First Impression: High Voltage

By Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
October 13, 2006

Publisher: Post Scriptum
Designer: Gianfranco Sartoretti
Artist: Paolo Vallerga / Scribabs
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 45 Minutes
Rules Languages: English, Italian and German

Game Played: Final Version
Number of Plays: 1 with 4 players.

High Voltage is the new game from Post Scriptum. It’s a totally different production from their first release (BauSquitMiao): new designer, new art and also a new type of game. High Voltage is a typical German game more on the side of an abstract game than on a themed game. Despite the appearance it is absolutely not a Metro-clone, but a game with his own peculiarities and mechanics.

In High Voltage you control one of the 4 power companies and you will try to make connections between Power Stations as long as possible (scoring points yourself) and also using as much as possible lines of your colour (scoring points for the company). At the end of the game you will add your personal score to the one of your company: the highest will win.

Like in Clans, the colour of your company is kept secret and you will try not to reveal your plans too early but also make connections that gives your company a lot of points.

The game is played on a 7x7 grid of tiles with an empty free space in the middle. All around the board there are power plants tiles (with lines pointing toward the centre of the grid) which is also used as score track. In fact it could have been better to have a map with the power plants and a scoring track, since the set up is always the same and it could be a bit time consuming.

During your turn you can reveal a new tile (and place it face up in the free space or in the square when it comes from) or rotate an existing one. Spending action points (you have a fixed amount at the start of the game) you can swap two already revealed tiles or move one already revealed tile in the free space. As soon as two power plants on different side of the board are connected with 4 or more tiles you score points. You get personal points for making long connections (5 tiles or more) and also every company will score as many points as the link of the matching colour. after that you will place an “high voltage” counter on every tile used in the connection and you will turn to the “danger” side any “high voltage” counter already there: a tile with a danger counter becomes fixed (you can’t move o rotate it). You can’t close a line if you will use more than 3 tiles already occupied by high voltage counters or by one or more danger counters. This is the very new idea in that games, since the tiles become more difficult to use after each connection.

In that way you always have a free space and turn after turn the grid will be revealed and built. As the game progress there is a great amount of possible moves/combinations and it needs a lot of thinking. It is a game with simple rules but you really need to think a lot before making your movement.

You also have a special action counter you can use only one time in the game to make a double move or to move a tile with a danger counter on it. When and how to use this special counter is really important in determining the winner. Since all the 4 colours are equal distributed over the tiles and since you will use almost all the tiles before the end of the game, it is important how you use the tiles and how you rotate them.

In my 4 player game I found the game becomes too time/brain consuming in the middle of the game and also in the final stages.  One or more players could be cut off from winning and a “king maker” aspect will appear. I really prefer High Voltage over Metro but it is still too much abstract for me and too brain consuming. I think it will work better as a 2 players games since you will have more control on what will happens between your turns.

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