Dead Reckoning Availability Review and Opinion

Dead Reckoning

Designer: John D. Clair
Artist: Ian O'Toole
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group

Dead Reckoning is a game of exploration, piracy, and influence based in a Caribbean-esque setting. Each player commands a ship and crew and seeks to amass the greatest fortune. They do this through pirating, trading, treasure hunting, and (importantly) capturing and maintaining control over the uninhabited but resource-rich islands of the region. During the game, you can:

• Customize your ship: Your ship is represented by a token on the board. The board starts mostly unexplored and will be revealed as you venture into uncharted waters. You also have a ship board where you load cargo and treasure, and you can customize the guns, speed, or holding space of your ship.

• Card-craft your crew: You have a small deck of cards that will drive your actions in the game, with each card representing one of your crew members. This deck functions like one in a deck-building game, but the cards in the deck are sleeved, and rather than add new crew cards to your deck, you improve the skill and abilities of your crew cards by placing transparent "advancement" cards in those sleeves. Aside from the transparent advancements, your crew will also "level up" naturally during the game using a new card-leveling mechanism not seen in other card-crafting games such as Mystic Vale.

• Control the region: The region is filled with many deserted islands. These islands are a major source of treasure, and players will battle for control of these islands.

• Battle via a dynamic cube-tower: You can battle other players' ships or NPC merchant ships, and these battles are resolved via a new take on what a cube tower can be, with crew cards and ship powers increasing your chances of victory.

• Uncover secrets of the sea: Expansions for Dead Reckoning use a "saga" system in which certain content remains hidden and is discovered and added to the game organically only via playing. Rather than add everything at once, you gradually add it by playing and discovering. Depending on luck and player choice, less or more new content may get added each game.

HELPING YOU DECIDE TO:
BUY the game for your collection.
PLAY it, but let someone else buy it. (smile)
AVOID it, run for the hills, this game is NOT FOR YOU!

We welcome comments and questions below! Thanks for watching!

- Jason and Jennie - The Game Warriors
A Healthy Game is a Happy Gamer
Vitality Equals: CARE, CHALLENGE, CONNECTION, CREATION

THE BOARD GAME GEEK SYSTEM OF RATING
1 – Awful – Defies game description.
2 – Very Bad – Won’t play ever again.
3 – Bad – Likely won’t play this again.
4 – Not so Good – But could play again.
5 – Mediocre – Take it or leave it.
6 – Okay – Will play if in the mood.
7 – Good – Usually willing to play.
8 – Very good – Enjoy playing and would suggest it.
9 - Excellent – Very much enjoy playing.
10 – Outstanding – Will Always Enjoy Playing.

[digitaldemigod]

This is exactly my experience. I was new to board games in January 2022. Somewhere around March that year I found out about Dead Reckoning while I was trying to buy every card I could find for Space Base, which was the first game my wife and I played and loved. I see that some Space Base cards were available with DR kickstarter. Ok what is DR? I go look it up. Oh this looks cool! CARD CRAFTING?! What an amazing idea. Watched some videos of it being played. I must have this game. Can’t find it for sale at any website.

Finally I see that I can only get it through a kickstarter and that they would be doing another one of those soon (summer 2022 I believe). I went back and forth on backing it or not. Finally I backed the base game. Two damn days after the KS ended, our neighbors who got us into board games asked if we had been to the board game store nearby. Didn’t know there was one. So we went. And as I walked in the door, what is sitting on display right in the middle of the damn store? Dead Reckoning, the game you can’t buy in stores. I was like WTF?

Talking to the guy at the store he explained that the store will back kickstarters to get games to sell. Ok that makes sense. I REALLY wanted that game. But I had just spent the money on the KS and didn’t have the money for the game right in front of me. So I waited and waited and waited, our board gaming neighbors moved out of state, and I waited and waited and waited and finally got the game in October 2023. Now that we had nobody else to fucking play it with.

So yeah as someone new to board games, that was a horrible fucking experience. “Oh sorry you didn’t know about the kickstarter because you’re new to the hobby, so fuck you.” Is what I took from it.

[justinmxr]

This is why Kickstarter is such a double-edged sword. Yes it has helped bring about a golden age of board gaming, but there's a price game companies have to pay - namely, selling the dream to the KS backers that they are going to be rewarded better than non-backers. If it was going to be released to market once fulfilled, then a lot of people wouldn't have already backed it - risk of Kickstarter, P&H costs, etc.

I'm not sure the answer to this one to be honest, but very much damned if you do, damned if you don't. And I was fortunate enough to be a backer, though I'm still waiting for my copy!

[DF-wept]

I think they said this game isn’t going to retail

[cjpeach]

Bro... the game says it is coming BACK to kickstarter later this year... and since you used BGG... there is literally a thread from John D Clair about when the relaunch is coming and what's in it. This is not a game AEG will ever support in retail and they explain that very clearly in multiple interviews of board game media AND on said kickstarter. If AEG (one of the BEST companies at supporting games via retail, see Smash Up, Mystic Vale, Space Base and Tiny Towns just for a few) says it is not retail viable, there is a level of trust that they definitely deserve.