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MY RAMBLING INTRODUCTION
I think what appeals to me about several of Phil Eklund's games is that they are so grounded in the real world of science, yet bring out all the drama of a good game without much unnecessary fiction. I loved American Megafauna (which is a science education in itself), and so I knew I wanted to give Insecta a try. At this point perhaps my reviews are biased in favour of Sierra Madre Games, but the games are just so damned interesting. The co-designer was Fat Messiah Games, who also came up with another of my favourites, Last Frontier: The Vesuvius Incident. I hadn't much doubt that Insecta would be an interesting game.
With the 2nd edition hard to find, I purchased Insecta: Mutant Kit and the Rainforest expansion. The 2nd edition was equivalent to the Mutant Kit plus the Desert expansion, but I have a feeling that this review wouldn't be all that much different regardless of how you combine the modular products. To be clear, I haven't played the core multiplayer game (the arena game) largely because I don't have a gaming group that would be into this. But the Rainforest expansion, like the Desert expansion, includes special cards (hive cards) that allow for a solitaire variant, whose rules are included in the 2nd edition rulebook.
Now, I'm 36 years old and the father of two young ones, so I have to keep up appearances of manliness, but when I see a spider or earwig, my gut instinct and knee-jerk reaction is to suit up in armour (winter hat, cooking mitt, Kleenex, and tennis racket) to kill the thing. I didn't play this game lightly, believe me – it gave me the willies.
THE CONTENTS AND SETUP
This is a paper game. Lots of paper. And nothing die-cut. So lots of cutting. I think I did it slowly over two evenings while watching t.v. With the Mutant Kit, you get a twelve page manual, detailing the purely combative arena game and the campaign-like hive game; a four page section of bug design and insect glossary; lots of mutant displays, to design your little nasties; a couple of sheets of bug parts, such as heads and limbs and gross things; several markers for venom, etc., and counters for insects; four map sheets (which seem to replace the single large map of the 2nd edition); and finally, some player aids to help with turn order. The Rainforest expansion comes with 80 hive cards, special venom side-effect cards, more design cards/counters/markers, a bunch of stuff to introduce pixies into the game (which I didn't do), a four-page rulebook with errata (for the core game), expanded rules for rainforest bugs, and more design notes. I also got a handful of paperclips and plastic bugs, though I'm not sure which game they were supposed to come with or whether they were included because I bought both.
Man, there was a lot of cutting. The paper is all standard quality, so nothing to write home about, but it suffices. The rulebook is detailed and laden with lots of science and side-notes, the kind of thing I now expect from Phil Eklund. It’s a good rulebook, nice and clean, allowing for a straight-forward understanding of the game without much confusion.
Setting up the game involves finding a decent amount of clear table space, sorting and shuffling the hive cards into five piles (representing the five levels of the hive), and randomly dealing out the hive bugs face down (so you won't know what you're facing until it's too late). To be fair, the back of these cards have taxonomic descriptors of the bugs, to help you decide which rooms of the hive you may want to avoid, but it'll be a while before I bother to learn such things. Before beginning you'll also have to design your custom mutants. The included bug guide has several examples to help out. You have to pick a type of bug (normal, armoured, or with spines), and then choose a head card, limb cards, and an abdomen card. There are lots of possibilities, each with some pros and some cons. Do you want to fly, or jump, or just crawl? Will you sacrifice attacking ability for speed? Proximal grappling ability for distant projection attacks? Which of your limbs or mandibles will you envenom? You start off as a small bug, technically a low instar, and this changes as you succeed in the game. You also have to decide on your starting instinct and dexterity levels, akin to intelligence and physical aptitude.
For the solitaire game, it is recommended to control two mutants. The plastic bugs are for your mutants and there is a paper counter for each of the various hive bugs you will encounter.
GAMEPLAY
The standard hive involves five (trophic) levels, each with four rooms. These have the imaginative names of the foyer, the dungeon, the parlour, and the root cellar. Though there are a few types of victory conditions, the idea is that your mutants are just hatched on the lowest level of the hive and are attempting to escape out the top. Much battle will ensue.
Each turn involves movement to a new room, possibly upwards a level, followed by battle to the death or until one sides escapes, and then finally an ecdysis phase. This last pleasant phase involves eating the dead, re-growing limbs, moulting, and possibly even metamorphosis into a larger version of your self or reproduction into a lot of little versions of your self. (I'm looking down under my desk at the moment, making sure there's nothing crawling under there)
In battle, each bug takes a turn moving within the room and then altering its facing, in an attempt to set up some kind of ideal attack. The two characteristics of your bug are its instinct and its dexterity. The latter determines the order of movement, with the fastest bugs going first or having the option to go last if they so desire. Because these are bugs we're talking about, they may get confused in the heat of battle and fail to make the intended movement or even to attack the intended target. Some actions require an instinct role, which you have to pass to carry out the action you want. For example, you may want to attack that bad looking enemy ant lion, but instead you chomp on the head of your best friend and partner, the equally revolting maggot.
After movement, projection attacks are given priority and then close-in attacks follow. Damage is immediate, and again the order of attack is determined by dexterity.
You can attempt to work things to your favour by denying your opponent its attacking opportunity via either placing yourself at a distance or outside a weapon arc, and also by manoeuvring yourself properly so as to ensure as accurate an attack as possible while avoiding the necessity to make instinct roles (and inadvertently attacking your own team-mate). There’s a lot of depth here, and I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface.
The random elements of the game require dice rolls. The dice are not supplied, and you'll need five or six of them. Modifiers to your abilities change the 'number of dice' you role, so for instinct and dexterity checks, you want to role as few dice as possible (you need to get a summed value equal to or less than your instinct/dexterity characteristic). It's entirely possible to ensure success by taking the steps that reduce the number of dice you'll have to roll to zero (or less).
The solitaire rules are straight-forward and seem to work well. But even on the easiest level the hive bugs are tough, so the odds are definitely stacked against you. They will attack automatically, with clear preference rules for who they target. There are options for fleeing if their battle isn’t going well. And there are clear weapon and distance preferences that determine when and with what they will attack. The only thing I noticed missing is that damage allotment is sometimes up to the prey, and there was nothing in the rules for determining this for the hive bugs. I just did it randomly, when necessary.
MY FIRST GAME
It was a tad slow (re: agonizing). The rulebook is pretty good, but I was still having to check over everything at each step of the way for my first two turns. The maps and cards display almost everything needed, but it was still a hard go. But after a while I got the hang of it.
This may surprise some of you, but as it turns out, my many years in the Canadian educational system and five years of experience with parenthood, have never adequately prepared me for designing a bug. I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t know a hook tarsis from a repugnatorial projector, but as my mom used to say, you’ll learn to swim when your bum touches the water. That aside, my first foray into bug design was less than successful (see companion session report). Since then, things have gotten better, but I still haven’t navigated the hive successfully. Even the first level still gives me difficulty, and it’s supposedly the easiest. But you know, it’s fun.
DENOUEMENT
There are a lot of paper counters and markers, which you won’t want to be shifting accidentally mid-game. No tossing the rulebook on the table, because the gust of wind will blow your game away (and it’s a lot of paper pieces you’ll be picking up). The bug parts just sit on top of the design sheets, which isn’t horrible but I found everything shifted around a lot as I was sliding the paperclips up and down the edges of the sheet to track the dexterity and instinct levels (and I can’t tell you how many times my sleeve disrupted the game). The plastic bugs that were supplied were a nice addition, but several of them were too large to be of use on the map hexes. This game definitely has that cheap and deep philosophy going for it. As long as you’re into hefty games with lots of strategy and complexity then I think this would be fun. I’m not sure I have the gaming group for this kind of game (so I’ll have to wait for my son to grow old enough and force him to play with me), but that’s why the solitaire variant is a nice inclusion.
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Aaron Gelb
United States
El Segundo
California
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the game sounds quite interesting. I also love the sound of Last Frontier: vesuvius project. I went to http://www.sierramadregames.com/index_shop.htm to order both, but alas it looks as though they are out of stock..i really hope they get more in.
I hear that both games are quite complex and tough to learn at first, but like you, I don't have the gaming group for this, and I think it would be fun, and a good feeling of satisfaction to learn to play this game solitaire.
Do you have any suggestions for locating any of these games?
Thanks, and great review!
-aaron
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The SMG website is newly revamped (must have just come back on line), so it's possible that in-stock counts are off (when I just checked I couldn't even get to the products page). I would try emailing Phil Eklund directly, and he'll undoubtedly get back to you within a day. From memory, there were a dozen or so Vesuvius Incident games left. They probably won't be printing anymore. At the moment, I can see 8 people trading their copies (from the Vesuvius main page here on BGG). You could check out their want lists to see if you can set up a trade. Good luck.
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Posted Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:55 pm
