Larry Levy: It’s Alive! – The Game that Rose from the Grave

Yehuda Berlinger hails from Israel and, like fellow gamers Mik Svellov (Denmark) and Mikko Saari (Finland), has the distinction of being the best known gamer from his nation.  Part of that notoriety comes from being one of the founders of the Gone Gaming web site.  He has also written numerous other articles, including a thoughtful series called “Ethics in Gaming” for The Games Journal.  Many other gamers will remember his huge number of building variants for his beloved Puerto Rico.

Like many gamers, Berlinger dabbles in game design and he has spent some time trying to get one of his creations published.  I don’t recall the design’s original theme, but when most folks saw it for the first time, it was called The Menorah Game, in which players tried to fill up their Hannukah menorah by collecting one candle of each color.  Yehuda created and sold a small number of handmade versions of this, trying to get a publisher interested.  Then he sent a copy to Jackson Pope in the United Kingdom, who had set up Reiver Games to publish his own design Border Reivers.  Pope thought that the theme could be successfully changed by having the players be mad scientists collecting body parts.  He agreed to make the game Reiver’s second product, releasing it under the name “It’s Alive!” Last week, we got to try out the suddenly ghoulish design—here’s how it went.

The first thing we noticed is that the game fit its new theme like a glove.  Switching from Hannukah to horror is one of the more drastic thematic changes I can recall, but you would never guess this wasn’t the original theme if you didn’t know its history.  I know that a good theme can be a big help when designing a game, but examples like this show that it can be applied after the fact as long as the proper choices are made.  Kudos to Jackson Pope for having this insight and giving the game a more appealing and certainly more commercially acceptable theme.

The other aspect we noticed is that this felt very much like a Reiner Knizia design.  The variety of choices, the quick play, the tough decisions—even the theme (which is quite in line with many of Knizia’s recent American publications) made this feel like it could have come from the design hand of the Good Doctor.  I trust Yehuda will take that comment in the spirit in which it is intended, which is as a high compliment.  Evoking the style of one of the most successful game designers of all time has got to be a good thing, particularly for a first effort.

So what of the game itself?  The backstory is that each player is trying to create a Frankenstein-style creature from spare parts they find around the house (assuming that your house is a mausoleum).  Helping them with this task is a deck of 60 tiles.  There are ten types of tiles, and six of each is included in the deck.  Eight of these types are the different body parts, such as hand, head, and heart.  There is a value printed on each of these tiles.  Four of the part types have lower values (they range from 2-6) and the other four have higher values (from 5-8).  The players need one of each part to build their monster and higher values are preferred.

Another type of tile show coffins and they act as wild cards; their values are 9 and 10.  Finally, it wouldn’t be a mad scientist game without rioting villagers; the values on these dreaded tiles are 4 and 6.

The tiles are shuffled and placed in a face down stack in the middle of the table.  Each player begins with 12 coins, a player mat showing the eight body parts they need to collect, a screen to hide both of these, and a player’s aid.

There are two parts to each player turn.  First, the active player selects a tile, then they resolve it.  Normally, a tile is selected by drawing one from the central stack and revealing it.  Later in the game, there will be tiles stacked face up in front of each player’s screens (these areas are called the players’ graveyards).  Rather than draw from the stack, the active player can choose the top tile from any player’s graveyard by either paying their value to the bank or putting a tile of equal or greater value on top of their own graveyard.

Once a tile is selected, the player can resolve it in one of three ways.  They can buy it, by paying its value to the bank and placing the tile behind their screen (note that to buy a tile from a player’s graveyard, you have to pay the bank twice its cost).  They can sell it—the tile goes on top of that player’s graveyard and they receive half of its value from the bank (rounded down).  Or they can put it up for auction, which tends to be the most common action.

The auction is a simple once-around affair.  The active player makes the first bid.  Each other player in clockwise order either raises the current high bid or passes.  If no one has outbid the active player, they pay their bid to the bank and place the tile behind their screen.  If anyone else bids, the high bidder takes the tile and pays the amount of their bid to the active player.

Coffins are handled just like body part tiles.  They can be used in place of any other body part.  Moreover, they don’t have to be allocated until the end of the game, so they give the players who possess them considerable flexibility.  This makes them very valuable, particularly since their value is higher than any of the regular body parts.  They are expensive, though.

In the movie Young Frankenstein, the town inspector observed on multiple occasions that “a riot is an ugly thing”, and that’s pretty much how the player who draws a Rioting Villagers tile from the stack will feel about it.  Play temporarily stops while the player deals with these rude intruders.  The player can either pay the card’s value in coins or discard a tile of equal or greater value (putting it on top of their graveyard as usual).  It’s not a total loss, as they get to keep the tile, which can be used in future turns like any other owned tile (i.e., to select a graveyard tile of that value or less or to get rid of a Rioting Villagers tile of that value or less); in these cases, the Villagers tile is discarded rather than putting it on their graveyard.  The player then continues with their turn as usual, selecting another tile and resolving it.  If another Rioting Villagers is drawn during that turn, it’s ignored and shuffled into the stack at the end of the turn.

All this continues, with players taking turns in clockwise order, until one player succeeds in collecting all eight body parts for their homunculus.  They call out, “It’s Alive!” and the game ends immediately.  The players then lift their screens, revealing their creations.  Everyone totals the value of the tiles that make up their monster, keeping in mind that there can be no more than one tile of each body part (coffins can be used to substitute for any part).  Everyone also adds their number of remaining coins to this total (there’s a limit to how many coins can be added, to keep players from hoarding).  Finally, the player who ended the game adds 5 to their total.  Highest score wins and that player earns the respect of mad scientists the world over.

I’ve only played this once, but I think there’s a lot to like here.  It’s Alive! is essentially a game of money management and efficiency.  You’re trying to get good tiles and the right tiles, but money is tight, so you need to focus on keeping your funds up just as much as on acquiring tiles.  Besides making those “perfect” purchases, you want to be able to play defense and to take advantage of bargains when they come along.  So letting your coins dwindle down isn’t a good thing.

Much of the game’s strategy comes from taking advantage of the rules for auctions.  For example, you might reveal a tile that you want to buy.  You could pay full price for it to guarantee it will be yours.  But rather than do that, why not put it up for auction for one coin less than its value?  Anyone who wants to raise you will not only be paying full price for the tile, but instead of paying this to the bank, they’ll have to hand it over to you.  Odds are, you’ll get that tile and save a coin in the process.  Similarly, if you need cash, rather than selling the tile for half price, auction it and bid half the value.  Either your opponents let you have it for a bargain price, or someone else bids and you make at least one extra coin on the deal.  Of course, late in the game, you might not want to risk someone outbidding you for a crucial tile or you might be willing to take a small financial hit to keep an opponent from getting a tile on your turn.  So there’s still judgment in which actions you take on your turn.

One thing we found in our game was that there were very few tiles sold to the graveyards.  I think the game suffered a bit as a result, but I suspect we were using faulty strategy.  Auctioning a tile rather than selling it will probably provide you with one or two extra coins.  But it also lets an opponent get closer to their goal when it isn’t their turn.  This is obviously nice for the opponent, particularly if there’s someone racing to put together a complete creature quickly (and there surely will be).  (That’s one of the two basic strategies; the other one is to use high value tiles and win that way.  I suppose a third strategy might be to focus on bargains and finish with a lot of coins, but I’m not sure how viable that is.  Of course, there’s lots of ways to mix and match these basic ideas.) I think we would have been better off selling more than we did and making our opponents work harder for their tiles.

The reason it’s a problem if there are few graveyard tiles is that it reduces some of the options.  The more graveyards that have tiles, the more likely you’ll find one worth selecting.  Of course, buying these tiles is hugely expensive, but it can be worth it toward the end of the game if it fills in a gap in your creature.  Probably a more common way of selecting these tiles is by discarding tiles you already own and here is where the game rewards defensive play.  Afraid that an opponent is filling in a gap with a juicy tile or that someone is getting a tile for a bargain price?  Even if you already have a tile of that type, you still may want to bid for it.  If there are attractive tiles available in the graveyards, you can put your expenditure to good use and exchange an unneeded tile for the right to buy one you do require.  I always like it when games encourage good defensive play and here’s a case where it can be a winning strategy as long as it’s employed prudently.  Finally, having graveyard tiles available takes some of the sting out of being hit with a Rioting Villager, since these tiles can be used for some graveyard robbery as well.

For those looking to try this out, I’d advise you to try to keep the game moving.  There’s a reasonable amount to think about here, probably more than in most fillers.  But if the players take too long with their decisions, the game will overstay its welcome.  The listed duration is 30 minutes and that’s just about the right time for a game of this weight.  If by dithering, you extend it to 45 minutes, it will lose much of its appeal.

Overall, I enjoyed It’s Alive! and think it succeeds in meeting its goals admirably.  I really only have one objection to the design.  In my game, I had the bad luck to draw two of the Villager tiles and that really took me out of any chance of winning.  Worse yet, I drew them in the worst possible order:  first a 4, then a 6, so I couldn’t even use the first one to pay for the second.  Berlinger does a good job of mitigating the blow when these tiles appear by allowing the victimized player to use them later on.  But those chances don’t always arise and it’s hard to imagine someone being able to survive more than one of these tiles in a game.  I rarely think of applying house rules after playing a game only once, but bitter experience will lead me to suggest this one when we play again:  a player with a Villager tile behind their screen is not affected by a new one they draw.  Just draw until a non-Villager appears and shuffle them back into the stack.

The components for the game are quite good, particularly for a new, small publisher.  The tiles are square pieces of laminated cardstock and seem reasonably sturdy.  The main complaint was that they’re hard to shuffle without flipping some over, but they really couldn’t have made them much bigger.  The illustrations on the tiles are professionally done and are evocative without being too gory.  It can be a bit hard to distinguish them from across the table, but given the way the game plays, that isn’t really much of an issue.  The coins are small counters and work fine.  The screens are sturdy and are folded into four sections, rather than three as is so often seen, so they actually are hard to knock over, a small touch that is most appreciated.  Best of all are the terrific player aides.  These are two-sided.  One side gives the sequence of play, while the reverse gives illustrations for all the cards in the deck, along with the distributions of their values.  This is a huge help in playing the game intelligently.  It also lets the players get into the spirit of things when auctioning items; in our game, we got introductions like, “it’s a mediocre foot”, “let’s start the bidding on this Schwarzenegger-type torso...”, and “here’s the best brain EVAR!”.  I’ve done my share of bitching over publishers ignoring good player aids in their designs and forcing the players to pick up the slack, so when a small company gets it right, I want to make sure to give them the credit they deserve.

I can definitely recommend It’s Alive! as a quality filler with solid components.  Yehuda has created a nice little game that gives the players things to think about while being amused by the not-so-pasted-on theme that publisher Jackson Pope came up with.  Any time a game can be described as Knizia-like, you know it’s a sign of a talented designer.  I look forward to any further efforts he succeeds in getting published.  As for Reiver Games, this is my first experience with them, but the fact that they did such a good job with their first external submission means I’ll be favorably disposed towards any other games they release.

By the way, I’m pretty sure it isn’t celebrated in either Israel or the UK, but Halloween is coming up.  Looking for a filler to satisfy the ghosts and ghoulies in your gaming group?

Amyitis
Ystari just released an online version of the rules for their latest game, Amyitis.  As usual, this looks interesting.  Now that the company has the grand total of six games under their belt, you can kind of pick out some stylistic similarities.  Nothing too dramatic, not like they’re all area majority or anything like that.  Just little things, like the tendency to award bonuses for passing early in the round.  A few identifiable Ystari touches, which is actually pretty cool.

It’s kinda funny about their games, though.  I’ve had the chance to read the rules for all of their designs before they’ve appeared, thanks to the company’s enlightened policy of releasing their rules ahead of time.  After reading every one, I’ve thought the game sounded reasonable and would probably be fun to play.  But I’ve never read one and said, “Wow, I gotta have that game!” No one mechanic or theme has ever truly excited me.  But their games have been uniformly excellent.  In other words, they’ve excelled in coming up with titles that play better than they seemed they would on paper.  I think this is yet another sign that the secret to Ystari’s success is less their ability to pick out great designs (although that’s certainly part of it) than it’s the wonderful job consistently done by Cyril Demaegd’s great development team.  They keep producing titles that just work well as games, and that’s no small accomplishment.  With any luck, Amyitis will make Ysatri a perfect 6 for 6.  I’ll be sure to pick it up to see if their great streak continues.

© 2007 Larry Levy

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Yes, I liked It’s Alive as well. But it’s very seldom that I get to win a game the first time I play it. Posted by Kris Hall on Sep 15, 2007 at 05:36 AM | #

Halloween is celebrated in Britain, Larry, but it’s not as big as it is the States.  Here it is overshadowed by Guy Fawkes Night, which is the 5th of November—the anniversary of the 1605 attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  The authorities believe that we’re celebrating the fact that the plot failed .... Posted by Stuart Dagger on Sep 15, 2007 at 07:50 AM | #

Thanks for the review, Larry. Regarding selling tiles, I’ve played games with almost no auctioning and all selling, and vice versa. I’ve seen games with lots of buying from graveyards and with none. A lot depends on your play style, and also the number of players in the game. Regarding Villagers, it’s the number one complaint about the game. I’ve won games where I got five Villagers and no one else got any, but it’s definitely harder, and not perfectly “fair”, of course. Setting aside cash to deal with any unexpected villagers is a helpful strategy. Most people who complain about them are crippled because didn’t prepare for it and got hit. Other than that, kids seem to like the Villager cards more than grownups, because they don’t think that games are supposed to be perfectly fair all the time. Board game geeks rebel against unfairness in games and are always looking for ways of reducing luck in games. Like many other games with some luck, better play will win most of the time, but not all the time. Yehuda Posted by Yehuda Berlinger on Sep 15, 2007 at 04:52 PM | #

It would be interesting to hear what the equivalent to the Villager cards was for the original Menorah Game. I cannot even hazard a guess. Posted by Bruce Bridges on Sep 18, 2007 at 08:31 PM | #

Greek soldiers who came to blow out your candles. Yehuda Posted by Yehuda Berlinger on Sep 19, 2007 at 01:42 AM | #

Thanks, Yehuda! I can see that working within the original theme. Good luck on the game! It’s now on my want list. Posted by Bruce Bridges on Sep 19, 2007 at 04:58 PM | #

Halloween seems to be getting bigger in the UK, and more commercial.  I’m sure those two things are linked. Posted by John Mitchell on Sep 21, 2007 at 06:04 AM | #

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