Seafall Review

I was digging through my photo archives for an Instagram post recently and came across a few shots from our run at Seafall. It’s been a while since those particular adventures, but photos of the games stir all kinds of emotions.

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. There are certainly plenty of games I’ve played that stir no emotions, so on one hand it’s impressive. On the other hand, many of my feelings toward this game are negative, so that’s not great.

Let me tell you why. (Feel free to scroll down to the bold to see the ups & downs of game play)

We bought Seafall after finishing Pandemic Season 1. With that as our baseline, there was a good amount of optimism that this “Legacy Native” (There's no non-Legacy version of the game) would be great.

At the same time, I had read a healthy number of reviews and warned my gaming group that there were mixed. Because of that, my feeling was that if the group was dissatisfied, we should simply quit.

Despite the ups & downs you’ll see below, we made it though about 3/4 of the storyline. We had been growing increasingly frustrated, but continued slogging through. In the end, 2 of our 5 players moving out of state brought the entire experience to an end. We played one last game together, then opened all the boxes/read everything as part of our going away party.

The irony is that as frustrated as we were with the game, the ending was genuinely maddening. We sat around a table slack jawed at the final resolution and glad we hadn’t spent any more time on the game than we did.

That was our experience, but what can you expect when you dig into your own Seafall adventures?

When It’s Good

Amazing premise!

Seriously, what a stunning premise for a game. You are a country’s leader who is funding exploration of islands off your coast in search of land, treasure, & glory.

Heck. Yes.

Add to that the Legacy mechanics (ongoing storyline, boxes to open, rules & mechanics to implement), and you have the makings of a legendary game.

Awesome catch up mechanics

We were a bit worried that a competitive game wouldn’t play as well as the co-op we just finished (remember we were coming off Pandemic Legacy 1). Would one person just jump out to a big lead then just maintain it & cruise through a bunch of rounds?

Turns out that Seafall has really cool mechanics that carry over from game to game. You can absolutely pillage your way to winning this round, but will likely pay the price for several games to come. And if you got the short end of the stick, the game rewards you for revenge. (This may have lead to a couple of rage filled moments, but each time, the victim got revenge at a later date. Good thing we were all friends!)

Great components (just not enough of them)

I love that each player has their own storage box & unique pieces/stickers. It’s one of those “of course, how else would you do it” pieces, but it just helped solidify the feeling that everyone was playing a little bit different game.

My one gripe with the components is there wasn’t nearly enough. Specifically, we ran low on Enmity stickers at about the halfway point. That’s odd considering the game encourages you to do things that requires the stickers. (In all fairness, it’s possible I completely misplayed the game. But even if I did, why not include enough stickers so that players don’t have to feel like they’re rationing them?)

When It’s Bad

Brutal gameplay as it progresses

The games starts out as a mix of exploration and trading before adding an element of piracy & combat. That’s fun at the start, but as the game progresses, new victory conditions make it feel much more on rails.

By the time you’re a few games in, you’ll only be trading to have enough money to afford the equipment to explore or fight. It feels a bit jarring to realize the game doesn’t really respect one of it’s own mechanics.

Instructions not particularly clear on many new items/mechanics

This could be it’s own point, but it flows well so I’m calling it a 1b: Instructions & rules on new items & mechanics are rough. I can respect an economy of words and trying to make everything fit in the box (and we’ve all had games we have to search the BGG forums for a rules explanation). But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. And this game is one of the worst offenders.

We were playing one round per month and were actually glad to have weeks off between rounds so we could research whatever we had unlocked in the previous game. That’s an issue.

Some rules don’t work thematically

Let’s talk about winter for a moment. If you’re in an glory/exploration/arms race with multiple other foes, would you really sit around all winter and do absolutely nothing? In Seafall, that’s exactly what your characters do.

It’s baffling to me that there’s no mechanic that would, for instance, let you fix your ship (maybe end in a friendly harbor?). Or sell a good at a premium. (Winter should be off-season, right?)

It felt like a missed opportunity to reset everything but act like the players sat on their hands for 3 months.

End game story made us want to flip the table

There was a moment at the end of our final game when we finished reading the final entry and the entire group just sat there stunned & pissed off by the ending. The group’s reaction was basically “We’re sure glad we didn’t play any more of this”.

With that said, there was definitely some great foreshadowing along the way. That’s pretty cool since most board games don’t have use for foreshadowing.

But that end result fell flat.

So that is what you can expect if you dive into a game of Seafall. Should you pick this game up? I have to give this the rare Not Recommended rating.

Have you played Seafall? Tell me about your experience in the comments!