OUR REVIEW

Theft does not pay - or does it?

Infiltration

Explore rooms and collect victory points

From 2009 at the latest Donald X. Vaccarino is renowned as a game designer in the community. Due to “Spiel des Jahres 2009” for Dominion, which was his first published game, he was known to everybody. His innovative game mechanism of Deck Building has meanwhile been picked up for many other games . His second game, Nefarious, was also widely acclaimed and has collected a big fan community. This year, Donald X. Vaccarino, again managed to win „Spiel des Jahres“ with his game Kingdom Builder. So, not surprisingly, expectations were running high with me as regards to his latest game - Infiltration.

Infiltration is set into the Android Universe of Fantasy Flight Games. Players are thieves, yes, thieves, called Operators, who infiltrate a building together ( for all specialists for English among us: We are confronted with corporate larceny) in order to steal secret information in the guise of data files. This infiltration does not go unnoticed. Several alarms are set off and the security forces are approaching fast; you can image that they will arrive soon.

Despite players being united in a joint criminal purpose Infiltration is not a cooperative game. Each player competes with all other players in order to steal as many of the coveted data files as possible and to score a victory of most points! But take care! What good is the best theft to a burglar when you cannot get your haul and yourself out of danger and away to safety afterward! Primarily, this is the allure of the game: On the one hand, to infiltrate the building as far as you can get to collect the possible maximum of data files, and on the other hand keep an eye on the necessity to flee the building on time. Each player, who, at the end of the game, could not leave and is trapped in the building, is automatically apprehended by security and has lost automatically.

Infiltration does not need a board. The building is assembled by laying out cards, with each card representing one room. You place these cards to form two floors of a building, each floor has its own set of cards. There are 15 cards available for each floor, but only six cards out of those 15 are used for a game, so that in each game - similar to Nefarious due to the special rules cards - very different situations can present themselves to the players. In addition to the two levels the building has one secret room.

Each room is designed individually, and usually there are data files available from storage in a room ; each room is characterized by its features from six different categories, which are defined by the event they trigger: The feature “Enter” means that it is triggered when you enter the room and has an effect on the player who entered. “Reveal” is triggered by turning up the card. “Interface” describes the individual effects of the room, which can be used with the “Interface Action”. “Tech Lock” is triggered when you break into the secret cache holding additional data files. “Advance” and “Retreat” can be found only on a few cards and can be used solely and exclusively to enter or leave the secret room.

The features of Interface and Tech Lock are connected to tokens - Interface tokens are purple, Tech lock tokens are red. As soon as the respective token has been removed, you cannot use that feature of the room any longer. There is another kind of token in the game, the Lab Worker Token. This token works similar to the Tech Lock token, it releases additional data files, but is never connected to a feature of a room. Lab Worker tokens are yellow - is this meant to be an allusion to cheap work forces from China? When all is said and done, they are the ones who are still at work in the building in the small hours. At long last we arrive at the tokens which are the purpose of the game: Data file tokens, abbreviated to DF tokens. They are kept face-down throughout the game and can yield a value of 1, 2 or 3. The ratio of those values is very unbalanced: There are 58 DF tokens of value 1, but only 18 DF tokens of value 3.

Before we can start the game we have to set up the building: On the first floor you have the entrance hall (the leftmost card) and, as the rightmost card, the room which lets you access the second floor. The first and second floors together are shaped like the tip of an arrow. Between entrance hall and the last room of the second floor you place the secret room. All rooms but the first one are placed face-down. Depending on the information on the card for the first room the room is equipped with the relevant tokens.

Now players enter the building through the entrance hall. Each player can choose his own character, which does not have any special abilities, all characters are equal in this regard. A character is represented by a card, which a player puts in front of himself, and a cardboard marker, which a player moves from room to room in the building. The character card has two sides: one “healthy” side and one “wounded” side. All players start with the “healthy side” showing. When a player is wounded, this has effects on his ability to move in the building: After a movement action (forward or backwards) you cannot play a movement action again in the next round.

In addition to the player characters up to five Non Player Characters = NPCs can be in the game. Which of those characters are really in play is revealed in the course of the game when revealing rooms. For each NPC there is a special room, the reveal feature of this room introduces the NPC to the game. All NPCs have negative effects on the players.

The passing of time and the approaching of security forces are simulated by a so called Security Tracker. This Security Tracker features two indicators, one for Alarm Level and one for Proximity Level. The Alarm Level has a range of 1 to 8, at the start of the game is is set to Zero and changes due to Item cards (see later), rooms or NPCs. This Alarm Level in turn influences the value of the Proximity Level, which is an indicator for the approach of the security forces. The value is also Zero at the start of the game and as soon as this value reaches or tops 99, the game ends. Normally in regular play the Proximity Level is raised in a phase of the game by rolling dice.

Each player determines events in the game by his choice of actions: For those choices each player holds four action cards: One Advance card, one Retreat card, one Interface card and one Download card. As an alternative you can use an Extract card instead of the Download card, this is a version that is already included in the game and said to be a bit more strategic than the basic version of the game. You agree in the preparation phase of the game which set of cards you all want to use.

In addition to the four action cards each player is dealt four more cards from the stack of Item cards at the start of the game, so that each operator now has eight cards in hand.

Those Item cards expand the range of possible actions for a player. So, for instance, you can remove a Lab Worker Token or or a Tech Lock Token by using one of the items cards, which makes additional DF Tokens appear in the room. There are also Item cards which expand the movement range of a player or destroy NPCs. Item cards can be used only once and are either discarded after use, removed from the game or remain in the room where the were used. With the exception of effects from room features a player does not get any more Item cards during the game! Three special Item cards, one of them is available four times, are set aside at the start of the game. They are only available in certain rooms and their effects are, for instance, to enable you to flee the building or to earn 10 additional DF points at the end of the game.

Now the first round begins. You always play clockwise, the starting player of the round is given the Security tracker and hands it on to his left neighbor at the end of the round.

Each round has a uniform structure of four phases per round, until the Proximity Level reaches 99. In each round each player plays exactly one of his cards in hand, either one of the four action cards or one of his Item cards. The action card is taken back in hand at the end of the round, the Item card is discarded. In the first phase, the Selection Phase, each player chooses a card and lays it out face-down

In the following Resolution Phase the selected cards are played. The starting player begins with revealing and resolving his card, then the player to his left does the same, and so on.

With the action card Advance a player moves one room ahead. Should the room still be concealed, the room card is turned over, an eventually featured Reveal is resolved immediately and the room is equipped with the tokens listed on the card:  Interface Tokens, Tech Lock Tokens and Lab Worker Tokens each have their own storage space. Then the player enters the room and implements the Enter feature of the room, provided there is one. The action Retreat is resolved in the same ways, the player moves one room back instead of forward. When a player is wounded, he must lay down his marker to mark the fact that he is now “delayed”, that is, he cannot choose Advance or Retreat actions in the next Selection Phase. But he could move on all the same by using a corresponding Item card.

When the Retreat Action is played in the entrance hall, the operator leaves the building. He is then out of the game and only comes back into it when the final scoring happens. This is also the case when you leave the building due to a room feature or due to an Item card.

When a player has chosen the Interface card, he uses the Interface feature of the room, provided there is an Interface token left. According to the feature description the token is either removed after resolving the feature or remains in place for further use.

With the Download card a player receives DF tokens present in the room. If he is the first player in such a room to use the Download feature he is given two of the DF tokens there, each additional player in the room gets only one token, but of course only if there are still DF tokens left. The alternate Extract card works differently for distributing the DF tokens: In relation to the number of players who did play the Extract card for this room you can help yourself to DF tokens: One player only may take up to four DF tokens, two players can take two tokens each, and three or more players get only one token.

Item cards are resolved according to their text and then discarded, the text of the card also tells you what happens to the card itself after resolving it.

Now the NPC Phase is resolved. Each NPC behaves individually. The text on the respective NPC card is implemented. All NPC but one march towards the building exit and either damage players, destroy something or trigger alarm. Most NPCs wound operators present in the same room.

In the last phase of the round, the Security Phase, the starting player of the round roils a six-sided dice and the result determines, how much the security forces have advanced. The dice result is added to the Alarm Level, the result is added to the current Proximity Level and the Proximity Level marker is adjusted accordingly. If it reaches or tops 99, the game ends instantly. If you did not manage to be out of the building at that point, you have lost automatically. All other players add the points on the DF tokens they collected. The player with the highest total wins the game.

There is something that I must mention immediately: Infiltration is not a game for strategists. The possibilities and option to plan are very restricted in this game. You can plan the use of your hand cards, for instance. Here you should take card in any case to coordinate your actions with the order of play, because this sequence plays a very important part in the implementation of actions. Something else that is important is your assessment of your opponents. On top of this you should formulate a plan for your path through the building, always in relation to a possible quick escape. Despite all this, chance can wreak havoc to the best of your plans, because the rest of the game is governed by chance.

To target certain rooms does not work at all, because at the start of the game you do not know which rooms are in the game. In consequence of this you are faced with the uncertainty of not knowing whether there will be rooms which offer a quick escape route or if you will have to find your way back to the entrance.

The same goes for the Room of Healing: It can be in the game, but not necessarily. Your Item cards you know from the start, but which one from the total of 35 you will get, is purely a matter of chance. Imponderability is the number of rounds remaining in the game as there is the roll of die in the Security Phase on one hand and on the other hand you can uncover rooms or NPCs which can raise the Proximity Level rather fast. And finally, the chance factor of the DF Tokens themselves, as it is not their number, but their added values which decide who wins the game.

Therefore, Infiltration should be played in good humor and with a grain of salt: Just storm the building, collect what you can grab, take to your heels and have fun with finding out what consequences your own actions result in. When you adjust your expectations to this level, you will be playing a witty, entertaining game, which can be lots of funs with a group of friends.

Bernhard Czermak

Players: 2-6

Age: 14+

Time: 45+

Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino

Art: Michael Silsby

Price: ca. 30 EUR

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games 2012

Web: www.fantasyflightgames.com

Genre: Movement and collecting game

Users: With friends

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Futuristic design, cute topic

High fun factor, little planning

Simple rules

Short playing time

Lots of interaction

Compares to:

Nefarious

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 5

Bernhard Czermak:

Despite being similar to Nefarious in the flow of the game, Infiltration has a much higher chance element which is, besides the actions of the players, a deciding factor in the game. Not a game for strategists, but entertaining and with a big fun factor!

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0