Secrets of the Lost Station review - cover

Twelvemonth: 2020 | Players: one-six | Minutes: threescore+ | Ages: 14+

This Secrets of the Lost Station review was made after playing through the first entrada. We were sent a copy of this game past the publisher in commutation for an honest review.

What is Secrets of the Lost Station?

Secrets of the Lost Station is a sci-fi, adventure, campaign game in which you play as the terminal members of a 4000-yr-old clandestine guild who are tasked with defending the galaxy. During each mission y'all have to react to unlike events that take identify on a mysterious infinite station, learn about your explorers, and fend off enemies.

Secrets of the Lost Station was designed by Christopher Batarlis and Jim Samartino, and it's published by Everything Epic Games.

Secrets of the Lost Station Gameplay

Secrets of the Lost Station review - on a mission

Secrets of the Lost Station has x campaigns that you can play through, each containing a number of unlike scenarios with unique objectives. To starting time or continue a campaign, you simply choose your explorers and and then go to the next scenario in the Scenario Guide.

Setting up a scenario is pretty straightforward since the guide lists all of the components you'll need. Too the story text, the Station Event Rails will be different from scenario to scenario, with tokens that activate as you move through the game.

The explorers have vi attributes – Force, Dexterity, Knowledge, Mythos, Combat, and Movement – which will let you know how many die to roll when performing those types of skill checks. Explorers also have iv main adaptable stats: Stamina (health), Audacity (gives you rerolls), Courage (allows you to use the "focused" version of your ability cards), and Power (allows y'all to upgrade your abilities). Each explorer also has a unique one-use-per-scenario ability.

Secrets of the Lost Station review - player area

Player turns have a two-phase structure:

  • Explorer Phase – Yous can perform ane Movement action (which could include revealing and placing a new Station room tile), one Explorer action (gainsay, activate an explorer/item/room ability, heal, etc.), and i of each free activeness (includes searching in some rooms and using items). During performance checks (including combat), you combine your base aspect with any bonuses you go from items and abilities, and so gyre that many dice and hope for some successes.
  • Station Stage – During this phase you flip and resolve the next token on the Station Upshot Track. If you flip a Combat upshot, either a new enemy will show upwards or all of the enemies on the space station will motility and attack. If you flip a Scenario Trigger, you'll read that passage in the Scenario Guide. The third type of token is the Random Event token, which could be a blank event (nothing happens), a Station Issue (read the text in the Scenario Guide), or an Explorer Event (your explorer can "recollect" some memories from their past and gets some stat boosts).

Secrets of the Lost Station review - system board and event track

You'll beat a scenario if you're able to complete all of its objectives. You'll lose if y'all don't consummate the objectives in time, if an enemy completes their objective, or if an explorer is "near death" (basically their health was reduced to zero twice and no 1 was able to revive them). If yous do lose, you can cull to replay the scenario or motion forward by using the Alternate Reality Control, which could have negative consequences afterwards on.

As you movement through a campaign, you'll be able to unlock a whole bunch of stuff, including new characters, new upgrades for the explorers, new items, and new Station rooms.

That's just a bones overview. Check out the Secrets of the Lost Station rulebook (PDF) for more than info.

Secrets of the Lost Station review - campaign book

Pros

  • Secrets of the Lost Station is a really practiced mix of story and game. I've only played through the first campaign and then far, but in that campaign the designers did an excellent job of making the characters and the space station come up to life through the story snippets. On top of that, the game has been consistently fun, both through its straightforward mechanics and the way that every decision you brand tin can influence the story that plays out.
  • There'southward and so much content! The scenario book is humongous (350+ pages), there are dozens of unique characters, and they fifty-fifty included a bunch of these "Undiscovered Packs" that you can plug into any of the scenarios to make them more challenging. This game must have taken forever and a 24-hour interval to create.
  • Information technology was a very cool idea to use the Station Event Runway to end turns instead of the typical "flip an upshot card" stage plant in a lot of other cooperative games. There's usually a good corporeality of tension when you flip those Random Event tokens.
  • 1 of the most heady parts of this game is when events take place during your turn and yous have to determine how to reply. Knowing that your decision could potentially have a negative affect on your team makes you want to take some fourth dimension to think nearly it.
  • The room tiles give yous a whole bunch of unique actions to have. You can button enemies through portals, you lot can get to the Med Bay to get some extra healing, you can activate drones, you can go to the Span to rearrange some rooms on the Station, and there'due south even an Arena where yous tin choose to fight to the death.
  • Virtually of the scenarios feel different than the rest. There are unique objectives, different types of enemies show up, and the narrative helps to make each ane experience fresh.
  • This is the blazon of combat arrangement that I similar. You just add up your combined Combat stat, ringlet that many die, and come across if you lot did some impairment and/or took some damage. You can so use your Audacity to reroll, making it a bit less random. Information technology's also great that combat is the same regardless of whether it's an explorer or an enemy initiating it, giving the game improve flow and making information technology easier to teach to others.
  • I don't know exactly what it is about these 10-sided dice, merely rolling them is very satisfying… and you get to gyre them a lot.
  • The tutorial scenario is fantabulous. It teaches y'all the majority of the game's mechanics while however giving yous the freedom to play through a game.
  • The grapheme art is very nice. The standees look smashing.

Cons

  • There are some pretty large errors in the scenario book. For example, one scenario (Scenario four) tells you to put two specific room tiles to the side, but they're actually supposed to be shuffled into the deck. I hadn't seen the errata, so nosotros wasted over an hour on that one.
  • I exercise wish that the explorers' ability cards were a bit more than interesting. The abilities' names are unique and make sense for the explorers they belong to, but most of them just give attribute boosts; they don't really feel similar "abilities". Those once-per-scenario special abilities are very cool, though.
  • Situations can pop upwardly where you're merely waiting for something to get triggered on the Station Event Rail, and so you can end upwards without anything meaningful to practice on your plough. That can be a bigger bummer in four-role player games since yous'll have to expect a while to get some other chance to brand an important decision or have a fun activity.
  • It'south not easy to get everything to fit dorsum in the box.

Last Thoughts

I was always excited to become to the next scenario during that starting time entrada, and so yep, I'm a big fan of Secrets of the Lost Station. Its gameplay is smooth, anybody gets to brand a lot of important decisions throughout the entrada (both in the book and on the board), and the story that plays out is legitimately memorable. The game isn't without its issues, merely on the overall my group has had a fantastic time playing information technology.

I think nigh science fiction fans will love Secrets of the Lost Station. Too, if y'all've liked other storytelling board games in the past, chances are yous'll really savour this one. This is a large, expensive game, though, and then if you lot don't unremarkably like the sci-fi genre, this probably isn't for yous.

I'm looking forwards to playing more Secrets of the Lost Station campaigns and at present I really want to observe a copy of Secrets of the Lost Tomb, which has a theme that I'm a bit more interested in.

Secrets of the Lost Station Links

BGG | Everything Ballsy | eBay

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