Has anyone tried this?
I thought I would hate all the explicit dice-rolling (and it's very explicit: you apparently see them bouncing all over the screen), but I may take a stab at being open-minded.
My problem with Thea was that the card-game mechanic of combat resolution was a little too upfront for my taste. I eventually learned to turn on auto resolution, and sometimes I don't even mind the card game too much, as long as I don't have to play it too often.
But here the designers apparently drew much of their inspiration from craps (which I don't like), and they probably don't give you an auto resolution option (and wouldn't want to).
The story is deliciously macabre, and the difficulty level reportedly brutal. To win you have to make all of the right decisions AND be very lucky. Sounds a bit like a cannibalism-themed version of solitaire played with dice instead of cards.
The game is currently on sale on Steam (and I just got my refund for Jotun, another of my failed attempts at being open-minded).
I've been playing it for the last 2 days and the farthest I've gotten on Normal difficulty is Week 7. While luck plays a part, the game is all about risk and reward. You only have 4 crew members (you need one present to roll the dice), and dice are used for everything - repairing damage, growing food, research, activating ship modules and special abilities (each crew member has one), even replenishing dice. You can never do everything you want (or need) to in a given turn, so you're constantly managing very limited resources.
Quill18 has a very good series on the game, and I'm sure there are others.
I thought I had picked this up recently. Thanks for the reminder! O0
Although Steam is being unexpectedly assy about coming back from a Paypal verification check... hm.
Uh oh, got back from PP and don't have the game! That's a first.
I've played it twice. Still don't know how everything works yet, but the dice don't bother me at all.
And I'm enjoying watching the ship break apart.
Feed your astronauts to each other (It's an option on the game). It's the other white meat.
Five weeks to Mars.
I think I sort of know how the game works now. I still haven't starved to death because the ship keeps disintegrating on me. The key seems to be understanding what the modules are good for and not just assigning someone to one of them when it's falling apart.
And luck helps.