Action Efficiency Eurogames are a sub-sub-genre I quite enjoy. Terra Mystica is my 3rd favorite game of all time, and I have at least 100 plays of it. I love being able to play and replay a game over and over, trying to squeeze every single victory point I can from the game’s engine. So when I had the opportunity to review An Age Contrived, a game whose premise lent itself to this level of play, I knew I had to take it. Does it live up to the potential of its systems, or does it fall flat under the weight of its own promises?
Gameplay Overview:
In An Age Contrived, players will be competing to see who can score the most victory points. These victory points are acquired via a few primary different methods. The first is through the construction of Monuments. These Monuments are 3D cardboard structures that players will be expelling energy to play. As they are built, piece by piece, some of the energy spent from the construction will go to a collection space where players will be competing to have three units of energy. The more areas where they have three energy, the more points they score at the end of the game.
Another source of victory points are the Pillars spread throughout the board. Players will be spending their energy building these Pillars, which have exponential scoring opportunities, the more you’ve built around the map. Finally, players will be working towards Achievements, where players will be competing to complete mini-objectives first, in order to spend energy to “lock in” these scoring opportunities.
All of these objectives are completed by taking actions through a conveyor belt system on their personal player board. Depending on where your energy lies, depends on which actions you can take. On your turn, you will either push the conveyor belt forward or take actions (as many as you have the energy for). You can only take the actions where you have energy, though, so plan accordingly while you’re plucking out energy and taking other actions!
What brings the whole system together is the fact that the energy you leave on the board to score points is the same energy that you use to take actions. This push-and-pull of when you leave energy to score, and when you will skip scoring to keep energy in your system will shape each decision you make throughout the game.
Spend wisely, plan ahead, and balance your economy the best to win An Age Contrived.
Game Experience:
At its core, An Age Contrived knows what it wants to be. From the first few sentences of the rulebook, I could feel the designer’s intent of longing to create an efficiency game come into shape. And in many ways, An Age Contrived has learned from some of the best. After the first play, the plethora of symbols and mini-actions becomes internalized, and the game lets you explore its sandbox. The brilliance of the balancing act of the energy system scratches at the back of your head, gnawing at you with each and every decision, each possibility in front of you feeling equally weighty in its meaning.
And there are some systems in this game that really shine. Take for instance the energy mechanic. Having to expel your energy, the very resource you use to take actions, in order to score is tuned to an almost evil degree here. Plenty of games talk about the push and pull of choosing when to pivot your engine into points, but few accomplish that with as much grit to them as An Age Contrived does.
Unfortunately, the core of the game is not left alone to thrive. This final product is everything I feared it to be when I learned it was from a first-time designer and was a Kickstarter darling.
First, let’s talk about the production. This game is so awkwardly produced. Some components provided in the base retail copy I received feel out of place in the most extravagant of collector’s editions. The Azul-like energy tiles, metal frames, and metal-infused cardboard pieces are all so flashy. It’s not that I’m shaking my fist at the sky wishing for German-style ‘90s components for the sake of them here, but it’s that the production is entirely lopsided. For each bakelite tile, there’s a cardboard player board that makes more sense dual-layered. For each metal frame, there are tiny action tiles that are illegible.
Then there’s the first-time designer issues. The graphic design and general layout of the main board are still really difficult to read, even after several plays. The iconography needed to be reeled back some, letting words do some work in some key areas. And worst of all, there are just some systems that get in the way of the efficiency puzzle at the game’s heart. You don’t just move around the map in order to build in certain areas: you have to keep your player miniature facing in the correct direction and can only travel forward. You can’t just build a bridge to traverse difficult terrain: you must build an asymmetric bridge that has a special ability on it and a new ability under it that unlocks when you build the bridge.
Final Thoughts:
An Age Contrived is frustratingly close to a fantastic experience. Its energy-to-victory points tradeoffs had me giggling with excitement during my first play. The sheer amount of change one can have on the state of the game in one turn can be staggering. Having to recharge energy into specific areas of your player board gives such a great balance between strategic and tactical play. At the end of the day, though, the game has a lot of rough, underbaked edges to it. It’s these lopsided systems that make An Age Contrived a title I don’t see myself coming back to often.
Final Score: 3 Stars – Terra Mediocris
Hits:
• Engaging Action Selection Mechanic
• Phenomenal Setting & Theme
• Tricky Balance of Actions to Points
Misses:
• Uneven Mechanical Quality
• Uneven Production Quality
• Messy Graphic Design
