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Review of Not Alone: Sanctuary
Blurb from the publisher: 'You are Not Alone... and you are not the first to explore Artemia! Rescue the other crash survivors. Fortify the city of Sanctuary. Hide from a constantly evolving Creature.
Sanctuary offers the hunted a new path to victory and introduces new cards, which grant the Creature and the Hunted special abilities.
Sanctuary is an expansion for Not Alone and requires the base game to play.'
What you get: Your EUR 19,90 or equivalent will buy you Not Alone: Sanctuary, the second expansion for the action-programming and hand-management Not Alone game line for two to seven players that lasts around 45 minutes. The present expansion partially increases play time.
The line should not be confused with the Alone game line, the semi-cooperative dungeon crawler boardgame from Horrible Guild and Ares Games.
In addition to the 12-page small format English rulebook which can be also downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game includes one board, 20 Place cards, 15 Hunt cards, 15 Survival cards, 12 Avatar cards, 18 Survivor cards, 30 Evolution cards, 10 DNA counters, one Defense counter, and one Sanctuary token.
Gameplay: Sanctuary can be played with only the base game, or in tandem with the Exploration expansion, even though the latter approach will dilute the Hunt and the Survival decks. Sanctuary offers new cards in the 6-10 range, like the Bivouac (7) (draw a Survival card plus a Survivor, but don't activate its ability), the Hive (9) (rescue a survivor or you or another player regains 1 Will) and the Monolith (10) (discard 1 developed evolution and discard that card from the game).
The small map is arranged according to the number of players with regards to its defenses. The Sanctuary is designated randomly. The Creature receives DNA counters and draws evolution cards depending on the number of players, while the Hunted players semi-randomly receive an Avatar card. Avatars make the game more asymmetrical. The Communications Officer regains Place cards for each spent will while resisting, the Pilot regains a Place card when he is down to his minimum Will etc.
The game plays like the base game, with a few exceptions. During Reckoning the Hunted have two new options when they are on a place without a Human token. The first is to rescue a survivor, if they are in a place that is horizontally or vertically adjacent to the place with the Sanctuary token. Instead of activating the effect of the place or taking back a Place from the discard pile, the player takes one face-up Survivor and immediately uses his ability. Then, he puts the card facedown in front of him. Survivor abilities include prohibiting the Creature from evolving or nesting during the next Evolution phase, regaining Will, drawing Survival cards and many more. The second option is to fortify Sanctuary and shelter the survivors. To do that a player needs to be on the place with the Sanctuary token. Instead of activating the effect of the Place or taking a Place from discard, the Hunted may advance the Defense counter. The counter can advance an additional space if the Hunted discards all his Survivors. When the Defense counter reaches a bonus space, the Hunted players can immediately apply its effects. Examples include discarding part of the Creature's DNA, everybody gaining Will, everybody drawing a Survival card etc. If the Defenses are maxed out, the Hunted players win the game outright.
If all that sounds like the game one-dimensionally helps the Hunted, think again. An Evolution Phase is added to the game straight after the End-of-turn Phase. The Sanctuary token first rotates between places 1 to 5, at least until Defenses make places from 6 to 10 available. New Survivors are revealed, replenishing the available ones. The Creature may then either evolve or nest. The former involves drawing a piece of DNA, as well as an Evolution card by discarding a piece of DNA from either the level I or the level II deck. This DNA however is not developed. To develop it, the Creature needs to spend from one to six additional pieces of DNA, depending on the card. Card abilities range from immediately gaining DNA due to choosing a particular place to partially masking the location of the Creature. The Creature can fill four evolution slots. Following that, it has to discard an Evolution card in order to develop a new one. If the Creature does not wish to evolve it can nest. It immediately takes three DNA, while the Hunted's Defenses advance.
The Hunted now have two roads to victory. The traditional Rescue way, or maxing out Sanctuary's Defenses. The Creature wins if the Assimilation counter reaches its victory space.
The strong points: Where Exploration was a more-of-the-same expansion, Sanctuary almost feels like a different game. Admittedly, the new Hunt and Survival cards do not introduce new mechanisms, yet they are a welcome addition for more diversity. Bonus points for that single line in the rulebook that states the obvious: the more the cards the more diluted the decks.
Avatars are not a game changer, yet isn't it fun for each player to have a marginally different ability and engage more thematically with the Alien-inspired game? Interestingly, it adds a layer of complexity in cooperation, seeing how the Hunted now have additional options.
I enjoyed the addition of the Survivor cards; there are many interesting combos and hard choices that did not exist before, and even more so because of the interaction with Sanctuary's Defenses. Having two ways for the Hunted to win the game sounds as if this is now more likely to happen, the truth however is that more options require a better understanding of what is going on, what cards have been already used, and of having an overall plan and idea of what to do.
The Creature now has the intriguing Evolution Phase up his sleeve. There are quite the approaches to that one. Cheap, easily implementable Evolution cards at the beginning of the game no matter their abilities in order to save on DNA, or a mix of level I and level II cards which however will stall deployment? Nesting sounds nice, yet every time you use it you actively help the Hunted. It is to be used sparingly and only if you have a clear view of their imminent destruction before having a chance to foil your plans. The Creature player literally has the feeling of becoming more powerful as the game progresses, even though Evolution cards are not a be-all end-all mechanic; you still need to get the original gameplay right.
The production values and the artwork achieve what they set out to do. The cards are clearly marked as belonging to this expansion. At any point you wish to go back to the base game only, or the base game with Exploration, you can do so with ease.
The weak points: Play the base game a few times before you move on to this expansion. It isn't a much harder experience, it is however easier to grasp the synergies faster if you have had some exposure already.
My statistically insignificant number of playtests does not allow me to state with confidence whether the new cards and mechanisms are as balanced as I would have enjoyed. We experienced both tense games as well as outright crushes from either side. Some Avatar cards saw more use than others, and the same applied to some locations; that was an issue that the base game faced itself. Card draws involve luck by nature, yet sometimes the Creature appeared to face a steeper hill than the Hunted. I don't know whether a semi-random approach for drawing Evolution cards or even a discard mechanism for non-developed Evolution cards which helped the Creature recover a part of the initial DNA cost would have worked better here.
Sanctuary is a solid expansion, it is not however a must-have expansion in the sense that it leaves the base game so far behind. I am more likely to play the game with the expansion, yet if I were to teach the game, or play it in a more relaxed way, the base game will do fine.
There was no fluff in the base game or in the first expansion, and there is no fluff here. Not a biggie, yet I do find it weird that such an engrossing game would prefer to present itself exclusively in a utilitarian way.
Conclusion: If you like Not Alone, you are extremely likely to enjoy Not Alone: Sanctuary, an expansion that ups the ante and the choices of both sides. There's clear added value with the extra asymmetry, the brand new road to victory, the options at the Creature's disposal and the nuanced interactions and second-guessing that arise from the new locations. I am very pleasantly surprised that a small game like this keeps on giving.
To find out more about Not Alone: Sanctuary, Geek Attitude Games and Stronghold Games take a look at https://www.geekattitudegames.com and http://strongholdgames.com respectively.
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