Uprising: Curse, solo 2 handed A fun experience in any hobby is when you pick up something you hadn't heard of or was off your radar and are like, "wait, there might REALLY be something here that's my shit." That was the case with this 3-4 year old kickstarter, Uprising. A friend mentioned he tried a physical copy and said it was quite good, so I had a look at it on tabletop simulator. It gave a great first impression. I've got a proper 2p game scheduled later this week. On its face, it looks like big messy kickstarter slop, though +1000 points for using acrylic standees instead of miniatures, something I think a lot of games using miniatures would be better off with for both artistic and playability reasons. Game critic Michael Barnes once derisively called the modal board game miniature a "bubble gum machine army man" and that still mostly hits---they do not upsell the game visually if they aren't top tier miniatures that some companies splurge for. Anyway, that jag aside, I was shocked to find inside this box quite a sharp core co-op engine. It is is much more of a troops on a map/co-op 4x than Pandemic. Most importantly, if you look past the waves of expansions present in the (top tier, scripted) tabletop simulator mod, there is a concise and agonizing core action engine. On first blush it has genuinely difficult decisions and not just a wave of trivial Sid Meier's Civ devolved obvious 4x considerations, as your actions are hyper precious. It's also quite punishing initially, which I think is a big positive for a co-op game. It needs to push back. Even in the places it sprawls there are smart editorial design decisions---tracking the variable strength of big baddies with a sliding tracker rather than giving them more standees is elegant, and the variety is great. We'll see if my first impressions evolve. #uprisingcurseofthelastemperor #nemesisgames #corneliuscremin #pawelmazur #dirksommer #tabletopgames #boardgames #tabletopsimulator #boardgamegeek #bgg