Kickstarter Preview: Weather Machine

Weather Machine is the newest game from Vital Lacerda and artist Ian O’Toole. It is being published by Eagle Gryphon Games and plays 1-4 players. It plays in approximately 2 hours. Let’s start with an overview of the game and how it plays.

Overview:

In Weather Machine players take on the role of a scientist working with Professor Lativ. You must manage your lab, build bots, gain chemicals and increase the lab size to store your resources and prototypes. Players move from here to researching different types of weather allowing players to publish papers and eventually build a prototype to help fix the extreme weather experiments that Lativ has made with his flawed weather machine.

Players will begin with their own lab and add to their workshop before the game begins. This will allow you will to gain more space for chemicals, bots and a chance to build bigger branches of their prototype machines. After the initial supply round is done the game will begin with players taking turns in a series of three phases. This continues until an end game trigger occurs which can occur in a number of ways. Then final scoring begins and the player with the most CP is the winner!

The phases are as follows:

Phase A: Player turns. In turn order, each player takes a turn.
Phase B: Run Weather Machine experiment.
Phase C: End of Round. Adjust turn order. Possible income.

In Phase A players move around the board to a new location to perform either one or both actions. They may use a subsidy tile or investment tile before performing an action. Then they may place a research token to finish. Players may move up funding tracks based on the action they select in a location. In Phase B Lativ’s machine tries to fire and change the weather for the worse! Finally in the last Phase the round ends, turn order is changed if needed and income may happen depending on where Lativ is.

Locations include places like The Supply where players can gain bots, chemicals and workshop extensions. This is how you continue to build into and improve your weather machine. The Government where you can gin subsidies by trying to help them get a piece of the action where you work against the professor and build prototypes for them as well. The third location is Lativ’s Lab where players can see the original Weather Machine in action, here the experiments run and data is gathered to try to determine what exactly is going on. Here you publish research and improve in your standing with the government as well. Finally Research and Development is where we will try and fix the extreme weather conditions by trying to make the world a better place. We collect experiment results and send bots to help build a prototype. Here you show the world your work and get recognized for it and perhaps even win a Nobel Prize!

Now why should you back this one? Here’s my thoughts:

Design. Vital Lacerda hits it out of the park once again in this 7th of his giant, gorgeous games from Eagle Gryphon Games. This game is a big box beauty on the shelf and it fits in perfect with all of his other games. It is everything you want and expect from the team and it doesn’t fail to be a well-designed game from top to bottom in presentation.

The Crunch. You know what I mean here-this game is crunchy. And by that I mean it has all the things you are looking for a heavy, meaty game. This isn’t the game you are bringing out for casual, party-game and quiet game nights. This is the game you throw on the table when you want to square up with some brain-burning decisions and movements on a board that really require you to think it out and see if you can rise to the occasion. Make no mistake, I think anyone can work their way up to a game like this if you put in the work and effort to do so. But it isn’t easy and it is bound to be a challenge for most gamers. If you like your games heavy, this is the game you want to add to your collection next.

Drip. This game drips-and by that, I mean it drips with theme. The movement and story that it sets up from the creation of this Weather Machine that Lativ makes and how it spins out of control is a fun theme and I love how we fit into the story here. The assistant who is actively trying to work with and against Lativ while sneaking around with the government and helping them is different than what I would have expected and I love it. One of the best parts of the Lacerda games continues to be how well he executes theme and this one is right up there with the rest of them.

Should I back this game?

I personally think the answer to this one is easy. You absolutely should back this game if the above reasons fit for you. If you are a Lacerda fan in general, you will not want to miss this one. The style is similar to what you love with fun new twists and a unique theme to tie it all together. If you love heavy games and want to jump in this could be a great start into the world of Lacerda and O’Toole. Eagle Gryphon Games continues to make and produce some of the best quality games on the market and this is no exception!