After Us: Review

After Us: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Engine Building, Deck Building, Simultaneous Play, Race (Victory Points)
Player Age: 12+ 

Player Count: 1 - 6 Players 

Time to Play: 40 - 60 Minutes 
Game Designer: Florian Sirieix

Game Artist: Vincent Dutrait

Publisher: Pandasaurus Games

Year Published: 2023

BGG Weight: 2.29

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Introduction:

In a dystopian timeline, mankind has been wiped out and apes have taken up the mantel Players are leading their own tribe of apes, starting with a deck of tamarins and over time will add in a range of different apes. On your turn draw four cards and arrange them into a primate assembly, creating closed frames by combining open ended frames on cards to collect resources, earn victory points and achieve other bonuses. The first player to reach 80 points has the greatest surviving tribe and wins the game.

Game Anatomy:

Primate Cards:

Each player will start the game with 8 tamarin cards but will add cards throughout the game. Each card has three rows of varying effects. The top row will award resources, the middle row will give points (often at the cost of resources) and the the bottom row will have abilities relating to the ape type. On a round, players will draw four primate cards to be connected together. The aim here is to get the most out of the connections by closing the open ended frames along the sides of the cards. Players will then resolve the closed frames following the order of top left to bottom right and gaining all the bonuses they can.

Primate Types:

Each primate type has a different focus of abilities and rewards. The primate types include orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, mandrills, and tamarins. 

Orangutans:

These primates focus on activating the objects so they generate the most energy.

Chimpanzees:

These feature a redo symbol that allows the player to reactivate any closed frame in the primate assembly.

Gorillas:

The most volatile of these apes. They generate lots of rage and are often used when players want to slim their deck and create the most consistent engine.

Mandrills:

These apes focus on points and their purpose is to thrust you towards that win condition as fast as possible.

Tamarin:

These are the starting cards. They often have less open frames, making it harder to combine these cards with other cards.

Player Board:

The main focus of the player board is the rage track which the gorillas will use to banish the lesser performing primates. The player board also has allocation for your disks and a times three resource section if tokens begin to run low.

Action Disks:

Everyone has the same four action discs which are used during phase 2 of a turn. They have a bonus ability thay will activate when used and the ape type depicted is what can be recruited this turn. The bonuses will increase rage, redo one of your closed frames, gain energy or score two points.

Resources:

There are three main resources, fruits (orange), flowers (blue) and grains (black), that will be used throughout the game to recruit apes and to activate card costs. 

There are also two other resources; energy which can be used to activate objects

and rage which can be used to eliminate apes from your tribe (deck). To remove an ape from your tribe simply spend four rage and remove one of the cards currently in play. Each card also has a rage value on the top right that grants a bonus when removed.

Objects:

Objects are the last remnants of humans technology. There are seven objects available, of which three are used randomly every game. Each object has an energy cost and which game phase they can be used in denoted on them.  All of these objects have game changing abilities such as playing a fifth card in your primate assembly, discarding and re-drawing one card in your primate assmbly or changing one resource to another. Each player can activate each object once per round.

Setup:

- Place the main board on the table, separate and shuffle each deck then place them in their respective places. Each ape has a one and two strength deck as marked on the cards. 

- Each player may gain their eight card tamarin starter deck (shown by the flag colour on the card), four action disks and player board. 

- Players receive a player aid card and place one of their tokens on the zero spot on the scoring section of the main board, as well as one on the zero space of their personal rage track.

How to Play:

There are three phases every round that are played simultaneously until one player has reached 80 points.

Phase 1: Assembling the Tribe

All players simultaneously draw and reveal the top four cards from their deck. Then they work on creating a primate assembly, where the players arrange these cards in a row from left to right connecting and closing frames so they can be activated. 

Once all players have assembled their cards, activate every closed frame starting from the top left closed frame and progressing to the bottom right, completing each row before moving to the row below. Some frames require a cost on the left side of the frame to gain the reward on the right side of the frame, others require a certain amount of different apes or some frames are based on how many tamarins you have.

Phase 2: Attracting New Apes

After the last phase has resolved players will move onto recruiting new apes. Each player will chose one of their action discs denoting which ape type they want to recruit. This action disc will also show which bonus the player will gain. The newly recruited card goes on the top of their deck. When recruiting, players have an option to pay three or six of one resource to gain a card. Players can additionally spend two of the same resources during this phase to copy one of your neighbours’ disc ability alongside having received a personal one at the disc reveal. 

Phase 3: Resting

Resting is purely upkeep where players can discard all cards in the primate assembly and take back their action disc.

Final Thoughts:

- Smart puzzle system when assembling the cards.

- You don't know the intricacies of the kind of card you will be getting each round, you simply base it on ape type.

- Immediate resource and point generation.

- Great player range of 1-6.

After Us is one of the deck building games that doesn't focus purely on deck building. The game works more like a puzzle in how to best optimise the payout that the assembled cards can give you, while also planning on making the right resources to pay for further  costs. I have not seen another game pull off this combination card system so elegantly as After Us does. Each turn feels like an optimisation puzzle where you have to plan ahead for the objects you want to use, apes you want to recruit and [most of all] how to score the most points. The only part that felt like a potential negative is not knowing the frames of the cards you are purchasing and instead only knowing the general focus of the card. However, the more I thought about it, the more I see that this isn’t a negative to the game, it is just different from other deck builders. If the card doesn't suit your engine you can remove them easily using rage and still attain points for the card. Also, each card you purchase feels so useful in their own right that the unknown is an excitement factor to what the recruited ape has to offer. This is a great game that instantly has me wanting to play more and has earnt a Silver Seal of Approval.

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Pandasaurus Games

After Us on BGG

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