Do not miss this amazing post re: ANDROID

I really don't want this piece to get lost in another thread about the state of F:AT when this is something that really desrves to be talked about. Tamburlaine wrote it, and I think it's quite literally the most insightful and compelling thing I've read about games- and Ameritrash- in a long time.

I think a key moment in this identity crisis, which no one has mentioned, was the release of Android. Android, as advertised, looked like it could very well be the vindication of the entire critical mindset of the Barnes school, and his review of it was riveting because you could see in almost every sentence a critic of the first order coming to grips with a work of art that seemed to embrace all his principles and yet fail as art. Since then, we have seen Barnes and others really searching deep into the foundations of the Fortress' critical ideology to address the discrepancies which a release like Android really brought out.

I'm floored. Tamburlaine, you articulated something very cleanly and quite personal that I really struggled with in the assessing the game. It was the hardest review I've ever written because of exactly what you've stated- that it was at once a complete embodiement of the aesthetics and values I want in an idealized game but at total failure at the same time. I knew ANDROID was a very, very important game not only in my life but also in the growth of the hobby. But not because it was good, but because it didn't work.

And it has been since then that I've really kind of gone back to the well on a lot of things- my idea of conceptual versus executive theme was practically gestating when I was playing through ANDROID. It caused me to really question what theme actually is and what it isn't, and how sometimes what we think of as thematic, narrative games are deceptive.

I think it's interesting that since ANDROID, there really hasn't been anything particularly noteworthy or significant release. It almost feels like ANDROID was a dead end for several game design ideologies, a logical apotheosis that was practically a case both for and against the idea of the game designer-as-author.

This is a huge idea, and I think I might revisit it later. But I'd love to hear more thoughts on what Tamburlaine is talking about. What did ANDROID do, exactly? Are you still playing it? Talking about it? Thinking about it?

It sits right here beside me at my kitchen table laptop. I read the rules every couple of days...but refuse to read the cards lest I spoil any "surprise" when/if I ever get it played.

I fear I have already missed out on the original thinking fun that happened when it was released...and also struggle to foresee who I will be able to get to play so I may ever join in the discussion.

But I love it sitting here, almost glowing with purpose...calling out to be at least explored.

I will watch with interest...and vicarious envy.

I'm still playing Android. I think it is an above average game that has some very innovative and great ideas that are brought down by some clunkiness.

First, I think that Android is the type of game that would have likely been held on pedastal if we were evaluating in the context of the 80s. It has some really cool stuff with the right mix of idiosyncracies that can lend an endearingness. Similar to the old games that we love, I am convinced that Android takes at least a half a dozen plays to really see what it has to offer. This is not a game that can be fully explored in a couple of full games and maybe a walkthrough. Within that context, the plot cards become a nearly brilliant piece of design work that merges some deck manipulation ideas that can exploited like in Magic. The themes of the plot give a connection with the characters that I find quite nice -- it just didn't go far enough.

However, there is too much stuff going on in terms of "gamey-ness". The conspiracy puzzle is innovative, but it divorces itself from the theme by being a VP generator in its own right. So, instead of the conspiracy being driven for thematic reasons that drasws the players further into the game, it is driven for scoring reasons and it builds a wall between the players and the "guts of the game". I think a better idea may have been a more complex set of plot cards, where - depending on the specific plot -- different links in the consipiracy would provide player modifications that either provided a specific player with some VP modifications, or even more appealing to me, the links in the conspiracy would have modified the character's abilities. This would be neat because it would simultaneously introduce more asymmetry into the characters and it would give character driven reasons to play the puzzle pieces in certain fashion instead of just looking for VPs.

The other major clunkiness is evidence placement on the board (generally, I don't have a problem with how evidence is placed on the suspects -- or even how their guilt is determined; I think it fits nicely with what I imagine a dystopian world to be and is a decent, albeit minor, social commentary on the state of our justice system). The way evidence moved around was somewhat odd. I don't have a good solution, but I think that there could have been a set of evidence chains that were pre-defined in some master diagram (or evidence chain generator system). If this was done as some type of story via something like a paragraph game (similar to Arabian Nights) for the different scenarios, then the thematic part of the game in terms of narrative could have been fleshed out more -- this would have been especially powerful if, while the evidence could be the same at the various locations, the implications would differ if they were colored by the perception of the particular character.

Of course, this is becoming a more complicated rendition of what some people claimed was a chore to keep up with. However, I think that it was a chore to keep up with because the way that the mechanics worked in the game did not flow from the theme -- they were not intuitive.

I don't think Android was important to the hobby because it didn't work (although I can see how it would be important to your personal growth with respect to the hobby because it didn't work). It was important because it has many innovative parts that could be honed in on to be the central focus of other games. The conspiracy puzzle itself has the potential to really make a game shine; however, I think it is a real difficult thing to make "sing" in game design. What Android did was step up to the plate and put something out there that was completely different than what we had seen before. It had balls.

I was poking around some articles that Tamburlaine was commenting and I found this article by Juniper that I guess I missed that first time around or something http://fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1128&Itemid=461 . It got me thinking, but I'm not really sure where my thoughts fit, so I'm just going to chuck them here even though they have have no direct relation to Android.

In the article and subsequent comments, people talk alot about how Euros often fail because they don't hang together. Not necessarily just because the mechanics fail to fit the theme, but because at some fundamental level, the mechanics are "pointless". We've seen now that this can happen to Ameritrash as well, just look at Age of Conan, and maybe Android too; (I haven't played it, just basing that on what I've heard) but more on that later.

Ameritrash is often billed as requiring theme, but I feel that there is something more fundamental at play. I spent a while thinking about what to call it; my first thought, mostly because of the wording in the article, was "cohesion". The idea that the game hang together as a functioning whole rather than a collection of mechanics and vps was what I was going for, but it still felt a little wrong. What I came up with, and am not especially happy wth, is "synergy", or maybe "Gestalt".

It seems vague, and as far as I can tell it is. Basically, my feeling is that many of the great games hang together as a seemless whole; but more than that, they combine functions in such a way that the interactions between the mechanics create something much more fun than any of the given mechanics would be alone. The reason that theme is such an important feature of AT games is that it is an incredibly valuable jumping off point. It seems a great deal easier to design interlocking mechanics around a strong, deep theme than it is to just pull them out of nothing.

The first example that I came up with is actually a Euro, Amun-Re. It does have a strong theme, dynastic building projects in Egypt. But the way the auction hangs perfectly with the sacrifice to Amun-Re, and both of them meshing with the economic system is an exceptional feat when you stop to consider it. And the system makes sense thematicaly too, the mechanics follow the theme rather than vice versa.

I find it interesting when synergy fails. Many people who played Age of Conan commented that it should have worked, yet somehow didn't. It sounds like Android is the same way. My feeling is that something went wrong in the development process, or rather, something didn't go right. Age of Conan is not a bad game, just not an especially good one.

It seems that this insistence on everything hanging together is mostly an AT thing. Wargamers tend to just throw rules at a problem until it goes away, a simple solution if you have the patience to play through, but one I find dull, leading me to prefer only the lighter wargames. Euro players, meanwhile, are after an entirely different experience. Modern Euros are essentially an analytical experience. Synergy is not only unnecessary to the enjoyment of a Euro, but when it obscures the purity of a mechanic, it can be a detriment for a hardline Euro player.

Looking back at this, I am not particularly satisfied with my analysis, hopefully some of you bright folks can help shed some light on it. I apologize if this is a discussion that has already happened, I know I am fairly late to the party. Lastly, I wrote about combining mechanics a number of times. It is not quite the right choice of words, but hopefully I managed to get my point across, I can't think of any better phrasing than that.

I received Android in February and have played it three times since, which is a pretty good score in my gaming group, as we convene every two weeks.

I'm not even sure Android is a true AT game. The mechanics are very euro and you can play the game without caring too much for the theme. On the other hand, theme and mechanics go well together at some points.

Essentially, there are three scoring tracks: the personal issues, the investigation and the conspiracy.

The mechanics for personal issues are easily the best part of the game and will undoubtedly be used in other games. The shifts as result of cards played force you to then play other cards to shift back. So helping yourself requires you to hurt others. These affect the way in which other players are able to deal with their personal issues. Failing in the first part of your issue means you will face other dilemma's than when succeeding. This is where the differences between the player characters come out strongest and where the film noir theme is thickest.

The conspiracy is only a puzzle and looks more like Carcassonne than anything else. The race to place tiles starts early on because the extra benefits for laying a tile are too juicy to let go off. This means that in our games these tiles are finished halfway through the game.

The real battle over the investigation gets delayed until the second half of the game when the conspiracy tiles have been dealt out. The fact that different pieces of evidence have different value for different cases is fine. But on the other hand, the cases are a bit flat. More could have been made of this. Now the cases differ in suspects and starting place of some evidence, but the cases are very much the same in feel.

I like the movement mechanisms, which may seem cumbersome, but are fine in itself. It is like the movement dice in Runebound. They're cool, but later in the game it becomes more restrictive as the board becomes empty. I must say that these restrictions are actually quite good when you are in a tight endgame and running to get that last bit of evidence...

But overall, it doesn't fit completely. The three scoring strands are mostly connected through the movement mechanism (deciding between gathering evidence, digging in the conspiracy or drawing cards) and because there's the extra goodies in the conspiracy tiles. The NPCs have some connecting function as well, but they seem mostly useful in the personal issues rather.

I'm sure it will hit the table again as we are nowhere near bored with the game, but it isn't the runaway hit.

I'm glad you highlitghted Tamburlaine's post, Barnes. I was thinking the same thing when I read it.

I never played Android because I figured it wouldn't be any good based on the hush-hush way it was developed and released. Oh, it looked flat-out awesome, but if you think you've got a good game on your hands, why would you keep it a secret? I just figured FFG themselves didn't have much confidence in the product, so I didn't bother. Your review didn't help its chances, though.

I didn't get the exact impression Tamburlaine did when I read it. I got the impression that, with Android, the game was trying to tell the story rather than allow the players to. If that's the case, it's a rejection of one of your core principles, isn't it?

We got the game a while back and played 4-5 times but we haven't played it again in the last 1-2 months, mainly because of time restraints but also because I've been trying to play some of our older games again. But I still want to play the game, and we will.

The night after we first played Android, I actually dreamt about the game. This doesn't happen with just any game, and I kept thinking about how it worked and about the stories it can generate. It certainly has something special in the way the theme works with the mechanics, and while it's not perfect, some of its parts are excellent.

To me, both the plots system combined with the card play aspect of the game are what make the game especial. The cool thing with the plot cards is that yes, they do tell a story, but once you've played a few times that story is no longer surprising. But yet, even then, there is a story that emerges through the game play and the card play and which meshes with the stories from the plots wonderfully. It's one of the few games that I've seen that succesfully uses "flavor" text right. Instead of creating an incoherent story out of unrelated bits of information, Android, by using other players to play events on the active player, manages to create a story that makes sense with what the player is doing. The baggage system helps this a lot too, and gives a lot of choices to players.

Ok. So the puzzle thing is not as great, and I agree the moving of the evidence around the board is not 100% satisfying, but to me those are minor problems.

I've only played AoC once, but to me any problems AoC might have have nothing to do with Android. They're wildly different games, and Android is clearly a more innovative and thematic game.

The problems with AoC are also different than with Android. While the problem with android is the lack of synergy between the three main scoring tracks, with AoC it is the lack of player interaction, actively discouraged by the low returns of attacking other players. AoC has two scoring tracks: the empire points for conquest and the adventure tiles (which in the end also generate empire points).

Although there is limited interplay between the Conan adventures and the diplomatic/military business on the board through the action dice, that works reasonably well. Not as fluent as with War of the Ring though, where there is always the dilemma of choosing between the ground was and the companions, but still good enough.

Android is like that love that never was. A beautiful woman that you connect with on every level but due to circumstance the romance never blooms. You think about her with meloncholy wistfulness and your heart aches for what will never be.

I too dreamt about the game. I continue to think about it. The task of overhauling it would be so great that starting anew would be easier. The problems with the game are both complex and subtle. Thats why the game 'almost' is a truly great game but in the end is more like masterpiece with fugitve pigments.

Steve"loveLost"Avery

For what its worth if Space Ghost's ideas ever manifest- I'll buy it in a second

I like both Android and Age of Conan.

One thing I will say about Android is this - the more I play it the more I think it really should have been designed as a 2 player game. It just kind of FEELS like it should be one as opposed to a group game. While the game does have a lot of interaction, you never really get the sense that the different investigators are actually working on the same case. It's almost like you are watching several different movies at once. 2 detectives going head to head would have worked better, or perhaps one player is a detective and the other is the suspect.

Thats why the game 'almost' is a truly great game but in the end is more like masterpiece with fugitve pigments.

Motheragod, he's got the soul of an artist.

The responses here are exactly why I think ANDROID should still be talked about. I've never seen such a divisive game. There's opionions literally all over the map on it, and I think it really does, as Tamburlaine suggests, ask a lot of unintended questions about AT game design. It's funny that AGE OF CONAN has been brought up too- I still have yet to get anyone to play my copy with me so I can actually review the damn thing, but from what I've seen, heard, and read it's also a very divisive game but it's more of a regression than something that's pushing forward. Between these two games, which I think are very significant more in terms of reception than design, it almost feels like AT's Waterloo.

Not that AT is dead or obsolete- far from it. But I do think these designs represent certain dead ends and weak points in the theme/narrative argument. It feels more like a turning point than a defeat. I'm really looking forward to what's next from Kevin Wilson in particular- I want to see him take the lessons learned from ANDROID and do something really extraordinary.

The way it was released and developed was brought up, and I think that's an interesting facet. It was essentially designed in an even more closed bubble than usual in hobby games. There is also the issue that Mr. Wilson seems to have been given pretty much carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with it. My initial reaction to the game was that above all else, it needed an editorial eye to point out where the dead weight was to really kind of cut away a lot of the fat and create a more cohesive whole. I think a decision by FFG was made at some point to do this as a stealth release when it became apparent that the game was fairly radical and likely divisive. Had the rules for it been made available in advance, the online reaction would have been insane. If there was a six-month lead-up to it, and people realized that the vaunted murder mystery aspect was really just a blind bidding/area control mechanic, the disappointment would have been greater.

Sort of going off on a tangent here, but I've not seen anyone to date that's mentioned that the conspiracy puzzle thing is really just METRO bolted onto a larger game. I mean, it's like all of METRO is there. Just smaller.

I haven't played it with 2, but I keep hearing that it plays much better as a one-on-one thing. I wonder if it might have been designed for 2, but commercial demands made it necessary for a 3-5 range. I can see a lot of problems I had being smoothed out by not having to monitor 4 other players.

I do think that the game tells the story, that's a good point MJ. It feels very much on rails to me, and I feel like I'm pushing through a proscribed narrative rather than creating it. My first impression was that it might have too much theme, but then I realized that the theme was purely executive and there was almost no conceptual theme. The problem with the story is that it's overstructured. It's _too_ specific. In ARKHAM HORROR, one of the brilliant elements is that it's essentially a paragraph game spread out over cards. But the story pieces are slightly vague and have a generality that makes each card a possible occurence in an unlimited number of stories. Not just five branching stories.

But I liked the idea of the branching stories and the character development that was deeper than going up a point in a stat or getting a new piece of equipment. I think there's a VAST potential there for something really amazing, but it didn't happen in ANDROID.

I really liked Andriod the one time I've had the chance to play it. I can see all the flaws, but the strengths make up for it I think.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

One thing I will say about Android is this - the more I play it the more I think it really should have been designed as a 2 player game.

Heh... funny you say that because I've only played it as a 2 player game... first without any modifications to the rules, then just adding one more suspect. The game works really well, and in some ways I'd say it works better than multiplayer, especially the card play (both players will get about the same amount of negative cards played on them). Also, it's easier to guess what your opponent's hunches are and the evidence game is less chaotic. And last, the downtime. Even then, my gf kept suggesting we do some kind of turn threading (using the time marker like in Thebes), but I'm not sure it would work that well...

I've only played Android once, as a two-player. It was okay, although hampered by the fact that my opponent's character could place evidence to force me into "bad" areas, but I couldn't do the same. So for a true two-player there'd probably have to be some tweaks. But definitely a bunch of dead weight. It should've focused entirely on the characters' stories and cut away everything else, or at least simplified it drastically in order to put it in the back seat and not distract.

One criticism I never really got was the "placing evidence instead of discovering evidence" thing. This is maybe a bit of a holdover from old-skool RPG thinking: you "are" the character and anything you do must somehow thematically represent what the character does. I see no reason to buy into this view, or the proposed solutions such as viewing it as framing the suspect or what have you. You (the player) are guiding the character through a story without necessarily having a one-to-one representation of actions.

A possible response would be that not having this makes the immersion into the narrative arc less compelling, but there is no reason to think this must be automatic: there are plenty of AT games where there is no one-to-one correlation between player and character, yet there is emotional buy-in and a sense of story. Space Hulk, for example.

I do think that the game tells the story, that's a good point MJ. It feels very much on rails to me, and I feel like I'm pushing through a proscribed narrative rather than creating it. My first impression was that it might have too much theme, but then I realized that the theme was purely executive and there was almost no conceptual theme. The problem with the story is that it's overstructured. It's _too_ specific. In ARKHAM HORROR, one of the brilliant elements is that it's essentially a paragraph game spread out over cards. But the story pieces are slightly vague and have a generality that makes each card a possible occurence in an unlimited number of stories. Not just five branching stories.

The way I see it, this game meshes in a way I haven't seen before the executive and conceptual themes. As I said before, the plots (executive theme) are very well integrated into the story that emerges from the card play and the players actions. It's much more than a paragraph game, and to me it succeeds in this aspect more than games like Tales of Arabian Nights, which depend exclusively on the paragraphs. Android does sacrifice variance of the story, as they all are basically about the same concepts. This makes it a game I wouldn't want to play all the time after having tried all the characters and knowing most of the plots. But from time to time (say once every 1-2 months) is perfect.