Planet 28: Death of the Periphery

This supplement adds a solo option to Planet 28, a sci-fi skirmish wargame. 

Solo rules

The new rules actually consist of solo and collaborative rules which is a nice change from the usual skirmish game competition.

The heart of the solo rules are a one page set of instructions on how the enemy characters will act in battle. This takes the form of a prioritised list of actions and looks straightforward to implement. These kind of programmed flowcharts are increasingly common in boardgames so if you've played any of those then these will feel familiar.

Collaborative games get a nice "side quest" type feature. You roll randomly for a secret in-game objective and if you succeed in it you alone get rewards for your warband. It's a fun way to keep play aligned without it becoming multiple players negotiating how to play a faction.

Solo campaign

The second half of the booklet is taken up with a multi-stage scenario, Escape from Lychester VII about rescuing a governor from a planet simultaneously going through a revolution and a mutagenic plague. The players are seeking to rescue the overthrown governor in exchange for a ransom.

The scenario plays out over three stages of a simple branching narrative based on whether the player wins of loses. Each stage uses pretty much the same map and enemy forces but the context varies according to how the player is doing. Either they are trying to get the governor off-world safely or they are fighting to get off the planet alive. The campaign generally all looks exciting and interesting but there isn't a big narrative close out at the end which is a bit of a shame.

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