Exodus:
Nouveau Paris
Players:
4 – 6
Publisher:
Indie Boards & Cards
Year:
2018
A
copy of this game was distributed by the publisher in exchange for this review.
In a
devastated warzone, refugees need to be rescued. As other teams have been
compromised, it’s now up to you and your team to help these people. However,
the other teams never returned and there’s a strong suspicion that not all of
your teammates are rooting for the same team.
Set in
the Dystopian Universe, the goal of the game is to rescue as much people as
possible, while still evading your pursuers. Every turn a leader is voted for,
by blind bidding with a limited number of voting tokens, and that chosen leader
picks a Tail-end Charlie. They resolve their actions and a new round starts
with voting for a leader.
The loyalty cards |
There
are several ways the game can end. As soon as a player has no more life tokens
left, their side loses. If there are no more cover tokens left, the hunters win
automatically. If the hunters overtake the rescuers, because they have more
distance tokens, the hunters win again. None of these conditions arise, the
game ends after the seventh round and the victory points are calculated. The
side with more victory points wins.
The two
most exciting positions in this game are the leader and the TEC. The cards
determine the victory points, but also the distance between the rescuers and
the hunters. Cover can get blown or people can get hurt as a result of the
cards played. Every decision you make in these positions affects the other
players and the game.
A nice
addition is that in this game, everyone can be the enemy. You know that there’s
half of the other players are the enemy. The question remains who can you
trust? It might be fun to treat all other players as potential enemies, but if
a player on your side dies, then your side still loses. On the other hand, if
you discover someone’s true loyalty and you manage to eliminate them, you win!
It’s tight gamble, but are you willing to risk it? Will you risk alienating
other players to achieve victory? It’s an example, but there’s a lot of tension
in this game. The player roles are nice, as they can impact on how you play the
game. As a broker you have more voting tokens and thus have more influence on
the outcome of a round. The negotiator can remove distance tokens, but turn a
hunter card facedown. This means it has no distance and is worth no points at
the end. Overall, it can sometimes feel like a management game, where you need
to control different stats, but only have a limited space of action.
Some of the roles in the game |
In this
game you have the most influence when you are the leader or the Tail-end
Charlie. As such, when you’re neither, you can still hand in a card, or not,
but it’s not the same. As the leader doesn’t pass, but gets voted for, it can
take a bit of finesse to get used to this sort of gameplay. It’s also less easy
to teach than the Resistance and can only be played with four to six players.
Overall, most of the things discussed above, are subject to the idea of moving
away from the lightness of The Resistance and more towards a complex game.
Most
outstanding feature?
The best
part of this game is that you simply can’t trust anyone, but don’t want them to
die either. The game walks a fine line between being suspicious and being
paranoid. It’s only after the game that you’re certain of anyone’s loyalty!
Overall,
this game is another hit from Indie Boards and Cards. While it might not be as
simple as the Resistance or Coup G:54, it’s certainly worth a try if you’re
looking to spice up your social deduction games. I can certainly recommend it!