[ENG] Kero - Decision Making - 9/10

Kero is a #1v1 game where the rythme is given by the use of flying by kero in a Post-Apocalyptique world #MadMax.

Waiting my girlfriend to play #Kero

Official Link : http://www.hurricangames.com/game/kero

Long story Short

Kero's Hardware is simply stuning and the game gives place for dynamic just-timed plays. Player-player interaction is given just the righ dosage. Hasard base ? Yes, mixed with some strategical decision, Kero will be loved by newcomers and will stand his ground with expert. #GatewayBoardgame Anyway, you should get it !

Some Numbers !

Hardware : 9/10, Illustrations outstanding, real quality hardware.

Fun : 8/10, You'll enjoy the game mechanics

Strategy : 7/10, easy to learn, hard to master

Global : 8/10

Long Story Long

The game

Kero is all about getting your clan to victory by scoring the most victory point.

You'll collect victory point when you buy cards and gain control over territory. You'll be able to get those by harvesting ressources during your turn.

Every turn start by letting you choose to tank or not to tank your fuel truck, this action cost a fuel can. If you don't tank, you'll need to take decision with the (always too little) time you've got left. Tanking occur while you adversary freniticaly launches the dices until they all display the little fire (1 on 6 chances).

All set with tanking, its time to use that precious fuel and harvest ressources. Tilt your truck and the hourglass runs, you get to relaunch your ressource dices as much as you want until you're either satisfied with the result, you run out of fuel or they show the fire sign. Those ressources will be your harvest for the turn being.

The play is roughly 3rounds of about 10 turns long. When you're done just tell and you'll know who won :-).

Strategy

Before letting those dices roll, the cards you could buy are already in front of you, therefore is it easy to have a rough idea of what you need the dice to show in order to be able to buy what you want.

That being said, game mechanics like buying Touaregs (offering game bonus but no victory point) or tanking, each and every action taken will need a small risk analysis and cost benefits will be weighted after the action.

Long term strategy isn't an easy thing to grap as optimalisation of the action isn't easy. Question's on you, is it better to rush victory point or to amass bonuses and ingame powers that can get you those extra ressources ?

Advantages

The mecanic of the game is really enjoyable

Rules say so : "Taking bad decision is part of the game". You'll always find your self under a fuel-constraint, sometime an unperfect quick decision is better than a perfect bad slow one. No-one escapes taking a bad decision and reallising it afterwards. Too late !

Enjoyabe player-player interaction. The mostly positive interaction and the dynamic timely-constraint let no place for waiting or boredom. You are always doing something, either rolling dice to stop your adversary from refueling or playing your own turn.

Hardware

You only need to take the rulebook in hand to feel its weight and understand how good the hardware quality is.

Quality illustration on all cards, tokens and board give a direct grasp on what the game has to offer.

The truck-hourglasses and the 8 custom dices are the toping on the cake and that small extra thing to prove me right.

Only small improvable part are the sticker to glue the head of the clan members on wooden token, perfect would have been hot tranfer.

Disadvantage

Even if the action to take and the good choice each turns are easy to identify, it's harder to define a complete long terme strategy, which lead to an interesting play but some detachment on the real stakes, the game victory. First games could let you down and you might not be able to grasp what you should have done better to beat your adversary.

external link :

BGG (EN) : https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/222219/kero