Era Survival Colony: Review

Era Survival Colony: Review

Information:

Mechanics:Cooperative, Asymmetrical, Resource Management
Player Age:10+
Player Count:1 - 4 Players
Time to Play:45 - 60 Minutes
Game Designer: Ed Jowett
Game Artists: Mikhail Greuli
Graphic Designer: Jam Acosta
Publisher: Shades of Vengeance
Disclaimer: A preview copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

The Game:

Objective:

The objective of Era Survival Colony is to survive 8 rounds, while not being infected on the 8th round. Players will lose if any of these three objectives are met:
1. If the colony is infected after the 8th round
2. If the colony has been infected for three consecutive rounds
3. If all the people in the colony are infected or dead at any point.
Now remember that this is a cooperative game, so win or lose, the players will achieve this together and your best chance at survival is to plan and assist each other.

Card Anatomy:

Crisis Cards:
These crisis cards will have negative effects for either the next round or will infect/kill person cards in the colony.

Salvage Cards:

At the bottom of the card, there is text outlining what each card does. These cards can only be played on the salvager's turn, except for any card with the text 'interruption' which can be played at any time the cards requirements are met.

Character Cards:

These cards are simply to show the other players what role of the colony you are in charge of.

Person Cards:

Person cards come with a red and blue trait in any combination. including hunter, farmer, range, melee and trapper. This Trait can be affected by crisis cards. They also sometimes have additional text giving bonuses to certain players if designated to their area. Such as the salvager draws one additional card on their turn of this person is designated to them.

Enemy Cards:

Each enemy shows a numerical value which is their life, as well as a note detailing whether the enemy is infected. Some enemies also have special conditions that happen before they attack or after combat.

Trackers:

There is a round tracker used to keep track of the eight rounds. Additionally, there is an infected tracker. When this infected tracker reaches three the colony is overwhelmed and the players lose.

Setup:

- Each player will choose what character they are and each deck is separated and shuffled.
- The recruiter receives the person deck, the salvager receives the salvage deck, the defender receives the enemy deck, and the leader receives the failure crisis deck and the yearly crisis deck as well as both the round and infected trackers.
- The round tracker is set to one and the infected tracker is set to ‘unaffected’.
- The recruiter now draws four person cards and designates them to the players/areas of their choosing and play begins.

If playing with two players, one player will be the salvager and recruiter and the other player will be the leader and defender, so each player commands two roles. If playing with three players, one player will be the leader and salvager and the other two players will be one character of their choosing.

How to Play:

Each character will have their own unique way to play and all will need to cooperate effectively to stay alive.
The turn order for the characters will be the recruiter first, followed by the salvager, defender, and then the leader.

Recruiter:

Depending on how many people are situated in the recruiter's field, draw cards that equal that amount plus any bonuses. Then assign these people between players/areas as you choose fit.

Salvager:

On your turn, draw cards based on the people in the salvage field and any bonuses you have. You can now play any card to do the listed effect although any card played this way is then discarded from the game. At the end of your turn, you must discard down equal to the number of people on your field. Remember, you can save those interrupt cards for whenever the condition is met.

Defender:

Draw a number of enemies based on the total number of people cards in the colony divided by four (rounded up). For example, if there are nine people in the colony then two enemies will spawn. Upon spawning, the defending people can hopefully kill the enemies based on their strength. Unless specified otherwise, each person has a base strength of one.

Since this is a challenging cooperative game the probability is that you didn't kill all the enemies. In that case, a failure crisis is added to the crisis pile, and a random person in the defender's area is killed. Both of these actions occur for each surviving enemy. If the enemy was also marked as infected then a surviving defending person will be infected at random (marked by tilting the person sideways).

Leader:

The first part of the leaders turn is to feed the colony. This is done by adding together the food brought in by each person on this field. Each person brings in four food and any bonuses are counted toward the total food as well.
Each person in the colony requires one food. Due to the crisis last turn, there may be food deducted before feeding your colony. If you have failed to feed any members of the colony then a failure crisis will be added to the crises pile per unfed member.

The second part of the leaders turn is to add a yearly crisis to the pile, then reveal each devastating crisis which may include losing people, reduced food, or harder enemies for the next round.
From the fifth round onwards an additional failure crisis is added when the yearly crises are added.

End Phase:

During this phase, there are two things that can be done before the upkeep. First, the leader can rearrange any person cards on all fields for the next round. Second, it is time to exile the infected. If a majority of players agree, then all infected person cards are removed from the game.
If you were infected this round then nothing else happens except that the infected token is flipped to the infected side.
If this is not the first time you were infected then you’re in for some trouble...

Now the infection spreads!
Based on the current number of infected in the colony, an equal amount will now become infected.
The spread will start with random people in the same area as the infected but will then flow over to the area on the left. The infected tracker will increase by one (remember if you no longer have any infected then this tracker will return to the unaffected side). The round tracker now moves to the next round and you try to survive yet again until the magic number eight is completed.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:
- interesting puzzle aspect of the use of people as a resource
- great art
- asymmetrical gameplay but easy rules for each player
- real cooperation is needed where it isn’t just a choice
- as a player you actually feel the adrenaline rush to survive each round

Cons:
- some text on cards are worded in a confusing manner
- there is a lot of randomness to the game

Era Survival Colony is a truly cooperative experience where each person has a small asymmetrical role but all is necessary for the greater good of the colony. Each round involves a challenge to managing the resource of people and to which area they should belong. This is going to my collection for a medium weight cooperative experience. As it truly immerses the players to work as a collective whole.

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Era Survival Colony on Kickstarter
Shades of Vengeance
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