Innovation: Echoes of the Past is an expansion to Carl Chudyk's phenomenal game, Innovation. Innovation: Echoes of the Past was published on 2011 by Asmadi Games and is NOT a standalone game (in case anyone was wondering). It does increase the game's maximum number of players from four to five, which is good news for some gaming groups.
This review will focus more on two-player or three-player games as I simply refuse to play Innovation (and its expansion) with four or more players (though I have yet to try Team Innovation). I believe that the level of chaos and randomness will be too insufferable for me with more than three players (in fact, I really prefer it with just two).
COMPONENTS:The game comes with a rulebook, a lot of cards and four player aids/tableaus. The players aids are very simple, just printed on regular cardboard and contains all the steps/actions you can take in the game. It even records the timing of when certain symbols come out during the game. The cards are nothing to write home about... simple cardstock, no great art here. Each card includes a lot of text though and a bunch of symbols (some of the symbols are new and unique to the this expansion).
Picture Submitted By: Chris Cieslik || Taken From the BGG Database
All in all, the components are what you'd expect from a card game. Passable but not awe inspiring. Its worth a mention though that the rulebook is a breeze to read, and the player aids really help during your first few plays as there are a lot of things to internalize and comprehend.
In short: MORE OF THE SAME.
GAMEPLAY:I will no longer go thru how to play Innovation as I have covered that in my review of said game. I will instead focus on what Innovation: Echoes of the Past adds to the game.
There're three major terminologies that have been added to the game. The first one is FORESHADOW. Foreshadow allows you to take a card from a corresponding pile, look at it, then bury it at the bottom of your tableau. Whenever you meld a card in the future, and the card(s) in your foreshadow pile are of equal or lesser level/age, you MAY meld the card(s) in your foreshadow pile as an extended (read: free) action AND execute their dogma immediately to boot. So, in one action, you can end up melding multiple cards and executing multiple dogmas at once.
The second term is BONUS/BONUSES. Some cards (like the one picture below) will have a number printed on 'em. This bonus adds to your total score. However, you can only take advantage of the full value of one bonus... every other bonus you might have will only be worth one point each. So if I had three cards that had the bonuses 9, 4 and 2 printed on each of them, I would only get a bonus score of 11 (9 + 1 + 1). This makes scoring easier.
Picture Submitted By: GeekInsight || Taken From the BGG Database
The third term is ECHOES. An echo basically allows you to perform certain actions printed on cards beneath your top card (assuming your cards have been splayed and the action is currently visible). As seen on the card below, echo actions have a wide range from allowing you to score cards from your hand to drawing cards from a corresponding pile to letting you tuck a certain number of cards and so on. You can execute ALL echo actions that are visible in a specific color.
Picture Submitted By: Chris Cieslik || Taken From the BGG DatabaseAside from these new terms/action, there're also a few minor tweaks, like some cards allowing you to add to the standard achievement pile (making it easier/harder to achieve, depending on your situation) and how you setup the game if you want to include the expansion. There are also new special achievements included to bring the total to ten.
There have been numerous complaints on how much longer/harder the game is to setup with the expansion... and to be honest, I do agree that the setup-to-fun ratio has been compromised. But, don't let this deter you as Innovation: Echoes of the Past does make a great game even better.
FINAL THOUGHTS:One of my favorite dishes is a grilled strip steak cooked medium rare. I love the flavor of the smoke and the beef. What heightens it even further is a perfect serving of just the right amount of jus (a light sauce made from a dish's own juice). This, in my opinion, is what an expansion should do... enhance the flavor of the dish. Not smother it in a blanket of thick gravy and steak sauce to the point of where you don't know where the taste of the beef begins and where taste of the sauce ends.
Innovation: Echoes of the Past does exactly what an expansion should do. Improve on the base game without drowning it under a sea of new and overly complex mechanics. It simply tweaks on the formula that made the base game so great, added in a few actions, and serves up a new dose of awesomeness.
There're some negatives though. The new way of setting up the game does highly increase the randomness. Not only are there more cards, but the balance of colors per deck will almost always be askew. There have been some complaints on how broken the new cards are as well (though quite frankly, a lot of the cards in the base game can be considered "broken" as well so I wouldn't give this gripe too much thought).
But at the end of the day, the negatives are outweighed by the positives. I like how the new actions grant you a new type of control and adds a layer of strategy to the tactical play of Innovation. If you are a fan of the base game, I doubt you'll even think twice about getting this expansion. If you are one of the few who are on the fence about it... I hope this review helps you to make up your mind. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to try it.
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