![]() ![]() So being the Curious George that I am, I wanted to understand why. With that said, everyone else who I played After Us with had a good time. Its non-interactivity and lack of hard choices left me on my knees begging for more gameplay decisions. With players readying themselves for the next turn, while others were still going through their three rows of boxes.Īfter Us didn’t do it for me. As a result, we often fell over each other. The other downside of this lack of interaction is that everyone was in their own world. So while everyone’s activating their boxes, all you see are points trackers moving magically around the scoreboard. The only time you communicate with other players through the mechanics of the game is at the end of each round. Not very effective, unless your goal is to smoke a whole lot of cigarettes.īut that’s not all, as After Us lacks player interaction, almost altogether. Other times, you’ll draw Azalea the chain-smoking chimp from North Korea. So sometimes you draw a primate that fits perfectly with the rest of your cards. While you choose what type of monkey, you have no idea of what boxes that monkey has and whether or not it synergised with your deck. And because of this, when you look back after finishing a game, you can’t really pinpoint why you won, or lost.Īnother reason why you struggle to find this cause and effect is that your choice of recruiting monkeys is random. Heck, you might not even notice you’ve made a mistake. You don’t fall drastically behind because of one move, or lose a bunch of resources. The difference between a good choice, and a bad one, might only be a couple of fruits. Even when there isn’t, with a little thought you’ll quickly find the strongest combination. Most of your turns will have an obvious monkey lineup. Meaning that although the main mechanic of joining cards together is fascinating, and the mind races at the possibilities of it, in After Us it’s not explored enough. Replace water in this metaphor with deck-building and you got After Us. Where you want the flavour of the raspberry to fill your mouth, but instead it tastes too much like water – with only a little bit of flavouring. The gameplay tastes like watered-down red cordial. Monkey lucky dip After Us takes you to a different worldįor such a strong and interesting theme as a real-world Planet of the Apes. Meaning you’ll reach 80 points that much sooner. Eventually, you’ll earn enough resources to start winning over powerful level-2 monkeys to your tribe. But once this price is paid, then they’re added to the top of your deck to be used next turn.įrom then on, it’s just a matter of repeating these steps. Of course, these monkeys need to be persuaded by fruit, flowers, and seeds to join you. Each type has its own strength chimpanzees give you the ability to copy a completed box, gorillas let you trash cards, orangutangs give you batteries, and mandrills provide you with victory points. Then players choose one of the four monkey types to recruit to their tribe, receiving a bonus as they do. So think pinball machines, and minibars, that give you powerful free actions to use.Īfter everyone has completed their three lines of boxes, and received all of their resources. While the second and third lines convert those resources into points and batteries.īatteries are used to power up some of the most advanced technological marvels left over from the ancient world. The first line is predominately resources. Once you’re comfortable with your configuration, you’ll run through all three rows of these boxes. Although, most of these boxes are unfinished, and require connection to another monkey card to complete the box. These monkeys have three rows of black boxes. At the start of each turn, you’ll draw four monkeys from your deck and place them in a row. In After Us, you’re racing to be the first player to 80 points. Your mandrills won’t be proudly displaying a lion cub for all to see, but they will net you a lot of victory points if you add them to your deck. Now before you leave to Google what a mandrill is, just think of Rafiki from The Lion King. Starting with but a handful of tamarins, you’ll grow your tribe to include orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas and mandrills. You see, in After Us, you lead a tribe of monkeys. Once again humanity has met its undoing, and now the world is ruled by primates. Disclaimer: After Us was provided for free by Pandasaurus Games, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own. ![]()
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