lot of other story games that also have an arcade mode, I don't think Now or Never loses anything in its standard play mode. I suspect that comes down to the fact that standard play is single game-oriented and the story mode is spun off of that rather than the reverse being the case. In any event, I appreciate that there are multiple ways to play this game and I think it's worth trying out.