Tabletop_Gaming__Issue_27__February_2019

66 February 2019

PLAYED

Y

ou are the seventh generation

of crewmembers on a colony

ship on a 210-year journey to a

distant star system and things are about

to go wrong – though perhaps not the

way the game designers intended.

Gen7 is a seven-session campaign

game using the Crossroads narrative-

choice system that appeared rst in

Dead of Winter. It’s a semi-co-op:

players must work together to overcome

a common threat, but at the same

time you’re jockeying for the morale

points that will raise your individual

rank, giving you bonuses in future

sessions. By placing dice you’ll ll

seats in the ship’s facilities to get

the resources to complete tasks and

objectives – some personal, some

operational and some mission-critical.

You won’t get much of that

information from the rulebook,

which is barebones. at’s because

many of the actual rules and special

conditions are delivered on cards and

other components, most of which

unlock as the game goes on. While

many campaign games alter after

each session, Gen7 pushes that pretty

far. New boards, new decks of cards

• a lot of stu can change, and the
  whole experience can be replayed to
  tell a completely dierent tale.

e core story is delivered in a thick

ring-bound volume, structured like a

solo gamebook. e choices it oers

are clever, often moral ones with no

clear right answer, and you’ll need to

negotiate and vote on your decisions

• a higher rank provides more votes.
  e Crossroads cards add more player-
  based story elements. It’s decently
  written but slow. is isn’t a great
  epic. ere’s about enough plot here
  for a single direct-to-video movie.
  Ultimately what it lacks is
  atmosphere. Dead of Winter is not the
  same game, but playing it was tense,
  human and occasionally terrifying,
  because the threat was obvious:
  zombies and starvation. Gen7’s
  mechanics are simply mechanical. It
  never feels like you’re controlling a
  spaceship crew. e logbook, an RPG
  character sheet where you choose
  the ship’s name and record its stats,
  is a nice touch but nine small boards
  do not give the sense of journeying
  through space. When things are getting
  tense, placing dice on grey cards to
  earn resources punctures the ction
  that the narrative sections build up.
  e Crossroads system, which ought
  to give players their individual story
  challenges and tasks, never catches
  light. at's partly because we simply

kept forgetting to take the cards when

we were meant to. It may be subtitled

‘A Crossroads Game’ but the system

is not at the heart of the gameplay; it’s

bolted onto the side, doesn’t feel like a

coherent part of the structure and slows

down an already long experience.

Back in the 1990s, as the Eurogame

juggernaut was hitting top speed,

there was a name given to big-box

games lacking the elegant structure of

the German newcomers: Ameritrash.

ey weren’t necessarily bad – some

were brilliant – but they had too many

mechanics and components doing too

many things in too many directions.

Gen7 is a modern Ameritrash game.

It’s a box full of exciting-looking bits

and promise, and it does clever things

with interactive narrative, but it’s

ddly and lacks focus. When you’re

paying £90 you want to be sure the

core mechanic isn’t going to get dull

after a few sessions. For some groups,

this will be their game. For others,

leave it in hibernation.

JAMES WALLIS

Don’t worry, you haven’t missed Gens 1 to 6

GEN7: A CROSSROADS GAME

Designer: Steve Nix | Artist: David A. Nash, Gunship Revolution, Jen Santos, Marlon Ruiz, Justin Cruz 60-90m 3-4 14+ £90

WHAT’S IN

THE BOX?

◗ Plot book

◗ Ship log

◗ Five barracks placards

◗ Track board

◗ Nine ship

location boards

◗ 34 crew dice

◗ Resource tokens

◗ Rules cards

◗ Crew cards

◗ Personal objective cards

◗ Episode objective cards

◗ Crossroads cards

◗ Schema cards

◗ File cards

◗ Operations task cards

◗ Critical task cards

◗ Officer perks cards

◗ Operations chief badge

◗ Assorted markers

◗ Nine sealed packages

TRY THIS IF

YOU LIKED...

HOLDING ON:

THE TROUBLED

LIFE OF

BILLY KERR

Another campaign

game where

succeeding at worker-

placement challenges

leads to an unfolding

story. They couldn’t be

more different in tone,

but they’re equally

clever and involving.

PLAY IT? PROBABLY

It’s a seven-session commitment,

but if you like story-heavy games

and worker-placement then

prepare to come aboard.