“Logic is the beginning of knowledge, not the end”

The Search for Planet X is a logic & deduction game. As astronomers, you’re trying to find not only the location of the mysterious Planet X, but also a variety of other astronomical objects. Asteroids, comets, gas clouds, dwarf planets – they’re all out there, waiting to be found, and there are points on offer for the people who find them. Luckily, being the clever scientists you are, you have some clues as to where things might be. For example, you know that every asteroid is in a sector adjacent to another asteroid, you know that Planet X cannot be adjacent to a dwarf planet, etc.

There’s not enough information there to figure out where everything is, though, so how do you get more of it?

An app.

The game is driven by an app. There, I said it. App-haters look away now. I’ve got no problem with a game requiring an app, and in the case of The Search for Planet X, it’s a game which couldn’t exist without an app. When you take the various actions to search the skies for objects, you input those choices into the app, and it tells you what you find. It’s a very elegant and simple process which works well, as you’d hope.

As well as directly searching for things, you can choose to attend a conference as an action, which reveals some additional indirect information. It might tell you that a comet isn’t within three spaces of a dust cloud, or an asteroid is opposite a dwarf planet. Not much on its own, but when you combine it with the things you’ve crossed out or circled on your player sheet, then you’re starting to get somewhere. Now you’re on the path to winning.

Space race

Let’s get this out of the way now. The Search for Planet X is awesome. It’s very, very good. There are some caveats, of course. If you’re after action and you hate logical reasoning, you’re going to have a bad time with this game. It’s not a game you can come to with a hangover or after a heavy day at work, because you need the mental bandwidth to contend with the puzzle. If you tick those boxes though, there’s an amazing puzzling race waiting for you.

Better still for me, personally, is the main board working as a form of rondel.

I love rondels.

The action you choose to take has a cost associated with it, and that cost is the number of spaces your observatory pawn moves around the sectors of the board. The board is divided into the sectors you’re searching in, and a rotating cardboard piece – the Earth board – on the middle of the board hides half the sectors at any one time. You can only perform your searching actions on the visible sectors, and which sectors are visible is driven by the furthest back pawn. It gets so frustrating when you want to search a sector which has just been hidden. You might take expensive actions to race around to the other side, but if the other players don’t do the same and take cheaper actions, they could take multiple turns, learning more and more, while you’re waiting.

As the Earth board rotates it also points to some icons which allow the players to submit theories. If you think you know where some of the things in the sky are, you can add tokens to those sectors with your assertions hidden on the reverse side. With each of these theory phases the existing theories move inward one step, and once they reach the middle they’re flipped, checked on the app, and if they’re correct then not only will those players get some points, but everyone else knows exactly what’s in there.

Space is hard

If you’ve ever done any of those logic grid puzzles, you’ve got a good idea of what you’ll need to do in The Search for Planet X. It’s a process of elimination and using the scant information you’re given to lead to logical conclusions. It’s a really satisfying thing when it goes well, and the Eureka moments are fantastic. When you put two and two together and come up with four, well, that makes you feel like some kind of genius, and it’s great.

What happens when it doesn’t go well though? I’ve played games where I’m absolutely certain I know where planet X is. I make my guess, and part of that guess also includes what its neighbours are, and it tells me I’m wrong. When that happens, it’s very demoralising. It also makes things feel impossible. You can be certain of some things you’ve crossed out and circled, but you know some are wrong, and it leaves you desperately trying to unravel your mistakes, without necessarily knowing where they are. That’s a hard task at the best of times when you’re using the standard side of the board. When you’re playing the advanced game on the other side with 18 sectors instead of 12, and with even more things to identify, it’s a hard blow to take.

I’d also hate to be the person who sits down to play but isn’t used to any kind of logic problem. Maybe they’ve never done a logic grid, a sudoku puzzle, or a nonogram. The kind of thinking that helps you solve puzzles like these is normally learned, rather than innate, which makes The Search for Planet X a game where you need to be careful who your audience is. Bear that in mind when you’re deciding whether to buy the game or not.

Final thoughts

My last review was for a game unlike any other I’ve played: Oros (review here). I’m lucky to be covering two in a row that I can same thing about. I really enjoy logic puzzles, and I love rondels, so when Matthew and Ben (the designers) put both in the same box, I was already smitten. Biased? For sure, yeah, but then you’re here for my skewed opinion, right? The Search for Planet X ticks so many boxes for me, and I have so much fun playing it. I love playing a game that makes me feel clever, even if that does come tumbling down like a house of cards when I get it wrong.

This might just be me, but I have continuous paranoia when I’m playing. No matter how well I’m doing, I’m convinced that everyone else is one step ahead of me. It’s one of my favourite things about the game. It’s a full-on racing game at its heart, with the players racing to get to the right answers first. There’s a palpable moment of tension when the first person announces they’re going to make a guess for the location of planet X. If they get it wrong, there’s a good chance they’re close and things get very serious. If they get it right, those behind them in turn order get one last chance to make a guess at the location of different objects, and then it’s over. It’s important to note that you can win even if you don’t find the planet first. There are plenty of points on offer for identifying where everything else is, too.

The need for the app isn’t as bad as you might imagine, and one of the biggest added benefits from its inclusion is the fact that you can play solo. Sure, you only play against one opponent, but the game you play is exactly the same game as you’ll play against human opponents, so it’s the perfect way to practice or to get a learning game in ahead of teaching it at your local game night.

It’s not a game that everyone will enjoy, for sure, but with the right people, The Search for Planet X is amazing. It’ll give your brain a proper burn for an hour, and if you and your fellow astronomers are finding it easy, the advanced mode will bust you back down to feeling stupid in no time. Competitive logic and deduction at its finest.

You can buy this game from my retail partner, Kienda. Remember to sign-up for your account at kienda.co.uk/punchboard for a 5% discount on your first order of £60 or more.

The Search For Planet X (2020)

Design: Matthew O’Malley, Ben Rosset
Publisher: Renegade Games Studio
Art: James Masino, Michael Pedro
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 60 mins

The post The Search For Planet X Review appeared first on Punchboard.

The way the game works is like nothing I’ve played before. On every turn you’ll reveal a clue card which tells you the sort of place she’s been spotted at. The clue is an icon, which matches several locations on the board. You can pop your dark lady markers on those spots, then on the next turn, the next clue shows you where she went. Some of those new places will have been impossible to get to if you started at some of your marked locations, so by applying some logic, you can start to guess where she is.

The theme and aesthetic is beautifully represented throughout the game, with quotes from the bard himself, and a really interesting book is included, explaining who each of the potential dark ladies really was.

The Knowledge

Once you’ve got a good idea where she’s going, you can move your pawn across London to attempt to intercept her. Sometimes there might only be one logical location, sometimes you’re guessing between two. If you want to search for her because you think you’re in the right location, you get to use one of my favourite mechanisms in any game I’ve played.

You take the location card matching where your pawn is, then overlay the clue card. The location cards all have a small hole cut in them, and when you flip the pair of cards, hopefully you’ll have a small, black silhouette of the lady visible through the hole. If that happens you reveals a new dark lady clue card, which helps with your final deduction, and then she slips off into the night again, like a wisp of smoke disappearing into the fog of London’s streets.

Then, the hunt continues. Much like Palm Island, there’s a countdown card in the clue deck, and every time it comes to the top, it’s flipped or rotated to give you a countdown until the game’s over. You need to make your grand unveiling before that happens, and you’ll only be able to safely do that if you’ve revealed enough of the dark lady cards to make your deduction.

My poor brain

My brain is more broken because of my trying to understand how the game works, rather than try to solve it. The game can only work if the cards are stacked in a logical order, so that she genuinely moves around London without teleporting. With that in mind, you’d think the game gets easy. Just remember the order of the cards, right?

Wrong.

There are at least eight different ways to stack the deck, and every time you play, you’ll cut the deck at a random place to start. Plus, when you discover the dark lady clues, you move ever-increasing stacks of cards from the top to the bottom of the deck, so whole chunks are skipped. And somehow, it still works. John Kean, the designer, is either a wizard, or a very clever person, that’s all that I know. How this ever came to be, is a mystery to me, and this is a print-and-play game that got published too, so it’s not coming from a big design studio.

At the end of the game when you decide to try to guess the identity, you use the collected clue cards and try to employ some logic skills to figure out which three of the seven characteristics she must have. Then you do the big reveal and find out if you’re more Holmes or Clouseau in your detective work.

Final thoughts

I can’t fully express how impressed I am by Black Sonata. It’s an amazing game. It’s a board game and a mystery deduction all in one box, and those are my two favourite things. I don’t know how the logic and maths behind the game works, and I don’t want to lift the curtain and see. It’s a bit like a magic trick, you think you want to know how it works, but once you know, it’s ruined. Suffice to say, I think it’s genius.

It’s such a gorgeous puzzle in a little box, and even though I know that the longevity is theoretically limited, due to the limited ways the deck can be built, it doesn’t feel like it. There’s so many things thrown into the mix, which make it near-impossible to remember all the setups. These include fog cards, which both obscure your view of a location, but also give you an expendable bonus. That bonus can do all sorts of things, including swapping the identity of the lady you’re seeking. Unless you sit there with a notepad and pen, meticulously plotting every conceivable route – which you could do – you’re not going to wear the game out any time soon.

Black Sonata is a solo game, but you and another could talk through the clues and make deductions if you wanted. It’s got a tiny footprint, and plays out inside an hour, so it’s a real Martini game – any time, any place, anywhere. There’s an expansion I don’t have yet, but will definitely buy, just to keep this marvellous game alive longer for me.

If you enjoy logic puzzles, mystery, and deduction, Black Sonata is the easiest recommendation I’ll ever make. It’s absolutely brilliant, and if you can’t find it in stock anywhere, you can print your own copy right now.

A review copy of Black Sonata was kindly provided by TGG games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Black Sonata (2017)

Designer: John Kean
Publisher: TGG Games
Art: John Kean
Players: 1
Playing time: 30-45 mins

The post Black Sonata Review appeared first on Punchboard.