World's Most Complicated Board Game (is okay) | Aeon Trespass: Odyssey Review 

UPDATE: We’d like to clarify the section of the video between 49:54 and 50:47. Spoilers for the first campaign of the game follow. … … … … … … … … … … After the publication of the video the publisher got in touch with us and informed us that the plot twist we elaborate on is subverted elsewhere in the plot. Despite extensive playthrough, we did not encounter this subversion. After we received this communication, we explored the campaign book further and discovered that such a subversion does exist and it undermines the tropes established by the original plot twist, however it is locked away behind specific criteria that are highly dependent on chance. The publisher did insist that this subversion is alluded to in all critical parts of the story but did not inform us on where else it can be discovered by the majority of players in a single playthrough.

This looks like the a game I would have designed if I was left in solitary confinement for 10 years

This is exactly the kind of game that makes me ask: Why wasn’t this a video game instead?”

You literally just saved me $1000+, so I went to your website and submitted a small donation of appreciation. Thanks for all the great coverage and content.

I can't imagine how exhausting it was to do this video, but I gotta say, whenever y'all do a deep dive on something, you always do an incredible job with it.

Great review. I absolutely love this game, as a solo experience. To me this is, as I said, an experience … rather than a game. It is, to me, what games dream of, when they go to sleep at night. It feels like a series of novels that I will never finish-which is exactly what I want, when I find something that I really love. This game is certainly NOT something I could imagine playing on “game night.” It’s more like an endless show to binge, wherein my choices, luck, and lack of luck, create a version that I will never duplicate in my lifetime. Even if I somehow finish and decide to play it again from the start.

Great shoutout to Oathsworn. My group just completed chapter 12. Best group coop game I've ever played. The story is engaging, swift, and impactful on the combat, which is unique every fight. Sessions last close to two hours each, and everything we do is memorable. I can't wait to get to the finale only to repeat the game with a new group of players.

Thank you very much for taking the time reviewing this beast of a game. From the moment I knew you will be reviewing this game I felt excitement rise. I think I will be getting the game from the reprint campaign. But I still highly value what you are doing here. And I want to be more specific. First of all, I like the way you formulate your criticisms (not only in this video) and I think that game creators willing to open-mindedly take them into consideration can make good use of it in a way that we, as players, can take advantage of. I had the impression in the video that you feel sorry about that. I think you should not and I appreciate that you tell us what you really feel about the game. This is why I am here for. But that's not all. It's a good point that you mention your Tainted Grail review. I got the game after you made this review of TG because, in a really similar way than ATO, I felt the game might be for me. Your criticism of TG made me change my expectations about the game and helped me select the variants to get the best experience out of the game for me and my wife. I think the journey I had through the game wouldn't have been as pleasant as it was without your take on the game. I'm still wondering whether I will go through ATO alone or with my wife. At this point, going with a full group sounds like it's not going to happen. But I know that I will have to put in place clever solutions to counter some of the negatives you have mentioned. And I know, by experience, that I will enjoy my journey even more thanks to you. I think ATO is a niche game. But that's a niche I am in. I am grateful to publishers like Into The Unknown willing to share their vision without watering it down to please a larger audience. I might be completely crazy but this is the experience I am looking for. I want to immerse in time, space, rules, theme, mechanics, story. I am not even a native english speaker and there are tons of reading. So yeah, crazy I said. Thank you again NPI for what you do ❤

I knew I was never going to want to play this in the first 4 minutes but still watched the whole thing. Great video!

Gloomhaven Fluxx is the greatest descriptor of a board game I've heard in some time. There's a LOT in those 2 little words

When your D&D group decides "none of these ttrpgs are complicated enough and are too versatile"

This seems like it would work better on a computer, so you didn't have to do the setup or remember all the rules. Mind you, that's my reaction to a lot of complicated board games.

Even though I don't play games like this, and am unlikely to, I love deep dives like this video because it gives me a thoroughly researched and well put together window into a world I would otherwise never see.

I heard about this due to the quack situation, but after this video I think I want something less complicated, like Cones of Dunshire.

I have always admired the way you delivered your thoughts. Longer video you made, but so engaging and entertaining that I did not feel like it was an hour. Hat off.

Also, much love to "Ghosteen" behind you. I've worked on a number of Nick Cave cover projects, and that album still devastates me.

My GF said when I bought a big board game "why do you use hard earned money to punish youselve?". 😅

I don't SPECIFICALLY like that you delve in mega-gigantic-ultra-kickstarter-supreme-$500 games that I will never buy or or likely ever get a chance to play. However I do like that you do them, and more importantly I like HOW you do them. I love your depth, the things you talk about, your desire to put more of your opinions in the video instead of trying to be "unbiased or impartial". I love your passion and willingness to dive deeper into something than I could ever fathom. So, do I want to see another review on yet another campaign game? No not really. But I trust that maybe you know that. And if you DID decide to make another video about one, woooo boy I bet there will be a good reason for it.

As always it is very impressive how much thought and skill you put into your review videos! Learned a lot about AT:O in this one and will rewatch your review of Oathsworn now :-)

Great overview and review. This by far is the most ambitious game I have ever owned. I am about to start cycle 3, and have to say the story is the best so far. Each ending of each cycle is very rewarding. App is a requirement, I play on a 3x4 table, have a simple flow to transition into the voyage flow. I will admit, as a solo player, I am using a few house rules to simplify the game. Looking forward to the future games from ITU. I also own Oathsworn and KDM, but for me ATO has the edge.

Great video! Always entertaining and informative reviews on your channel. Thanks for posting it!

This review helped me make the decision to buy Kingdom Death: Monster instead.

Dude, you are amazing! Honestly, a lot of ppl won’t be happy with your take, but, thank you for not just being honest, but putting in the time and work to arrive at a place where you feel confident in your honest appraisal. I agree about oathsworn, and I actually bought a cheap and used sleeping gods a little while ago to play on my own. I’m always impressed with every video you do. Thank you!

I’m 5:30 into the video and this is reminding me so much of DnD encounter charts where things are “technically possible” but so outrageously unlikely to happen that I’m left to wonder what the point of them being around is.

Thanks for this, I needed someone to snap me out of spending most of my money on a board game because I can't help but go all in.

I was very much entertained and found the video very much useful - thanks for your time, insights and devotion!

Oh thank gosh I made it through the intro! Much better now. 😁The Intro's intentional firehose-pacing was a struggle...which became positively demoralizing when the second table was pulled in. 🤦‍♂

43:00 I actually enjoyed the pursuing megaboss in Tainted Grail. It took some clever movements but we mostly evaded it, so we almost never had to fight it. And when we did fight It, we either won quickly or ran away. It was 5 minute fights. Not 2 hour fights.

My first reaction was "Hell yeah, over an hour video from NPI" and my last reaction was "Goddamn, it's 2 AM already." Awesome video, joy to watch. I feel compelled to try to figure out what these factions do that you can't say on RU-vid.

I don't know if I've ever seen a review more efficiently convey that I definitely won't enjoy a game than the first minute of this one. Great job!

Wonderful video, thank you. I appreciate your work a lot, each video has become a joy to watch that I look forward to.

I KNOW I'll never play this, but I do appreciate the extraordinary effort required for this review 😅

After days of rules prep and teaching my husband, we set down to play. I couldn't get past the first fight, immediately sold everything to my friend who will probably love it. I think this will be heaven for some people, but for me it was not even okay. I backed it for the map exploration 1/2 which is sad because by the time I finished that fight, I knew that no matter how awesome that other 1/2 may be, it could never make up for the fight scenes. I curled back into Frosthaven wondering why I even considered dating someone else.

That intro was well done. Simple rule to understand. Roll dice to determine what dice you roll *queue Cones of Dunshire gif*. But really it does look all quite interesting.

Very good video, informing us as you do about the matter of complications around this game. Nice to see a Nick Cave record too 🙂

Really great review with some great critiques, especially the part about the surprise battles. And yet, I love the game, and I am really looking forward to the future cycles and Twelve Sins of Herakles.

As someone who has played over 100 hours of ATO as a 2-player game, I wanted to put forward my thoughts on the game and the points made in the video (loosely in the order of the video): - I 100% agree that the game is incredibly complex, there are many, many rules and that could difinitely turn many people away. - The game takes up a huge amount of table space and has hundreds of hours of content. If you can commit to that, the gameplay is incredibly rewarding, but it isn't for everyone. - I definitely agree that this game is too much for 4 players. 1-2 players is best. - I partially disagree with the video's statement of randomness in battles, especially the comparison to Flux. Yes, there are extreme moments of good or bad luck, but there are many ways to mitigate that variance, allowing you to reroll dice or even retry battles. Additionally, losing a battle is not the end of the game, you can still get resources and mitigate your losses; the focus is on managing your resources to win the campaign. Bad luck in one battle is just a setback. - I've had a very different experience with Out-of-range evades. Very rarely is it worthwhile to just run away from the primordial and burn turns. You need to attack to build rage. Its often much better to manipulate who is going to be attacked than to avoid the attack entirely. - I strongly disagree with the video's point that fighting the same primordial becomes monotonous. As the primordials level up they get new abilities that recontextualize their fight which, combined with your constantly updating gear and loadouts, keeps fights fresh an engaging. You do need to craft more specialized gear as the primordial gets stronger, but I've never felt that it makes loadouts stagnant. - Ambushes happen a couple times each cycle. I'm surprised the video brings them up. Maybe they were not removing the cards from the deck? - The Adversaries (that chace you down) are definitely not invincible bosses, so I never really felt the issues with that. I do agree, however, that adversary battles can sometime become monotonous when they occur too often. - I definitely agree that the adventure tables dont work well for multiple reasons. They arent game breaking, but could definitely be improved. - I got very different theming out of the game. (Slight spoilers in this section) I agree that portrayal of the nymphs is exploitative, but outside of that I didnt really see the focus on the exploitation of women, especially in cycle 1. This is largely up to your own interpretation, but I found that the issues in cycle 1 were mostly caused by multiple Men's grief, not a Woman's. You do have to piece together these relevations, so they could easily be missed. Personally I enjoyed the way that each faction was morally gray, having both sympathetic and adversarial consituents, with a huge amout of lore to piece together what actually happened between these factions. - I agree that the grid to track decisions is very hard to remember and the alternatives mentioned in the video would be a definite improvement. Thanks for reading if you got this far. I overall agree with the video that the game is too complex for many and requires a huge time investment. I also agree that there are multiple systems that show the inexperience of the developers. However, I think the video is too harsh on the story and combat, both of which my play group has found consistently engaging and is what has kept us playing every weekend. There is a reason that the game is so highly rated on BGG.

Thank you both for getting it out when you did. I value your opinion and many of the things you bring up as valuable to you, coherent and concise storytelling, are also really important to me. The fomo almost had me backing this game but thanks to you I'm not going to be spending my money on it. I'm already a patreon sub but I'll bump my value up as a tribute to the money you saved me!

Great Review… thank you 🙏🏻 and i am glad to have Oathsworn… playing chapter 5 and totally stunned and in love with that game. 🤘🏻😎

You can't get knocked down multiple turns in a row. That's why the Knockdown card has the 'standing up' side. It protects you against multiple knockdowns in a row.

Definitely useful and entertaining! This isn't even a game I'd ever be interested in playing. Thank you

I am 6 minutes in, and all I'm hearing is "KDM, but even more convoluted"

what a great video! you guys are the best in the biz! thanks for another mega video!

Best video that was able to explain why someone wouldn't like this game. I have backed the smallest portion of the system - Sins Summer to find out for myself in the least overwhealming way possible. My guess is that by the end of that I'll feel like I'll have seen and enjoyed enough, but would rather have more focused narrative experiences - or ones with just emergent shorter ones.

What an excellent review. I'm currently in for the TSoH pledge, and you gave much food for thought... Wondering how streamlined the newer content will be?

Always appreciate the thoroughness. Helping the industry do better.

People should also check out the recent review of this game by The King of Average, who calls it his favorite game. He also discusses the app which seems to address several of Efka’s criticisms (like not being able to remember story beats and choices-the app lets you add note reminders). This game obviously won’t be for everyone, but it’s notable that lots of people do love it and find it a masterpiece. Even in this comment section, almost everyone who has played it has liked it. I’m looking forward to trying it. It looks epic. I like games like Tainted Grail, Solomon Kane, etc, and I’ll be playing solo or occasionally with my wife with a large dining table I can keep this on.

Your thoughtful approach is much appreciated

I love your content, keep it up. Glad I backed oathsworn

Great review as always!!

Thanks for the indepth review! I own KDM, Oathsworn and Sleeping Gods and was very close to backing Aeon Trepass but cancelled my backing in the last few days (before watching this video) as I decided when I searched my soul that I didn't need another KDM in my life! Glad to see that 2 other games I have really enjoyed both get a shout out for scratching this games itch but in a more fun way! Keep up the amazing work.

Finally got to watch the whole video. I love ATO but I still respect how you did this! Wow subscribing

Still playing through the "tutorial" of this game. Kingdom Death Monster is my favorite game ever, so I figured I might as well try the copy cat everyone loves. So far it's interesting, I like the changed/additions they made to the combat. Looking forward to playing more

Im finding it interesting how directly it copies main mechanics from KDM. Even the emptiness of battle board.

Hey, really enjoyed the video! It was nice to see how someone organizes the game, as this its very big game to table haha. What is the size of your main table? The one you set the battleboard? thanks!

I like your reviews so much, i even watch the ones for games that I'll probably never even play. Keep up the great work. Also, I spied the Ghosteen in the background. Funny enough I saw Nick Cave on this date in 2017.

To be perfectly honest: This video indeed has been incredibly valuable to me. Thanks for making it!

I have been trying to decide if I should get this game. I still don't know (which means I probably shouldn't), but this review is hilarious. Subscribed!

Great piece of work as usual!

Thank you for this one. I was all in on Aeon Trespass and this convinced me to think again. Thanks for getting this out before the kickstarter closed.

Great video watched the whole thing Thank You

I'm only 4 minutes in and my brain is unraveling. I'm so glad I'm watching this before I get high tonight- this might have broken my weed-addled brain

That was awesome. Good job you two!! 👍

First, I may be the only one that got the very clever wordplay of "Pillars of Parthenon," having loved the D&D Gamebook "Pillars of Pentegarn" as a kid in the 80s. Second, your summary of "Gloomhaven Flux" was brilliant and told me all I needed to know about this game; I watched the entire video because your reviews are just so flipping entertaining regardless whether I ever want to play the game or not.

Man, this review is genius. I've laughed very hard at the description of multiple battles in a row and tearing up/down the map.

A really good and thorough review, I completed all three cycles but I absolutely agree with all your points, it didn’t however stop me from loving this game !

i know it was KDM like, but jeeesh its practically kdm

Thank you very much for the review!

I like how you brought up how so much of the humanitarian writing in this is really just showcasing how bad the badguys are. A deeper writing would spend less time showcasing the villains and more time show empathising with the victims. Showing the victims are their own fleshed out characters, and how they are dealing with the oppression. A deeper take would spend more "screen time" on the victims than on the villain.

Thanks for this, I was thinking about buying Oathsworn and Sleeping Gods, now I'll do it this month.

Commenting for the algorithm. Had a great time watching this, keep up the good work ❤

Awesome video! Glad I already have those "other two games" you mentioned! I have no remorse now for not backing this game.

Watching this review makes me want to get Sleeping Gods back off the shelf, and then to play Oathsworn when it arrives. AT:O looks way better than KDM, but not enough for me to spend a crazy amount of money on.

Man... the close at 13:39 "in the other hand" is an edition masterpiece! lol

I cancelled my $1000 pledge, so I sent you a donation as a thank you from saving me from this Asylum of a game. Also: [ INTO THE UNKNOWN WOULD LIKE TO KNOW YOUR LOCATION]

I've got to chime in here and say that I'm halfway through Cycle 2, have logged 41 Primordial battles (had to restart cycles a few times), and I have never once performed an Out of Reach Evade. I never felt the need to. Plus, it's not even a viable tactic for many Primordials because they don't always just target the Titan in front. I would say that, with few exceptions, setting up an OOR Evade is more trouble than it's worth and has the potential to massively backfire.

I think I'll just join Collin in watching Fraiser again

That moment in Oathsworn stunned our group to silence. Phenomenally well delivered and impactful plot beat. I wasn't as enthused with the game overall, but will never forget, and am very happy to have experienced, that moment. I'm looking forward to the next generation of "dual wielding" gaming tables that can handle the ever growing scale of these campaign games 😅

Awesome review. I’m one of those weird players that care more about the theme/art style/world than the mechanics. Sleeping gods, TMB, oathsworn, gloomhaven all have fun mechanics but I just cannot get excited to dive back in. I’m curious and enjoy playing with friends but not itching to play those games.

Gracias, muchas gracias, me haz hecho reconsiderar seriamente, y optar por disfrutar los juegos que tengo. Saludos a Elaine!

Good video. What was the song you used near the end and sometime during?

As a fan of the game (love a lot of parts of it)... I also like this review. Really well done, Efka. I personally prefer Aeons Trespass over Sleeping Gods (though I also like that) - but you are very right in your criticisms of some of the map and the nymphs especially. It's hard to square. My personal take on c2 was more positive than yours, but I really liked the mechanical interaction of humanity versus failure. Good work! Criticism is good.

This was very helpful. You saved me some money thank you ❤❤❤

Great video!

Love the work you put into the aeon video, this game got some rough edges, plus side, i have sleeping gods and oathsworn

Great video very well thought out and analysis.

Thoughtful review thanks a lot. Subscribed. Thanks for giving me insight. Since i played KD:M on tabletop simulator iam looking for similar games

Thank You so much.. watching the video was like rolling that mythical 10 crit... I've cancelled and re-pledged over 20 times, thinking I'm missing out on something special. I want it all or nothing at all.. I'm a recreational player that loves minis, a good story, seamless mechanics and I take 2 to 3 turns a night as I tend to my kids running around the house. This might not be the game for me. I still want it.. but I think I have to pass. GGGrrrrr I may regret it.. but with so much content, I'm hoping more reviews come out like yours about the 12 sins campaigns as well. Is it supposed to be more seamless or just a host of different complicated rules!! and no clear info about the 3 other seasons but pledge 400 extra .. hhmm. I am just in hypnosis because of it's gargantuan scope and amazing morbid looking miniatures.. I hope to shake the Fear of Missing out soon... Even though I'm still waiting on 10 other games to arrive!!

"On the other hand" *zooms to other hand. " Perfection.

Amazing work! Thank you so much! Bell pressed

Playing it in a group. My current favorite!

Great review NPI!

Good review, sounds like an ideal gateway game for beginners.

sleepless nights thinking about backing ATO, but now I have a good night sleep though :)))

HERE WE GOOOOOOO

this game sounds like a video game turned into a board game, except you have to do all the work the AI normally does in the background so you can play the game.

This was absolutely fantastic and so well done. I had already decided to pass on the reprint and new things and your video solidified that I made the right choice. I have Oathsworn and that's about the right scope for us, or even smaller (aka, no campaign). Also yes, very entertaining!

Comment for the algorithm. Also, great review. Good clear descriptions. I love how you reviewed the world building as well as the geberal gameplay. Seems like such a disorganized mess

Wow, 2 minutes in and I am both repelled and intrigued... phobia and philia at the same time. Sounds like a great system... if they make a PC port. I'm honestly spoiled by Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars and Scythe digital and BGA now.

For complicated next review SPI's AirWar '77. I remember it fondly...