INTO THE ODD

Weird, wild, and worth a read

2022-11-25 - Designer: Chris McDowall | Publisher: Free League

When it was first released in 2014, Into the Odd blew fresh air into the world of rules-lite, danger-heavy roleplaying. It transplanted the feel of old-school dungeon-crawling into a world that riffed on Victoriana more than Vikings and rules that presented themselves with a little more wit than grit.

Now, wildly successful Scandinavian publishers Free League have worked with author Chris McDowall to revamp, re-visit, and re-issue the game for a new generation of gamers. The changes aren’t particularly sweeping – some new art, a few expanded rules, a fleshed-out starter dungeon – but they do just enough to warrant the new edition. The result is a beautiful little slice of gaming that plays almost as well as it looks.

And as trite as it may seem to a world that often focuses on rules and writing above all else, the aesthetics of the new edition really do matter. The game’s identity is fostered around a light-touch ruleset and the ability to get gaming in a matter of minutes, after all. This leaves the tone and feel of the rulebook to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to establishing Into the Odd’s overall vibe.

Stand the rulebook, with its mint green background and sunset pink artwork, alongside the bloodspattered hazard-tape design of MÖRK BORG – the genre’s current darling – and the differences between the two games are clear. Into the Odd is a dangerous and violent game where death is only a handful of dodgy rolls away, but it’s also packed with charm and wonder. It’s a game about exploring the weird and mysterious places of the world and pursuing a drive, and less about dragging your character through another miserable attempt to avoid starvation.

The world in question is, as the name implies, an odd one. Its archaic streets and dungeons are sketched out in broad strokes rather than precise details. Adventures are typically centred around the mighty city of Bastion, which feels like a lowmagic take on Victorian London – or possibly a black-skied Birmingham. The text hints at factories, guilds, mobs, madness, and a dozen other elements mashed together.

If you’re after a world that makes sense – one where there are enough farms to support the cities and a neat map of factions buried in the supplementary literature – you’re likely to be disappointed with Into the Odd. The world feels deliberately vague and dream-like, with details only rendering when the players look close enough for them to matter. An adventure into the Underground tunnels or the Polar Ocean ports could end up in a dirty tavern or a celestial palace and still feel within the bounds of the setting.

These adventures are delivered through an intentionally sparse ruleset that, as with many of its contemporaries, is founded on the same principles as early Dungeons & Dragons. However, while Into the Odd still uses ability scores, hit points, and other hallmarks of the genre, it adds several small twists that help make its gameplay feel distinct. For example, there’s no such thing as an attack roll in the rules. Instead, every swing of a sword or blast of a musket inexorably chips away at an enemy’s HP value, with real damage only landing after they hit zero and start wearing blows on their ability scores instead.

The game also dispenses with the idea of classes. Instead, characters are distinguished mainly by the gear they wear – characters with weaker stats are compensated with free shiny stuff – and the motivation that drives them.

This results in a system that actually delivers on the common promise that you can roll up a fresh, interesting character in a matter of minutes. Importantly, the range of gear and reasonably fleshed-out combat rules make these explorers feel mechanically distinct from one another, avoiding one of the common complaints levelled at rules-lite systems.

While it may lack some of the wackier, more whimsical elements of its pseudo-sequel, Electric Bastionland, this reissued version of Into the Odd is definitely worth a look. It delivers a sublime balance between style and playability, as well as between simplicity and satisfaction. The ruleset is light but not vestigial, and the tone is dangerous without being depressing. Odd? Yes.

Good? Also yes.

RICHARD JANSENPARKES

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

◗ 4 Lead decks (85

cards total)

◗ Scene deck (31

cards)

◗ Personal Goal deck

(27 cards)

◗ 4 Episode Introduction Envelopes

◗ Map of Gotham City

◗ Investigation token

◗ Location token

◗ Game board

◗ 8 Location tiles

◗ 4 Character tiles

◗ 3 Access tokens

◗ 4 Character tokens

◗ 10 Evidence tokens

TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED CONSULTING DETECTIVE…

While you don’t get to compare types of tobacco ash, you’re in for a more energetic experience that leads you down fewer dead ends than the Baker Street classic.

instruct players which rows can be activated on their production grid. Finally, they show in which area or which type of building a player can build that round. There is an overwhelming number of choices to be made throughout the game, however action cards neatly package combinations of those choices focusing players’ attention and challenging them to come up with the best move within set constraints. Players still have choices and opportunities to plan and adjust, however this ensures that the game is going at a brisk pace. A larger number of players, of course, will slow the game down and players will still suffer from downtime as everyone else takes a turn around the board, but action cards still greatly help to alleviate analysis-paralysis and waiting time.

As Zapotec nears its final round, it is likely that you haven’t managed to climb to the top of the Sacrifice track or completed every objective on the Ritual cards. Perhaps, your pyramid isn’t quite finished yet. But Zapotec is not about completing everything on offer (and that may feel unsatisfying to some!). It is about making the best decision within the constraints of the circumstance, which when done right feels immensely gratifying. Zapotec maintains a lot of traditional staples of Eurogames, some good (resource management) and some distinctly average (the artwork), but by allowing for fast-paced decision making it gives the whole gameplay a sense of freshness.

ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA WE SAY

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At the first glance, Zapotec may look like you Eurogame you have played many times before, however fastflowing gameplay and interesting decision-making presented through the game’s action cards, creates a surprisingly refreshing gameplay.

TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED TEOTIHUACAN: CITY OF GODS...

If you are keen to immerse yourself into ancient Mesoamerica, than Zapotec offers just enough strategy and resource management, without overwhelming or outstaying its welcome.

NSpielworxx

ostalgia can be debilitating. A fetishization of the past can lead to a life stultified by past glories and stymied by regrets. A little bit though, just a dash sprinkled over your life, can add a warm melancholy that is as reassuring as a bowl of vegetable soup.

One way of tapping into this brand of nostalgia is by playing Squaring Circleville. It is a game that evokes a different time in board gaming. A time when the mechanical clarity of a game wasn’t obscured by gaudy components or diluted by endless content. It is a game that harkens back and while it doesn’t confirm that things were better in the past it reminds you that progress must live with what came before – rather than finding your bathwater has altogether too many babies in it.

In Squaring Circleville players take on the role of town planners seeking to knock the charm out of the eponymous city by transforming its circular streets into a far less beguiling but much more financially prudent grid.

This is done through the use of a rondel. When you place your marker on a space of the rondel you can take the action. Next to every action space is a stack of action markers of varying colours that correspond to the actions in the game. You take the marker from the top of the stack and

take that action too. These actions can be punctuated by moving your “supervisor” on the board. Where your supervisor stands is where the actions take effect.

These include ripping up old buildings and roads and when the plot of land is empty, replacing the infrastructure vital to the operation of the new town.

The action markers you take throughout the game are placed into spaces on your player board making your actions, throughout the game, gradually more and more powerful, allowing you to do more and more things.

What is so appealing about Squaring Circleville is that there are many thoroughfares and pathways through the game. The viability of various strategies allows players to change their focus midway through the game if things aren’t working out. Do I stay in one area and do the lion’s share of the renovation thereby garnering the most points or do I hop around the map, helping a little in numerous areas, getting fewer points per area but hoping to net more in the end?

This is one of the most refreshing things in the design is that it is impossible for one player to achieve everything they want on their own and must leverage the self interest of the other players to reach their aims.

It shares this with many of the most successful Knizia designs and the manipulation of your fellow players is a fun challenge.

One potential drawback of the game is that the board state has so much potential for change that it makes it resolutely tactical which may upset more strategic players. There can be an element of frustration when your plans are upset just as you were ready to realise them.

There is a real simplicity to its production too which makes it redolent of times past. There is no screen printing or plastic here. The component that is deployed most successfully here is the humble cube. By its simple deployment it can become a road or beautiful fountain in a park. It only takes your imagination to unlock it.

The real thing that reminds me of earlier Eurogames though is the clarity of design. Matt Wolfe has managed to combine mechanics that offer an experience that is incredibly easy to grasp yet very difficult to be good at. This feels like a game designed in a different era and that is definitely meant as a complement.

BEN MADDOX WE SAY Feels like a great trip down memory lane though its tactical nature could annoy some players.

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TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED STEPHENSON’S ROCKET... Want to pick up more of that Knizia vibe? Well, here it is.

The deck builder has settled in a something of an old standard. Everyone knows the mechanic, and it crops up in all sorts of games as a light and interesting way of giving players a sense of growing power and deepened long term strategy. Dice Realms does something far too clever and unbelievably well implemented with the classic formula of deckbuilders, and frankly it’s stunning.

Instead of a deck of cards and a standard market of cards in from to you, players are handed a set of dice with pop-outable faces. Each face does something like ‘gain gold and two wheat’ or ‘gain one upgrade point’ or ‘defend against an attack’ or even ‘get some points’. Players roll their dice, decide if they want to spend their free reroll or their reroll tokens, and then take the actions. Much of this will be in response to the fate dice, which will either make things better, or worse, or take one of your dice away if winter rolls around.

Simple enough, but to the side of the play area is the big box of tokens available to buy and upgrade your dice with. Oh, and a bag of a million more (or so it seems) for when you want the real game to begin. Each of these tokens can be leveraged out of