Dead Reckoning: The Tale of Captain Middleton Hayes
Explore the open ocean in search of islands and cargo with a crew of sailors that improves with time in Dead Reckoning.
Back to the salty air of the sea with Dead Reckoning! My initial play didn’t leave me with a great experience, so I wanted to give it another chance to shine… Like a new doubloon! Ha ha! This time, I changed my perspective just a bit and went in understanding more about what the game was about. With my crew ready to leave shore, I set sail for adventure!
Game Overview
Game Name: Dead Reckoning
Publication Year: 2022
Designer: John D. Clair
Artist: Ian O’Toole
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
With 12 individual crew members, a ship sails to find new islands to influence. Area control and economics take a central role, yet the sailors learn new abilities from the time on the sea. Battles threaten around every corner, yet a balanced strategy is often the key to the best treasure!
First Play
September 17, 2022
Complexity
3
Latest Play
September 22, 2022
Expansions
3
Setup Time
15 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
2
Play Time
1 Hour & 45 Minutes
High Score
108
Game Area
44" x 34"
Low Score
96
Adding Some Flavor
Since the theme didn’t quite come through for me, I went ahead and generated some pirate-themed names for my crew! Such gems existed like Rumford ‘Nightmare’ Fane.
Yet the biggest change was a shift in my expectations. I wasn’t out for a grand seafaring adventure. This would be about controlling islands and building fortifications.
I also noticed that my coin production was fairly minimal compared to the solo opponent’s. Rather subtle!
But as suspected, my pirate names sort of melted away in favor of focusing on icons and special abilities.
Unlucky Solo Cards
The solo card system was pretty straightforward, with a set sequence for each turn number. These could also be flipped over to create a more challenging experience.
Yet the open ocean tiles really slowed things down. I only lost control of a single island early on… Most of the spaces for new influence cubes were filled with water!
I enjoyed the overall simplicity of this system, although it felt a little too easy to build a fort and block most actions.
On an unrelated note, island names were a mix of English, French, and German. Intentional? Maybe, for a global feel.
A Modified Ship
Salutations! Captain Middleton Hayes was at the helm, and you knew what was coming. He sailed a custom sort of ship and kept all his coins close at hand in his basket!
Is this the popcorn tricycle? Oh, yes! The entire popcorn section pops off to turn this into an almost comically large tricycle with a tiny, tiny seat in the back. More laughs!
But this is what I had to do to bring some more flavor to the game. It felt quite removed from the exciting artwork.
Captain Middleton Hayes didn’t mind, though. His special ship had an unmistakable squeak as it sailed the seas!
Fun with Upgrades
Despite my continued issues with overall gameplay, I came to appreciate the card crafting system some more.
Sailors could have up to 3 upgrades added. Each also had multiple levels with special abilities and icons.
The captain and a single crew card turned out to be the secret to my success! These highly varied icons gave me a lot of different choices about how to handle each turn.
More sails meant greater distances traveled, and I also used a lot of influence cubes. Most of the islands were all mine, just as I planned! Area control definitely helped.
Discovering Gameplay Elements to Appreciate
It’s probably quite clear at this point that this isn’t a game for me. I don’t mean to put it down, though: We just don’t match up, and that’s not a problem! Even with solo games I give low ratings to, there are usually a few positives I can still find in the design. After this second play, I started to see some of the fun in pieces of the game.
With enough sails to move about freely, I could decide how best to upgrade each sailor. This didn’t work out perfectly, yet I managed to chain together a few aspects. There were unexpected ways to use certain icons, too, such as on the crew card shown above. She helped out in battles, but those cannons could also be used to help influence islands.
Perhaps it was my own fault for not fully understanding what the game would be about, yet I truly thought it would be more about adventure. The cube tower remains one of the weakest parts for me, too… Ship battles are certainly very random, but translating that into a purely random drop of cubes never felt satisfying from a play perspective.
There are some expansions I may try out in the future, yet my collection continues to grow! I don’t necessarily play my games consistently, yet with limited time, there needs to be a great reason to bring one back to the table. Or, I might simply discover that this one works a lot better multiplayer. That could solve everything and give it some attention!
You’re on Fire!
So much focus on area control and production made me even more wary of the ship battles. The cube tower was just simply too random to want to risk any attacks.
For instance, even with a large number of cubes, I could still lose against the solo opponent while offering an opportunity to pick up some more victory points. Nope!
I was attacked twice, leading to some fiery outbreaks! Yet my crew was there to make regular repairs.
Maybe it’s possible to focus on an aggressive play style, but I felt like it was far too random with limited rewards.
Tricycle Victory Lap
The popcorn tricycle was put back together again to showcase how it was used to haul cargo and coins! And maybe a little bit of fire, but that’s beside the point. Ha!
In the end, I managed to complete 6 achievements. There came a point when I could add cargo directly to my ship, which gave me enough to purchase upgrades at sea.
Rarely did I return to the harbor. My battle abilities were mainly wasted, yet they were there as simple defenses.
As expected, the highlight of this was the popcorn tricycle, yet I came to enjoy the game just a little bit more!
Session Overview
Play Number: 2
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Normal Difficulty Level
Outcome: 96-84 (Win)
The islands were mine! Actually, there were some turns when I was just shuffling influence cubes around with the limited supply. It was somewhat close near the end, yet my forts helped repel the solo opponent. This was better than my first play, but I wonder now if it’s just not a very engaging solo mode. Now my husband is interested in playing together… Maybe then I can see more adventures!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
1
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
7
Originality
Design & Theme
5
Quality
Components & Rules
8
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
4
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
7
+ Pros (Positives)
- Many interesting card combinations are possible with the very different upgrades that can be purchased.
- Resources are limited to just cargo and coins, which helps keep things manageable and not overly cumbersome.
- Influence cubes are large and easy to see across the play area to make counting relatively easy most of the time.
- Each turn has a lot of options and can involve many actions, yet the decisions aren’t too complex.
- Different achievements provide some guidance on how to proceed and cover a lot of different scenarios.
- The solo opponent uses cards that define action sequences by rounds, and most of these are simple to follow.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Battles are very random with the cube tower, and attacking can actually help the solo opponent move ahead.
- There is a disconnect between the artwork and game mechanics, which are mainly area control and production.
- Setup and cleanup take a lot of time with the way the plastic upgrade cards need to be sorted and shuffled.
- For the size of the game box, there aren’t a large number of components nor high variability with the islands.
Victory Conditions
Score the Most Points
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 100 points.
Win at least 1 game at the normal difficulty level.
Continue the Conversation
Have you played Dead Reckoning? I have a slightly more positive opinion about it now, yet I’m sad to say it’s not a solo game I’ll want to dig into some more. So much potential! Are there other games you’ve played where your expectations had to shift? I’m still glad I gave this one another chance. Besides… The popcorn tricycle got to make an appearance!
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