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Jess: If it sounds a little convoluted, well, it’s the Great Old Ones. When the game ends and faction loyalty is revealed, players will adjust their scores to reflect their true value, based only on the faction track to which they actually belong. Throughout the game, the two faction score tracks will go up and down, according to cards played, and these score changes will, uniquely, affect all players, since each player could secretly belong to either faction. These two factions are at war with one another, and each player is secretly allied with one faction or the other.

Even in a 2 player game, both players are secretly members of one of these two factions.Īside from placing and moving influence cubes and agents, several of the actions available to players will move the two scoring tracks, the Loyalist and the Restorationist. Jess: Bidding isn’t my favorite mechanic, but A Study In Emerald does make it a bit more strategically interesting because all the ‘auctions’ are happening simultaneously – each of the 9 areas has a pile of cards that can be claimed, and influence cubes will sprinkle all over the board as people try to hone their personal decks. However, since only the player who claims a card actually ‘spends’ their cubes (the others are returned to the players who placed them), players can frequently drive up the influence cost of cards by placing just enough cubes to tie the lead player. The idea is that players will treat influence cube placement almost like an auction – by placing cubes, you are essentially bidding how much you are willing to pay for a card (the cubes you commit must be re-gathered once they are spent). Only by holding majority in a location can you take cards from that space. Influence, played here by the ubiquitous colored cube, must be added to the game’s 9 locations in order to establish which player has majority control over that space. These cards will allow players to take different actions, including gathering and placing influence, manipulating the Loyalist/Restorationist score tracks (more on that in a sec), move (and assassinate) agents, and gather more cards into your personal deck. Each player will, in classic deck building tradition, start with an identical deck of starter cards. Gameplay is a bit of an odd beast, merging deck building, area control, sort of an auction system, and a little hidden role action all at once. There are enough potential actions that the back of the instructions acts as a handy summary sheet.

The symbols across the top depict which actions you can take when you play a card. While it’s true that there isn’t much in the way of theme penetration, I absolutely adore where the game is coming from, theme-wise as well as mechanically. Lovecraft, Sherlock Holmes, Neil Gaiman’s writing, and deck building mechanics.

Jess: Also, fair warning A Study In Emerald brings together a few of my favorite things ever – the worlds of H.P. I like streamlined, so that doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.

We never played the 1st edition, so we’re not going to be making any sort of meaningful comparison of the two, though we have been lead to understand that this edition is more streamlined than the first. Just ignore those zombies on the right.Īndrew: Now, we just want to say up front that we are reviewing the 2nd edition of A Study In Emerald. Jess: Likely via the judicious application of egregious amounts of dynamite! Set up for 2 players, A Study In Emerald has a few really interesting, unique twists.

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While the majority of the world has accepted the centuries-long rule of the Great Old Ones, a small band of revolutionaries, called the Restorationists, seek to undermine the status quo and free humanity from alien influences. Set in the grim past of an 1882 where the Great Old Ones have not only risen but rule the world, A Study In Emerald is based on the short story by Neil Gaiman of the same name. A Study In Emerald, from Grey Fox Games, is an area control, deck building hybrid with a rather excellent source pedigree and a hidden role twist.

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