From The Wheel to Robot Rebellion in 10 easy steps: Innovation Review

Innovation
Designer: Carl Chudyk
Published by: Asmadi Games
Players: 2-4

Guide your society from humble stone age beginnings to the dizzying heights of the internet and self aware robots through new technologies, ideas and innovations as you fight your neighbours tooth and nail to be the first to claim the glorious spoils of progress. Innovation is a card game of civilization building and merciless conflict that offers a surprisingly engaging experience for players willing to dig past the superficially random and unpredictable gameplay elements.




Innovation is comprised of ten decks or 'ages' of cards, each representing a technological or social concept - the namesake Innovations - that provide abilities and resources to the controlling player. The cards are spread across 5 colours that are loosely linked thematically and mechanically, and players will over the course of the game build piles of each of the five colours with the top cards of each pile making their abilities (called Dogmas) available to the player. The goal is to be the first to acquire a certain number of Achievement cards (6 in 2 player, 5 in 3 player, 4 in 4 player) which also run from age 1 to 10 plus an additional 5 special achievements. To claim an achievement a player must have a score of 5 times the value of the card (ie, 5 points for the first age achievement, 10 points for the second etc) as well as a top card on the board equal to or higher than the age of that achievement.

The game starts with each player drawing two cards and choosing one to Meld (a card played onto the top of a pile, or starting a new pile if that colour is not present on their board) to begin. A turn in Innovation consists of two actions, which can be the same or different. Players may draw a card - from the age deck equal to the highest top card they already have on the board, or the next available age up if that deck has been depleted - or meld a card from their hand onto their board, or claim an achievement, or activate the dogma of one of their top cards.

A board on the early turns of a game

Each one of Innovation's 105 cards is unique and provides a dogma ability, as well as 3 icons of 6 different types. Dogmas come in two flavours, "I Demand" actions, which force other players to give you something or just inflicts something nasty on them, and non-demand beneficial actions that affect you and those who "Share" in that dogma. Each dogma action has an icon associated with it, and the total number of icons of that type on a player's board determines how they are affected.

For I Demand dogmas, players who have at least as many of the featured icon as you do are immune to the effects. For non-demand dogmas, players who have at least as many of the featured icon as you also execute that dogma and it is mandatory, not optional that they do so. The sharing players go first, and you execute the dogma actions last, also drawing a bonus card if at least one other player executed that action. But sharing isn't always caring, and nominally beneficial shared dogmas can be used to wreck your opponents plans as they are forced to meld over or score cards they were pinning their hopes on.

So you have your piles of cards, but only your top card in each colour is providing you with any benefits at first. This is where Innovation's other key mechanic comes in, "splaying". Dogma effects will often direct you to splay a pile of cards, either left, right, or up. To splay a pile, you slide each card in that direction so that some of the icons on the cards beneath are exposed - splaying left will expose one additional icon per card, right two, and up three. The icons are distributed differently on different cards, and are weighted to a certain degree towards certain colours. Factories for example, show up most frequently on red cards, leaves are heavily weighted towards yellow cards, light bulbs to blue and so on. There are four spots for icons on each card, but every card will have a non-functional card icon taking up one of those spots, varying the effectiveness of left, right or upward splays.

Piles splayed up and right

Dogmas will also allow you to score cards - taking a card from your hand, your board or drawn from a deck and adding it to your score pile. You will need to score in order to buy the game-winning achievements, but you can never sit back on a safe little pile of points. In Innovation you are always vulnerable. Dogmas will allow your opponents to attack your score pile, returning or outright stealing your precious points and you put off buying that achievement until next turn and now your score pile is wrecked and there's nothing you can do but find a way to be equally vicious back!

And that is a running theme in Innovation. It is geared towards finding a weak spot where you have an advantage over your opponents and squeezing. Because dogmas are a (relatively) static feature on your board and not something played from a hand and discarded, there is nothing stopping you from reactivating that same brutal dogma turn after turn, until you've wrung every possible advantage and every bitter tear from your opponent, and it is on them find a solution before the game gets away from them. Play cards to get icon supremacy and become immune to the demand, share a dogma that forces you to meld over or score away the offending card, or dig desperately into the higher age decks looking for an equally vicious card that you'll have to answer in turn rather than continuing to beat on them. It's an arms race, and it is ever escalating.

And when it escalates, it escalates big. Earlier ages see relatively (for Innovation at least) tame dogma effects, but starting at age 5-6 scoring engines that will propel you to an endgame start appearing with regularity. If the players are keeping pace with each other, they will be pushed into the higher ages in short order, with ever more powerful dogmas, until age 9 and 10 where effects that can almost single handedly decide the game are commonplace. There are also alternate win conditions lurking around this range that act as a catchup mechanic to those severely behind in achievements. The counterpoint to this is that it can feel a bit too swingy and unfair when solid play throughout the early to midgame is flipped on it's head by someone drawing into crazy powerful late dogmas (notably the nuclear reset button of the Fission dogma).

That's partly why I feel Innovation is actually two games, a two-player game and a multiplayer game. With more than two, the increased amount of dogmas and faster drawing through the decks propel the game into the late ages much faster, and to be honest a lot of these games are going to end up a crapshoot as to who wins from crazy dogmas. Unless one player just outclasses the others, scores tight and fast and wins before the newer players really know what's going on, which is not much fun. The random party style game has its place and can still be quite enjoyable with the right crowd, but I don't think it really does the game justice.  Innovation is definitely best played with two, or possibly four with the 2v2 team variant rules.

That's not to say the two player game is without its flaws or randomness. The same complaints apply, however in a two player game you have more time to develop to the point of not being swept by one powerful dogma, and only having one other player's cards affecting you makes the whole thing easier to deal with. Having to worry about the threats presented by five dogmas at a time is much preferable to ten or fifteen. Also, I think the two player game really only starts to truly shine with a lot of repeat plays. It's a higher barrier to entry, but the game becomes deeper when you really get to know the cards, their icons, and which are actually good cards. 

Two players unfamiliar with the cards are still going to be playing a mostly tactical game, what's the best dogma I have available to use until I luck into a better one. When you get to know the key cards in each age and how best to use them, which dogmas form into good combos and where you can pick up largely off-colour icons on otherwise middling cards to edge yourself ahead, the potential for deeper strategy emerges. Compared to the more swingy affairs of multiplayer games, two player games where both parties know the game well have for me tended to be extremely tight, tense showdowns. I've had multiple games ending with both players on 5 achievements, within 1 point of each other, and the losing player (me) about to also pick up the winning 6th next turn.

The other major criticism to draw here is the theme, Innovation is pretty much a poster child for 'pasted on theme'. There is no card art to speak of and mechanically there is little to really reinforce the idea of building a civilization as the technologies just sort of float around on their own without anything to really tie them together. There are some dogma mechanics that make sense thematically (Fission, for example which nukes everyone's board) but often as not they're linked weakly if at all. There is however an iello reprint edition that has full colour card art and some language tweaks which would probably improve that. I've only played the Asmadi version but from what I've seen I would rather have the iello.

In either case, Innovation is a good inexpensive buy that becomes really great if you've got one or more regular partners to play 2 player with, and is still worthwhile with more. Just don't play with people who might get upset when you're a bit of a bastard in a game, because that's probably going to happen. Like that first time you dogma The Pirate Code to steal your opponent's score.. and the second time.. and third..

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