Board Games
Red Rising — More Than Meets the Eye
I read the first book in the Red Rising Series and it wasn’t for me. The story concept is full of lots of possibilities and maybe later books in the series could have hooked me, but book one didn’t.
Why am I telling you this?
Because when I got my hands on a copy of Red Rising (the board game) I was giving absolutely no extra points for having a beloved IP. Many times, it’s hard to stay away from a board game that has an IP that you love. In this case, I would judge the game on the mechanisms and whatever Jamey Stegmaier and Alexander Schmidt cooked up during the game design process.
*I am a fan of many of Jamey’s games. See my article on how Wingspan opened the door for hobby board games to the masses:
Red Rising is a game for 1–6 players with a playtime of 45–60 minutes for ages 14+.
Going in, I knew the game was a type of Hand-Building Game similar to Fantasy Realms but with a lot more going on. A friend of mine had told me there was a bit of interaction too and the opportunity to go deep on card colors, combinations, and setting things up to benefit you or slow down your opponent. All of it sounded intriguing.
On your turn, you will typically play a card, gain a bonus printed on the card if you’re lucky, and then either choose a card from the board + a bonus to gain or draw a card from the top of the deck and then roll the die for a random bonus.
In the first half of game one, my friend and I totally missed the option to draw from the top of the deck and were taking the same cards and playing them over and over. Something felt very wrong and we felt silly once we realized we were shackling ourselves! After that, things got very interesting.
You start the game with one of the Houses (factions) from the novels. This gives you a different minor bonus during the game, especially in relation to the Sovereign token that one can earn from the Luna action space.
You also get 5 starting hand cards that are going to have a random distribution of colors representing the different Houses. The minor or lower houses like Brown will have weaker abilities while some of the greater houses like Gold have stronger abilities. One of the great parts about this game is that the “weaker” colors still can be very desirable. For one thing, there are a lot of built-in synergies and ways to power up many of the colors. I found myself easily finding uses for the browns, reds, yellows, and greens even though I didn’t draw any golds in my first game.
I also liked how open the gameplay was. When you first start, it’s hard to know what effects are going to be useful. The cards often reference specific names or colors. However, if you put your head down and look at the options on the board you can usually find a way to get started and develop a game plan.
On the second play, at home with my wife, I felt much more comfortable with how to play the cards in my hand. I scored double my (pathetic) score from game one!
As I mentioned at the start, if you’ve played Fantasy Realms, you know that you need to hold onto the cards you want to score. It’s a tough balance between gaining benefits from your cards, holding them in your hand for the end game, or even hoping to play them and pick them back up later.
The last time I played was to check out the solo mode. Many Stonemaier Games have a dedicated solo mode, often called the “Automa”, that simulates a type of artificial opponent. In the Solo Mode I got the idea early on that I needed to block certain cards from the automa, or at least not let it grab certain really high-scoring cards. I lost to the automa but I think I enjoyed the Solo Mode almost as much as I enjoyed the multiplayer mode. That’s not the norm for me, so kudos to Red Rising!
I played the Collector’s Edition so I don’t know what the standard retail version is like, but I can say I was super impressed with the quality of the materials and components! It’s normal for me to expect high quality from SM Games given I have picked up just about everything for Scythe, Wingspan, and Viticulture but this game is just really good-looking.
The cover has a great shine to it and has lots of colors. The components are metal cubes and cute-looking “Helium” resources. The cards have a great finish and the upgraded stack had a gold foiling on parts of the card that was a really nice touch.
Conclusion
I went into Red Rising without much in the way of expectations (especially considering that the book wasn’t for me) but I ended up pleasantly surprised. The game was REALLY easy to learn, felt more interactive than I was expecting, and looked great! It seems to have tons of replayability because you always start with a different hand and there are a bunch of starting houses.
Why it might not be for you
It wouldn’t be a review you could trust if I didn’t consider what might not work for some gamers. So let’s mention that here and now.
- If the theme doesn’t do anything for you then you will really need to like the gameplay.
- The game can be extremely random. For example, your opponent could be set up with a pretty solid strategy from the start of the game whereas you might have to really work to make something happen.
- Even though it’s longer and meatier than Fantasy Realms, it can still end abruptly once the endgame criteria are achieved.
- There is a lot of card reading to be done.
Overall
I would rate my experience with Red Rising as a 3.5/5. It’s a solid light/medium-light game that can be taught and played quickly and painlessly. It fits a certain spot in a board game collection and seems to scratch a certain itch in my opinion.
I was pleasantly surprised with Red Rising and it actually exceeded my expectations. It’s one of those games that has shown me that I might end up liking a game that didn’t appeal to me at first glance.
What about you? Have you tried Red Rising? How would you compare it to Fantasy Realms? Had any interesting combos or ridiculous scoring hands?
-BoardGameNerd
