Raxxon

Raxxon is a game with an interesting premise that is not often explored.What if, instead of taking place after the zombie apocalypse, the game took place during the opening days of the outbreak?Instead of casting the players as a group of heroes who hack and slash and loot their way through the world, Raxxon places you in an administrative position.You're a mayor or a CDC member or a soldier whose job is to search through the crowd and pick the healthy civilians out of the group for evacuation while keeping the carriers and infected from bringing the whole operation down.The first game I played of this was rather misleading and ended up being a pleasant enough surprise that I immediately had to play it again.We needed to evacuate 20 civilians and by the end of the first round, we had evacuated 14 and quarantined the only carriers and infected that came up.Easy enough and I was already writing the review in my head about how this game didn't live up to the expected challenge.Then the second round came up.Oh man, the second round.Between the corporate overlords at Raxxon building their power and the remaining crowd(mostly being composed of infected since we evacuated the majority of survivors) ending our day after the second action taken, we got raked over the coals.The infection built out of control.That was the moment the game went from being a cakewalk to being a delicate balancing act of moving crowds, quarantining infected and making hard decisions to give Raxxon more power in exchange for buying us just one more turn.By the last round, my soldier was just firebombing the crowd to give our other team members enough actions to quarantine the infected and evacuate the final survivor hiding in a horde of Z's.In the most simple terms, this is a social deduction game that is played by the players against the board(instead of against each other) with some action management and push your luck gameplay sprinkled on top.Each round, players can take as many actions as they want, however, the consequences of taking those actions pile up as you stretch your turn out.For example, the soldier can firebomb a section of the crowd but the next time his turn comes up, he has to flip a random crowd card over(which can be good but could also be the start of an infection cascase).If he chooses to firebomb a second time then the next time his turn comes up he has to take the original consequence as well as a new one.If you manage your consequences well you can get away with long and productive turns but if you don't, it can all come crashing down around your ears.Luckily, the game is balanced so that when we won(or lost) I didn't feel it was the result of a single turn but rather a culmination of all of the decisions we made up to that point and I think that's the right place for it to be.

Board gamers know about Plaid Hat Games' just-missed-the-mark launch of Raxxon (Google it if you're not in the know), but the game itself is worth your time. Just because it takes place in the Dead Of Winter universe doesn't mean it plays like DOW . . . this is a full cooperative game that features a puzzle-type press your luck mechanic.Like DOW, there's a tension to this game, but the play is focused, short, and increasingly difficult as the game goes along. What seems easy at first becomes more and more difficult as the game progresses, regardless of the number of players in the game. As a solo gamer, I find the game challenging, but satisfying. If you're a gamer who likes solving puzzles, you'll especially like this one. Loads of replayability, and although some will claim that the game is very luck-driven, there is a strategy you can use to get you through to victory.Not the best puzzle game I've played, nor my favorite, but a very solid offering from Plaid Hat Games. Keeper.

Raxxon is an easy to learn game that is challenging and fun.At first, their are plenty of healthy people to save.As you move them to safety and add infected the game gets harder fast.This is a balancing act between pushing your luck trying to save people and accumulating possible dire consequences.My group enjoys this game and has a lot of fun with it.Additionally, you get two Dead of Winter survivors that add to that game.This is an inexpensive game with great promos that is playable and fun.

Great product, it is fun to play with others but much better to play solo. It can be a bit confusing at the beginning but once you get all of the rules down, you will experience a rush each time you play.

Fantastic game. I'm a die hard fan of Dead of Winter. This game is a lot different than DOW, but is a nice stand alone to play on your own!!!

If you like post-apocalyptic or zombie games you'll love this

A great card game, shame the board doesn't include spots for all the cards since it's too big to be a travel/pub game anyway, but only a minor thing. Game itself is challenging and interesting, but easy enough to understand quickly.I bought this hoping it would come with the extra characters for the Dead of Winter board game (as I didn't see it confirmed anywhere) and it does - on a certain auction site each of these characters sell for more than this game as a whole (!)

Raxxon is a fun little filler game. A typical game will last around 15-30 minutes. It is a cooperative puzzle game, you will be communicating with team mates to determine the best actions to take and when. The most enjoyable aspect of the game is the risk taking. Flipping one more card could end the round, which would mean adding more infected cards into the draw pile, which in turn will make finding survivors more difficult. It's relatively quick to learn and teach as all actions are detailed on your chosen characters card, and all symbols are clearly explained on the back of the rule book, also there's a perfect how to play video done by Watch It Played on YouTube. I think my only quarrel would be the price, it is an expensive game for what you get. If you don't mind spending the money though you shouldn't be disappointed, as this is an enjoyable game that will make you think, communicate and fail (it's not easy).