Tonight I played a game with a friend.
It’s a board game called First in Flight. You play as a pioneer of flight (the Wright Brothers are one playable character, as are a handful of other real historical innovators I had never heard of).
I like this game for three reasons:
- Few decisions, but each decision is important. The 45-minute game is comprised of maybe 20 decisions per person. Two suboptimal decisions is the difference between first place and second place.
- Multiple paths to victory. Will you elect the high-variance strategy or the slow-and-steady option? You can’t muscle your way to victory, however: the ideal play of this particular board depends a bit on the specific cards that happen to be revealed in the store.
- Fun mechanics. The next player is whoever is farthest back. They may move to any square. If they move to a particularly desirable square farther forward, the others will have multiple turns before they play again. A simple idea with cascading impact. The same is true of the “flight” mechanic. When flying, your only decision is when to land the plane. A simple single decision, yet one which requires repeated calculation.
My friends have determined that the playable characters – each of which has their own special traits – are poorly balanced. We have therefore determined we will all play the same character. Otherwise, the Indian man who claimed to achieve heavier-than-air flight in 1895 but whose flight was not reliably witnessed would always win.
Funny how that one mistake crashes the base game. Fortunately, our simple modification makes it soar.
