SYNDICATE: An Interplanetary Conquest Board Game

On paper, SYNDICATE: An Interplanetary Conquest Board Game has a perfectly respectable pitch: interplanetary conquest, asymmetric powers, and production that makes the box look like it knows what it is doing. It is handsomely made. A handsome shell does not repair an engine that coughs.

Your progress depends far too heavily on two things outside your control: drawing the right card and having the die cooperate. When both arrive, you can do impressive things; when they do not, you watch somebody else do them. The interesting decision is not the one you make, but whether the game will permit you to make one.

The asymmetric powers are not merely different; they appear uneven, and there is no meaningful way back for the player who falls behind. Then the event deck lands on top of everything, like the world events of the last three years: chaotic, merciless, and chiefly bad news for anyone who thought they had a plan. At times it becomes bad enough to produce a nervous laugh, followed by a look at everybody's ruins.

That is a shame, because the underlying ideas are good, and a little more work might have made them genuinely charming. As it stands, SYNDICATE is close to unplayable, and I would recommend it to nobody at any price.