Near and Far and back again

I had been intrigued by Near and Far for a little while, as it combines some of the kind of friendly mechanics I like with a storybook, somewhat in the manner of Tales of the Arabian Nights. Due to finally selling off an accordion (long story) I'd gone a bit meeple-crazy and purchased it.

The conceit - you are adventurers seeking a long lost land that will grant you your greatest wish, or something. The game comes with a book of maps, and each map functions as a game board. You can play all eleven as a campaign game, or just treat each one as an individual (replayable) one-off in the arcade version. There's no Legacy-style tearing of cards or writing on the board here so the game isn't finite.

Stan and I played the introductory game, which reminded me a little of Raiders of the North Sea - in the viking game, you gather crew to go and plunder. Here, you gather adventurers to go off and - well, have an adventure. It's altogether gentler than Raiders, with any stop containing a Quest token meaning your opponent reads from the storybook and you choose from two choices as to how to proceed. There's a skill roll involved, so it's possible nothing happens - but there are few bad outcomes; at least at this stage of the game...

from front: adventure map; town board, tea towel

Outside of ending up with one leg in a Baghdad jail with a bad omen following you, the story element is rather like the Arabian Nights: there's a mystery to it and obviously having choices makes it more immersive than it might otherwise be.

The rest of the game is made of the Stuff Martin Hates: collect things, use them in different ways. There's a slightly point-salady feel to it all, albeit not in the realms of a Feld game. Adventurers help you in combat, they help you find things, they help you with skill rolls. You buy artefacts that may help you in the game. You can establish trade routes on the map. That stuff is all very straightforward.

adventurers! backpack! tents!

The slightly less intuitive aspect is the player interaction. When you're not out rambling the mystical lands, you're in the town, crewing up, digging for gems in the mine, or making sandwiches ready for your next adventure. At this point the carefree, bucolic adventuring becomes decidedly more hostile, as players cannot stand to be in the same building as each other, and if we bump into each other at the General Store or in the Saloon, it always ends in a punch-up.

If the active player wins they gain (or lose) reputation, depending on whether they fought nobly (or dirty) and they then use the building as standard. If the defending player wins, the active player goes to jail to cool off for the night. With two of us, there's Dirk to consider as well - he's always at the town hall, and forever in a terrible mood.

I hadn't quite cottoned on to the fact that the game ends when someone has pitched all their camps - either out on the adventure map, or in the mine - and was caught slightly cold by Stan who wrapped things up with a 46 - 33 victory.

this bird is carrying a sack

We both enjoyed it though and decided to play again this evening, embarking on the first round of the campaign game. The only real difference here - at least, until I discover there are more - is that for every interaction with the storybook whether successful or not, you gain some experience. At the end of the game - or games - you can cash these in to give your character skills (a lá Arabian Nights again) which they can use in the next game, and onwards.

This time, despite ending the game with a terrible reputation, I had built a cornucopia of artefacts, all of which was enough to see off Stan this time, winning 72-53.

It's nice. The various cards are more finely balanced than Raiders, and the productive nature of your turns plus the strong story element will make it appeal to Andrew and Ian, I think. It's less feisty than Raiders too - there's no down-side as the defender in a duel, and after spending the night in jail you can go wherever in town you like with no risk of duelling. I think it does a more streamlined story job than Arabian Nights, though not necessarily better: the comedy regularly apparent in Nights is mostly absent here. At least until your wife hears you say you've just purchased a meteor pickaxe, anyway.