Takahe’s Solo Den: Obsession
1 - 4 Players 30-90 Minutes Age: 14+
Designer: Dan Hallagan
Artist: Dan Hallagan
Publisher: Kayenta Games
The legendary unicorn of board gaming…
I am not particularly familiar with the Victorian era of England – however, it looked like an interesting time to be living in! All the advancements in technology, medicine, social and political reform, it must have been quite exciting experiencing all those (back then!). And it wasn’t even THAT long ago, 170-ish years ago, that seems like a not-too-distant past.
Thankfully, there are lots of ways how to familiarize yourself with this time period: there are obviously tv series like Victoria, Jane Eyre, Cranford, movies such as North & South or Far from the Madding Crowd, and of course tons and tons of books and literature. I haven’t seen any of these, nor read anything related to the Victorian era in England. Why? Because 1) I am not an Englishman so only very briefly touched this topic during my school time and 2) I don’t need to know history of every single country in the world – that’s what Google and wiki is for! 😊
Being a board gamer however, there is one game set in the Victorian Era of the United Kingdom and The British Empire (took that mouthful from Wiki) that authentically depicts that time period – Obsession. A critically acclaimed light-to-medium weight Euro from a small publisher called Kayenta Publishing has been sort of an almost unobtainable holy grail of board gaming… and rightfully so. Both for being unobtainable and the holy grail bit. This game is not mass produced and only several thousand copies are released here and there. As for the holy grail part? Well… let me elaborate on that one a little bit more…
Sometimes less is more - quality over quantity
As mentioned already, Obsession is not a mass-produced title and hence, can afford to look and feel luxurious. The top-notch quality of components (cute, distinct meeples, super-thick cardboard tokens, sturdy tiles…), the exquisite boxes for storing bits and pieces for each of the families, beautiful portraits on each of the cards… no doubt this game immediately captures your attention the moment you see it set-up on the table.
What is even more striking though, is how the flavour text on every single card translates into the effect of that particular card. So for example if a person on the card is a gossiping girl, the card will have corresponding negative and positive effects. I know I am jumping too far ahead here, but this attention to detail really adds another level of immersion to your overall gaming experience. Just looking at this marvel of a game and looking at some of the bigger boxed titles in my collection, I came to realize one thing…
You know what? To hell with minis! This game comes with 0 minis and yet, subjectively looks more lavish and beautiful than anything else in my collection. Yeah… minis are not everything, dear publishers! Well suited and executed art direction with a pinch of minimalism can deliver a much more captivating experience than tons of minis (which are basically just meeples, only looking slightly better). My opinion, do not lynch me for it… 😊
Beautiful production is of course just a “cover” for this “book” and without a well-designed and captivating content, it would just be a nice thing to look at but not much else. But you already know that is not the case of Obsession. This game shines even more with the game part as well, not just with its stylish looks. After going through the rulebook, I initially thought that from a complexity-side standpoint, this might be one of the lighter and easier to digest Euros that I’ll be able to play in-between more meaty gaming sessions. I was wrong.
Tight game-design fueling the addictiveness
The core idea driving the gameplay is relatively simple – as one of the (formerly) wealthy families, you are trying to lift up your prestige and reputation by upgrading your manor and building new rooms that will attract more attention from the local high society. How do you do that? By holding various events at your estate – each room/hall/garden that you have built, requires a servant of specific type in order to host an event, plus you have to “invite” (play a card) a specific number of guests (called Gentry) to attend that function. But once you’ve met all these requirements, the party is good to go.
However, you will have to bear in mind that each room comes with a different set of pre-requisites. Some rooms such as the smoking room are only suitable for gentlemen, others such as the casino are designated to be ladies-only, and there are of course places where the gender does not matter as long as you have enough guests attending. These guests then bring several vital benefits to your house – prestige, money… or spread the word and introduce you to more people. After each successful event, you then have an opportunity to spend your hard-earned money on expanding your estate via the builders’ market, offering a variety of new rooms for purchase.
Partying towards victory
Going back to rooms, there is another important thing to be aware of - building a new one in your mansion does not automatically secure you victory points (which is the primary scoring mechanism here) and in fact, some of these rooms have negative VP in their default version. In order to get the most out of your rooms, you have to use them to host an event (as have been mentioned already). Once done, you flip the tile to the other side, usually providing more/better bonuses as well as positive victory points. Another way of getting VP is through cards and objectives.
As you host parties, functions and events, some of your guests will invite more of their friends into your estate – this is done by drawing cards, either from basic, less-prominent guests (which in many cases come with negative traits that will cost you money/prestige or negative VP), or from a deck dedicated to the most prestigious members of Victorian era society. And you definitely want to aim to get as many guests as possible because a) they score you various amounts of victory points at the end and b) when you run out of them, you have to waste your precious turn getting them all back.
Having friends in high places…
And then there is courtship itself. At the end of each season (4 during the game), you will try to impress Charles and Elisabeth Fairchild in order to win their favour, company and attention. ‘Who are they?’ you might be asking. Well, these two are members of a well-connected, wealthy and very prominent family, which you are aiming to befriend. Courtship events can be either open or closed – meaning you will either know from the beginning of a season what kind of activities they prefer (in other words, which type of rooms they like above the others), or you will learn it right at the courtship phase.
If you happen to have the most VP from rooms of the appropriate type in your mansion, you get their attention, which means one of them joins the list of visitors in your hand and you gain a VP card which can score you additional 3-5 VP at the end of the game. As you have probably guessed by now, these two characters are very powerful as they provide very substantial benefits and can be used for events no matter your prestige level (some rooms and guests won’t be useable until your prestige rank is high enough). So having them available for your events after each season end can really help ramping up some vital prestige points and/or VP.
The wall of text you’ve just read might look a bit too overkillish but the game, in reality, is way less complex and much more approachable: you basically either host an event, for which use your servants and cards to get benefits… or you pass and get all your guests back to your hand. That is it.
There is a very tiny portion of resource management involved but no obvious worker placement mechanic as we know it from other games. Obsession is simply something else, unlike anything you’ve played in recent times. It just feels remarkably refreshing to be playing a Euro without all those typical Euro tropes. I also like how this game being 90% tactics and 10% strategy still manages to provide a feeling that you are in control and not just constantly reacting. What do I mean by that?
Refreshingly simple, straightforward and obsession-inducing solo
Speaking purely from a solo perspective, you are essentially tracking two major scoring opportunities: several objective cards which you are given at the beginning and throughout out the game (7 in total), and the courtship. Since the room tiles are drawn randomly from the bag, the builder’s market might not always have the specific ones you are after and are needed to fulfil some of your objective cards. However, since you have so many of them and will be required to progressively discard them down to 3, you will have to consider which ones are actually achievable and which ones are busts.
You also do not know what kind of entertainment Elisabeth and Charles Fairchild will prefer during the courtship. But, you do know from the solo opponent card, which targets to hit each type of room in order to either match the bot or beat him during the courtship phase. The game comes with plenty of opponents of different levels of difficulty and specialisation, so each game against the new bot will provide slightly different conditions and requirements for each courtship phase.
Just be aware – although I am using the term “bot”, the solo game in Obsession is just a good old-fashioned “beat a target score”, which is shown on the chosen bot card. There is no card driven solo here where a bot does its own thing on its own board (not in the base game) all you do is roll a die and remove a tile from the market or refresh it, plus you just try to outscore the bot during each courtship phase. Might not sound like much of a challenge, but trust me, reaching some of the expert level scores will seriously test your skill and wits!
The obvious conclusion
Enough has been said about how awesome this game is – Obsession might have been shrouded in hype, but that hype is real and justifiable. This beautifully produced and superbly designed light to medium-weight Euro provides a highly immersive and captivating experience that nails the chosen theme in such a way that will keep you coming back for more. It doesn’t matter if you know what the Victorian era in England looked like or not! I am absolutely addicted to Obsession and whenever I finish a session, I immediately reset the game for another round. There is just something special about this game and you will never be the same once you’ve played it. You will simply become obsessed… the same way I did!
