Nautilion Review

The SS Naughty Lion, I mean, Nautilion is ready to depart the Happy Isles! Yay! Can you picture the party!? I imagine streamers and probably lots of lemonade. Where is this fine submersible off to? Why, to unleash murderous violence on the Dark House, of course.

 

Players: 1-2

 

Time: 15 mins

 

Ages: 10+

 

 

Though home may well be called the Happy Isles, not all is well. The evil Dark House deep under the ocean has sent out the deadly phantom submarine to wreck havoc on the Happy Isles, last bastion of peace and Morris dancing in the Oniverse (setting of Onirim, Sylvion and Castellion). Your only recourse, and hope, is to send out the Naughty Lion submarine and destroy the Dark House before the phantom submarine reaches land. We’re guessing it’ll conveniently snuff out the phantom like Independence Day space ships or Star Wars droids.

To move along the great spiralling track of tokens you roll 3 dice. One you assign to the Dark House, which may or may not do something dark, or house-y. A second you give to the phantom submarine, moving that many spaces along the track and immediately discarding the innocent token it lands on. The final dice goes to the Naughty Lion, and moves you along the track. Full speed ahead right? Well…

The issue is this craft needs a full crew of brave and slightly bizarre sea creatures by the time it reaches its destination (heaven forbid the Happy Islanders actually get their hands dirty). So you’ll need to pick them up on the way. Unfortunately the Happy Islanders cut corners with the ventilation so new crew members can only be added to positions that are adjacent to other crew members, and of course only one specific crew member can take a given spot.

And so the devilish puzzle rears its head. You want to hit certain values of crew, forcing you to take certain dice values at certain times. But all too often that means giving bad numbers to either the Dark House or the phantom sub. It’s a tough balance, ensuring you keep up with the phantom while not skipping the wrong crew members. And where the phantom goes is important too as you might inadvertently throw out or skip all the crew of a particular type before you get to them! To make matters a little easier you have some helpful spells on hand, letting you pick the side of a dice or swapping the positions of two tokens (they’re people you monster!). Unfortunately (there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this game!) this takes energy… or shells or something. Anyway you start with 4 of these energy tokens in your reserve but you’ll likely need more. Fortunately, crew mates you can’t fit into your sub, because you already have one or their space is too far from the ventilation still can be ground up to make a new energy token*. Those Happy Islanders sure did think of everything! But the Dark House did too, so whenever you give it a 3 or a 4, you lose one of those precious tokens, from the reserve or from the sub. It’s nasty, but you don’t want to be giving those high numbers to the phantom either! Oh no’s!

*Ok, I might be embellishing the theme a bit but someone has to ask these questions. Why did the Happy Islanders have a war capable sub just in time, yet refuse to fill it with their own people? Look, I’m not saying the Happy Islanders are the real baddies or anything, just that history is written by the winners, you know?

And that’s the game! It’s a super simple rule set, plays in 15 minutes yet offers a hugely satisfying puzzle. I can’t tell you the number of times the phantom sub has been one or two spaces away from victory when I crashed into the Dark House at full speed. It even has an arc! From the early turns grabbing what you can, to the tense final rounds where you’re out of energy and need just the right numbers to come up… the tension steadily increases and you start to feel the weight of your earlier decisions. Should I have let the Dark House steal that token? How did I let the phantom sub get so far ahead?? For such a quick game, it packs in an astonishing amount of depth.

But that is far from everything that sits inside this pretty pastel box. To begin with you have 6 different submarines you can send out. An armada, if you will. Each features a different arrangement of connections within the ventilation system, making it harder or easier to pick up crew according to the adjacency rules, with the circular doughnut sub being the hardest of all, explaining at last why modern subs aren’t doughnut shaped. See, it’s educational too!

You can play Nautilion two players as well, which actually ups the challenge in an interesting way as one player is only allowed to take crew numbered 1-5, the other player 5-9. It adds an extra little timing restriction that makes the two player game a worthy element, even if the puzzle-esque feel of the game is geared more towards a single captain.

But that’s still not all! In a display of generosity that borders on the insane. Nautilion comes with no less than 5 expansions inside the box. Let’s do this.

The Mages: adds a little bit of extra magic to the Naughty Lion with a new board (the Mages boudoir) and a bunch of Mage tokens to add to the track. You’ll need to pick up the 3 mages as well as your normal crew on the way to the Dark House. What is interesting is you can choose to send a 1, 4 or 7 token to join a mage in the boudoir, and that’s when the magic happens. For every pair, you can re-roll one of your dice each round. This is obviously awesome, but investing in this flexibility means making sacrifices elsewhere. It’s an awesome expansion, that is only let down by the fact that they printed the wrong background on two of the Mages so they don’t line up with the board image!! Arrrgh!

The Mercenaries: Oh no! The phantom sub is armed with harpoons and it’s heading right at you! The Dark House has decided to take a more aggressive posture. You must now fight the phantom sub as it passes the Naughty Lion on the track. Certain crewmen come armed with harpoons that until you play this expansion you probably won’t even have noticed. You can also grab the new mercenary tokens that can sit in any space on the sub. However, the phantom is also picking up these crew to add to its attack. If it has more harpoons than you when your paths cross, you’ll be overwhelmed (and lose!) This expansion really ups the importance of watching where the phantom might land.

The Reefs: Adding to the challenges of your journey are a regular sequence of reef tiles that “attach” to the tokens of the track. Stopping off at a space with a reef is liable to get you lost as you take in the sights. On the roll of a dice you’ll be trapped and have to wait to next turn to go, while the phantom sub gets ever closer. By selecting the right crew members you can improve your chances of a smooth departure, adding another layer to planning your movement along the track.

The Dark House: no longer content with its predictable, energy sapping behaviour, the Dark House is mixing things up. A random set of power cards are put in play that the Dark House will cycle through each turn. Powers like having to roll one dice and assign it at a time, or making the Nautilion move backwards this round. You can see what’s coming and it’s far more variable, keeping you on your toes as you press forwards. More importantly though, this expansion makes use of that shiny Dark House token! Horay!

Heroic Actions: At last, you think, some relief! An expansion that helps you! Just look at those powers. Move the phantom backwards this round! Pick up a token from the discard to add to the Nautilion! Wonderful, helpful powers! But wait… you have to discard a crew member to use these powers! Yikes! A heroic sacrifice is called for and… what’s this? You have to play them before you reach the Dark House to win!? Oh God! It’s a trap!

But, oh my goodeness, that’s still not all! Every one of these expansions can be combined with any other. There are hero cards that can only be used with other expansions. There are enough reefs for when you have all the mages and all the mercenaries out on the table. You are free to play with all of them at once for a mega-game of epic proportions! The degree of game to explore in this little box is insane! An ocean of game.

Nautilion is an exceptional title. It’s so quick and easy to bust out for a game when you have a spare 20 minutes, or to settle down for a few games at once. The difficulty is completely customisable and varies from a gentle introduction up to nightmarish challenge. It’s a very enjoyable puzzle and so, for fans of solo games, this is a must have title! For readers who don’t solo, you could do a lot worse than trying this out, especially as it plays well with 2!

 

Rating: King of the Ocean

 

To read about other games I discovered at Essen, check out the list of games I picked up there, and follow the links within!