Beta Test: 'The Peides Curse: Earth' Boardgame

So I had a chance to beta test a boardgame by Game Design House a boardgame designing company based in Kuala Lumpur. The game is called 'The Peides Curse: Earth'. This game is the first product to be created by them.

One of the peoples from Games Design House came to Penang to let us test the game. I haven't managed to finish the game because the rules explanation took so long, and understanding it took a bit longer. But since it's a prototype, guess they'll smooth out the rules to make it easier in the future. Here's a quick look into 'The Peides Curse: Earth'

Theme: There is a great formless evil unleashed upon earth causing great havoc. The heavens knew this evil will come and prepared a machine to free the light back into the earth. However, the codes to activate the machine is scattered and hidden in airports around the world (for some reason). You play as one of the humans who receives the heaven's call to retrieve the codes and activate the machine to destroy this evil. The theme reminds me a sort of Da Vinci Code morden day detective game where you are supposed to race to figure out clues to unlock secrets to the celestial universe.

Design: The boardgame's design looks decent with a futuristic feel to it. Cards look rather plain but manageable. In this prototype, the models/tokens were not ready yet. Who knows, maybe when this game is in production, hopefully the look will improve.

Gameplay: This game is a competitive type boardgame. All players have the ultimate goal of solving the clue to the heaven machine but the first to get there wins. Each turn you get to move closer to different airports and from there you get clues to solve and once you solve the clue, you get a part of the code and points.

This game is a puzzle solving game, it is unique as I have never see a puzzle solving game yet. To top it off, everything in the boardgame is a clue, the tokens, the names, the cards, all of them. The game won't tell you the boardgame itself is a clue, you have to notice and figure it out.

However, the problems of a puzzle boardgame became apparent after a few rounds. For starters, not many people like puzzle solving games, and since it is a competitive game, other players cannot help you except to wait until you solve the puzzle or until the time is up which is a buzz kill.

The rules for this game is immensely complex, with plenty of different rules governing different game mechanics that make up the entire game. Understanding the game and solving puzzles on the beta-test just drained all the brain juices left in my cranium. But maybe if I played it a few times, perhaps the game will be easier to understand.

This review is just a short breeze through. When the game is available for purchase with all the components ready and errors sorted out, maybe I'll do a full review. I heard they are planing to put this game up for kickstarters somewhere in September 2013. So if you are interested, you can check it out.