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Bounty And The Beast
Does So, You’ve Been Eaten delve deep into the mines of strategy, or barely scratch the surface? This Kickstarter Edition gives you even more tools to excavate an answer, so let’s start digging.
In the far future, it’s a common occurrence for deep-space miners to be ingested by gigantic interplanetary beasts. In fact, it’s written into the job description! Because, like pearls in oysters, it’s only in the twisting guts of these monsters that the most dazzling crystal treasures can be found. The self-styled “asymmetric game of survival and profit” plays in around 30 minutes, for 0-2 players. Yes, you read that right!
This Kickstarter Edition comes with beefed-up components like triple-layered boards, 3D bacteria tokens, screen-printed acrylic crystal tokens and shaped upgrade tiles, tuck boxes for your cards (which fit premium sleeves, too), a fancy dice tower to really ramp up your rolls, and the pleasingly pink Dyspepto-Beastmol mini expansion. More on the latter addition to follow, but first…
Some Miner Setbacks…
As one of the most highly asymmetric games my group has played, So, You’ve Been Eaten doesn’t just give players varying abilities; they’ll essentially be playing two entirely different games in one. Therefore, each side deserves its own section, starting with the Miner.
As the Miner, your goal will be to collect 8 glittering gems by traversing the Beast’s Digestive Tract. You will achieve this by upgrading your abilities and gear to blast through enough bacteria and immune responses to avoid being digested.
After setting up the boards with the Beast’s Digestive Tract at one end and the Miner’s Control panel at the other, with Stomach cards drawn and placed to form the path through the Tract itself, it’s time to go mining.
You do this by rolling your three dice and assigning them to a variety of possible actions, like Eliminating Bacteria, Upgrading your equipment to bolster some of your other actions, and, above all, Capturing the crystals required for victory. You also have multiple one-time-use tools at your disposal to even the odds against the antagonistic antigens, swapping Stomach cards with the Teleporter or drilling through them to reach other areas. Use these and your actions carefully, because at the end of each of your turns, the Bacteria closest to you on the Tract will attack. If the same one latches onto you four times, it’s game over, man, game over!
The aim of the Miner’s game is to strategically navigate the Beast’s Tract to maximise crystal gain while trying to avoid facing too many of the same Bacteria at the end of their turns. Nail this and you’re sure to make it out alive with those intestinal ingots in hand!
Repel Hoarders
The Beast, then, has much more than just an upset stomach to deal with. Your goal will be to attack the Miner with four of the same Bacteria type (you have four icky strains at your disposal).
You will be in charge of the playing field because… well, it’s you! Refill the track of seven Stomach cards – choosing from the guttural grouping in your hand – each turn and accelerate the process if you wish to play even more cards, removing and replacing those closest to the Miner to bring about their imminent ingestion more quickly.
But how do you know which route you should plot through your own pyloric path? Well, you will have to keep an eye on your Energy. This can be spent to acquire powerful Immune Response cards, and is generated by the number of crystals currently in the Tract, or by playing cards from your hand. Immune Responses hinder the Miner as your system tries to flush out the invader, downgrading their actions, contracting your intestines to slow them down, or mimicking your own gut bacteria to secure the win early.
Finally, after refilling your hand of Stomach cards, you will play a meddling Mutation to send a Bacteria of your choice to attack the Miner, as long as it matches the one on the nearest Stomach card at the end of their turn. The Mutation will also be revealed at the end of their turn, infecting them and downgrading an action if it’s a matching microorganism. As mentioned, attacking with the same one four times is the Beast’s key to victory.
Hard To Stomach
The Dyspepto-Beastmol expansion for So, You've Been Eaten adds even more acidic antics to the game in the form of tiles that are placed on the Stomach cards by the Beast. Experienced players should definitely utilise this addition as it opens up some more choices for the Beast on their turn and adds a tricksy depth of strategy on top of an already tactical game.
This is because of the ways both players can utilise these numbered tiles, even if the Beast is the one who decides where they’ll spring up. The Miner can bounce back from a bacterial barrage by taking a Beastmol tile if it was on the Stomach card that attacked them, and use this later to perform an additional action as if it were a dice roll. The Beast, on the other claw – uhm, hand – can employ the Beastmol to add resistance to their Immune Response cards, protecting them from elimination by any dice rolls from the Miner that match that Beastmol tile’s number.
It adds a really satisfying risk-reward to both players’ choices, providing some much needed relief to any strategic constipation.
Automatons Of Fun
The game boasts a player count of 0-2, and this is because it handily automates either the Beast’s turns (becoming a Sleeping Beast) or the Miner’s (activating a Robot Miner) for one player games, or even a combination of the two for zero active players. Set up the game as usual and use icons and actions already printed on the cards to watch an epic struggle between bot and beast. It’s as easy as rolling the dice, dealing the cards, and watching the carnage unfold.
These options are great for some solitaire play, allowing players to practice either side for future two-player games, or just take a trip through this colonic course on a rainy day.
Gut Feeling
Paired with the colourful yet clear artwork and the new premium components for this Kickstarter, this is an excellent outing for a variety of audiences and ages. The expansion adds even more fun to the fray, and the sci-fi theming ties in excellently with the gameplay and witty rules text to make this edition of So, You’ve Been Eaten the gut that keeps on giving.
That concludes our thoughts on So, You've Been Eaten Kickstarter Edition. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy So, You've Been Eaten Kickstarter Edition today click here!
