This is a special edition one because ISS Vanguard is a new game from Awaken Realms. This is a massive space game, and I have liked Lords of Hellas and Tainted Grail, but will I back this one?

Unfortunately I can’t drop in anything more than I link, like I do with Kickstarter for the page, you can find it here.

Pros

• Space Theme
• Great Track record
• Exploration period
• Campaign Game
• Leveling, upgrading
• Ship and planet parts of game
• Aesthetic/Graphic Design

Cons

• Cost & shipping

Page

This is Awaken Realms, and this is their own crowdfunding site, it is going to look good. They know what to throw up to get people to check it out, and they’ve been advertising this a ton. I think it’s important to note that, because it’s been launched for all of an hour and 5 minutes on their own platform and it is at $467,000. Now that’s a lot of money, this game is going to make a ton of money for them, but it’s a risk because I’d guess this would be over a million or near that, if it was on Kickstarter.

But besides that little note, Awaken Realms really knows how to create a great looking game and a great looking page. Tainted Grail had a nice dark moody look to it that matches the game, this page gives you that sense of excitement and largeness of the game and space. And while certainly, from some of the playthroughs if you check them out, things can go wrong, this game looks like it’s less dark and more about the massiveness of space, exploration and adventure.

I also like that with this new layout the pledge levels aren’t off to the side, you can see what you’re pledging when you go through the whole process and the page has bookmarks/navigation along the side for more than just risks. This whole page looks really nice and functional for what I need. And now, I will say, the playing section, that part as I always say, I want it higher and more, but Awaken Realms generally has done a great job with games, so I don’t need as much from them, they have done a great job with getting playthroughs out.

The Game

This game has a lot of things that attract me to it. There is dice rolling, which isn’t one of them. I don’t’ mind dice rolling, but the fact that you’re rolling dice and that’s a bit part of the game on the planets doesn’t have me super excited. Now, I don’t think that it’s going to be a bad part of the game, but I like a lot of mitigation of the dice rolls, or better yet card play, but there also seems to be some of that as well, or planning that comes with it.

I do really like how the game is split into two phases, there is the ship phase. You’re doing things around the ship, playing through that book so that you can get ready for the next planet that you decide to go to, and you have a wide variety of planets to go to that you can pick form. You can upgrade the crew, the lander, the ship itself, you can do a lot of different things, heal up, whatever it might be, and that’s a big part of this big game, so I do get my euro piece to it which apparently I want.

Then you get down to the planet, and there’s a ton of story, you’re exploring, looking for things, trying to complete missions, fight aliens and monsters and ideally not die, but let’s be honest, it’s an Awaken Realms game, you’ll die at least 4 times. And you can go back to planets again, but whatever state you left that planet in is what it’ll be like when you get back there again, which I think is really interesting and makes the game feel even more epic than it would have otherwise.

Back or Brick

Not going to draw this out, this was an instant back for me. I signed up for the notification when this was put up on Gamefound right away when they announced that they were going to do their own crowdfunding site. And the question I had for myself was minis or not. I did end up going with the minis because they look amazing, Awaken Realms did minis before board games, but they feel like they’ll add more to the immersive experience of the game.

How about for you, is this a back or a brick?

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