I really like Alexander Pfister games -- have played Great Western Trail, Mombassa, and now Blackout: Hong Kong. This one is very strong and very replayable. The rules are a little difficult to follow, with a number of hidden "By The Way..." moments. But 90% of them are consistent and spelled out on the hieroglyphics of the components, so it was fun from the very first play. Definitely recommended, but not as a first foray into Eurogame territory.
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Very good game for fans of competitive efficiency
People who use the phrase "multiplayer solitaire" like it's a bad thing probably aren't going to be too excited about Blackout. It has a dynamic market and a common map that encourages chain-building, but it's not incredibly interactive. On the other hand, if you like games that are more of an efficiency puzzle and less of a party in a box, you will find a lot to like with Blackout.The core mechanic is hand-management. You start with a hand of cards representing workers. You send send workers into 3 lines below your player board. They most often acquire wooden resource cubes that you place onto a rondel, but some provide money or other effects. You can choose to refresh your hand when you have 4 or fewer cards, but you can only pick up the line below your player board with the most cards, so thought must be given to where you place a card based on how soon you will want it back in your hand.You use resource cubes to complete objective cards from your personal board. If the completed objective releases a worker, it goes into your hand. If it fulfills a "contingency plan" it goes next to your player board and you gain its bonus for the rest of the game. Then you buy more objective cards to place onto your player board, do a bit of upkeep, check to see if you can score any secured areas on the common board, and repeat the process until the market deck runs out of cards. All of this probably takes about 30 minutes per player, outside of teaching the rules. Points from objectives and secured areas are tracked on the common board during the game, but the biggest chunks of points come at the end from the variety of items your search parties discovered, and especially from the values of the worker-cards both in your hand and deployed below your player board.I think Blackout compares favorably with games like Roll Player, La Granja, and other games in which players compete to find the most efficient way to generate points from a personal player board, but without the spatial element of something like Grand Austria Hotel or Castles of Burgundy. Despite the appearance of a lot of moving parts, the actions of each phase are quite simple and start to feel repetitive just as the game ends, which is far better than having it drag on for too long.Blackout includes rules for a campaign mode that can be played solo, or competitively. Playing solo feels much more thematic in terms of puzzling out a way to restore power to Hong Kong with limited resources. Playing competitively just means that you play 5 games with a few adjustments for each game of the campaign. If nobody wins, you replay that session starting with more money until someone wins. As most campaign-oriented games are cooperative, this may or may not be an appealing bonus feature.
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2019
People who use the phrase "multiplayer solitaire" like it's a bad thing probably aren't going to be too excited about Blackout. It has a dynamic market and a common map that encourages chain-building, but it's not incredibly interactive. On the other hand, if you like games that are more of an efficiency puzzle and less of a party in a box, you will find a lot to like with Blackout.
Very good game for fans of competitive efficiency
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2019
The core mechanic is hand-management. You start with a hand of cards representing workers. You send send workers into 3 lines below your player board. They most often acquire wooden resource cubes that you place onto a rondel, but some provide money or other effects. You can choose to refresh your hand when you have 4 or fewer cards, but you can only pick up the line below your player board with the most cards, so thought must be given to where you place a card based on how soon you will want it back in your hand.
You use resource cubes to complete objective cards from your personal board. If the completed objective releases a worker, it goes into your hand. If it fulfills a "contingency plan" it goes next to your player board and you gain its bonus for the rest of the game. Then you buy more objective cards to place onto your player board, do a bit of upkeep, check to see if you can score any secured areas on the common board, and repeat the process until the market deck runs out of cards. All of this probably takes about 30 minutes per player, outside of teaching the rules. Points from objectives and secured areas are tracked on the common board during the game, but the biggest chunks of points come at the end from the variety of items your search parties discovered, and especially from the values of the worker-cards both in your hand and deployed below your player board.
I think Blackout compares favorably with games like Roll Player, La Granja, and other games in which players compete to find the most efficient way to generate points from a personal player board, but without the spatial element of something like Grand Austria Hotel or Castles of Burgundy. Despite the appearance of a lot of moving parts, the actions of each phase are quite simple and start to feel repetitive just as the game ends, which is far better than having it drag on for too long.
Blackout includes rules for a campaign mode that can be played solo, or competitively. Playing solo feels much more thematic in terms of puzzling out a way to restore power to Hong Kong with limited resources. Playing competitively just means that you play 5 games with a few adjustments for each game of the campaign. If nobody wins, you replay that session starting with more money until someone wins. As most campaign-oriented games are cooperative, this may or may not be an appealing bonus feature.
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2020
