Board Game Reviews #5: Quantum
Silence. Your ship lies in the dead of space, waiting for orders.
Is it time to attack the neighboring planet, defending your line and preventing the enemy from acquiring resources? Or should you try to place a quantum cube of your very own, putting yourself one step closer to victory?
Welcome to Quantum, a clean, strategic, beautiful game for two to four players. This board game is essentially a puzzler in which the puzzle is your opponents. Each player takes control of a faction as denoted by the color of the dice and quantum cubes (the smaller cubes) that they take at the beginning of the game. One die is used to keep track of 'dominance', or the amount of ships you've destroyed (and they amount of yours that have been destroyed) and one is used to keep track of research (you can use 'actions' to raise this, but we'll get to that). The rest of the dice are ships. You start with three ships, but two are in reserve for if you attain expansion cards to add more ships to your fleet.
The pleasure of quantum is two-fold. First and foremost are the dice. You roll your dice at the beginning of the game. Each die is more powerful the lower it is, meaning if you have lower number ships your odds of winning a battle go up (depending on what number the enemy has). However, this is mitigated by the fact that the die number is also the number of squares on the board a die can move in its turn. This means that powerful ships move much more slowly, with the most powerful, a one, being the slowest.
But that's only the beginning. The really neat thing is that each ship (die) has its own power depending on what number it is. A one can move an extra space as an attack (movement and attack are part of the same turn. In effect when you attack, you 'move' into an opponent's square). A two can carry other ships as it moves. Threes can switch places with any of your other ships. So on, so forth. This allows for nearly endless complexity. Essentially, at the beginning of the game you'll look at your dice and your opponents dice and try to figure out what your best options are.
The second thing about Quantum that really stands out is the board. The board is modular, with schemes for the board changing based on the number of players. This is absolutely brilliant, and probably necessary to make sure the games are tight and tense. And tight and tense they are as you fight for quantum cubes, research, and the all-too-important and game-breaking advance cards.
I talk about aesthetic appeal in a lot of my reviews. Quantum has it coming out of it's ears.
Initially Passport Game Studios had some complaints about the quality of the dice included in the game (numbers rubbing off, greasy dice), so I was worried when I broke down and ordered the game. I was pleased to find that the dice were fine (though the placards for the different factions were a bit smudged for some reason).
All in all, I've played hours upon hours of this game and can say, without a doubt, that the game is completely fair. When you lose, you wonder about your choices. Should I have reconfigured that ship to a different number? Maybe I should have gone for the cube instead of destroying the enemy? Perhaps I should have been more destructive and gone for the dominance win?
It's these questions and the desire to push things to the limit that will keep you coming back time and time again. So....
Buy If:
1.) You're not intimidated by intense strategy games.
2.) You like puzzles.
3.) You want something easy to learn.
4.) You want something a bit like chess but simpler and with the ability to have up to 4 players.
Don't Buy If:
1.) You don't want a game where you have to think. Quantum will have you mulling over your options as you wait for your opponents and when your turn comes up.
2.) You want a game for small kids. Some of the pieces are rather small.
3.) You hate dreams.
Conclusion
The game is great. As usual I'll happily support any fun game that's still fun with two players. This is, I would say (but the recommended amount is three or above, truth told). It's always a pleasure to open the dice and look at the pieces because they're so damn beautiful. That's the way it should be if you're shelling about 45 USD for something.
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