Dune: Imperium

The Spice Must Flow. Dune: Imperium is a board game where you spend about 10 rounds on a desert planet trying to be the biggest fish in a tiny pond. The digital version is slick, smooth, and will absolutely humble you. The digital version does a fantastic job of automating everything, which means you can lose twice as fast. Should you buy it? If you like worker placement with a side of existential crisis, absolutely.

Changed game so $50 worth of expansion DLCs are worthless

Dune: Imperium Uprising is my favorite board game in realspace. This adaptation is incredibly smooth, detailed, pleasing to look at, and has some pretty good music too. Dire Wolf Digital does board game adaptations very well, their digital version was my first experience with them, and this is an upgrade in almost every way. I will say, and this is not a critique of the digital version so much as the physical game, I don't care as much for Immortality and Rise of Ix, and I believe the base game isn't as good as Uprising, so if you want what I feel is the most enjoyable experience, I'd skip the first two expansions and go straight to Uprising - it changes nearly every part of the base game in some way. OH! Also, I highly recommend that if you're going to get it on both Steam and Mobile, buy your expansions on Steam - you'll also get them in mobile as long as you're using the same Dire Wolf account!

The board game itself is phenomenal outside of simply being Dune fanfare. Essentially, it is a quality product that will engage people who enjoy strategy. You don't need to know nor care about the lore of Dune to enjoy. However, if you are a fan of the Dune universe--then you probably already made up your mind to buy this game without my insistence--the synergies of the cards, characters, and resources; provide clever connective references to how the story arcs in Dune portray their dynamic roles in politics and combat. Nice touch. Oh! I guess the question really comes down to, how good is this DIGITAL version of the game? Flawless. If you're aiming to play offline, the coded opponents are surprisingly formidable. Better than most board games I've encountered. This game also includes several "challenges" for the base game, and per DLC expansion. Each challenge entails two levels of difficulty (moderate versus you being sandworm food). Offering a flavor of variety to the matches. I don't have anything negative to say about the game. Subsequently, I've opted to instead talk sh*t about a few negative reviews I felt are unfair, but I couldn't dispute with the reviewers about it because they turned their "Allow Comments" option off. Cowards! TOPICS: 1) No couch-co-op A bad review because the game doesn't have couch co-op and claims the developers admitted they don't plan on adding this option when confronted with the request. Okay. I'm going to relay what the developers aren't in a safe position to say on their own behalf. You're an idiot! You can't implement couch co-op into a game that relies on constantly viewing your cards AND having an option to interrupt the flow of the game by doing actions like dynamically adding troops or playing intrigue cards. What are you going to do? Tell your co-op partner to "Look away." "Look away again." "Damn! Look away again!" Hey, Paul Atreides. Did you memorize the next card in line (assuming the top card would now have to be hidden with co-op enabled)? You didn't? Better tell your partner to look away for the nth time while you somehow choose an option to temporarily take control of your character out of turn and look at your card. You reviewer, who complained about the lack of couch co-op, I recommend Chutes and Ladders. Strategy games of this caliber are apparently outside of your cognitive comprehension. 2) RNG (i.e. "No strategy involved"): Yeah. Someone actually said this, about a f*cking board game! That's like saying there isn't a strategy to blackjack. Of course there is! Any game which uses cards, dice, or even turn-order-selection, is by default RNG based. However, the deepness of the strategy--I can't believe I have to explain this out loud, as most of you reading my complaint, likely already know this--is in how much control the player has to make decisions based on indeterminate circumstances. This game excels in turning bad starting scenarios into winning conditions. You could, for example, be pigeon-holed into buying resources early that you didn't want yet. Meanwhile, your opponents scooped up what they needed to rack up solari and make an early purchase for an extra agent. Crap! They have three turns to your two. Doomed? Nope. Make smart decisions, and you can either cut off their supply of necessary mid-game goods, cleverly lay traps, or enjoy the sweet revenge of turning the tide of victory into your favor because the resources you were forced to acquire earlier are now prevalent for the later game but your opponents didn't collect enough. The game offers several ways to change the spectral outcome. That's the whole point! The moral of the story is, f*ck that person's RNG complaint. 3) "Made for people who already know the game." "Doesn't explain what is going on.": Those are paraphrased, but contextually actual, quotes. I struggle to acquire the dialogue necessary to explain how utterly ridiculous those complaints are. If you play the game, you learn it. Play it more, you learn more. Before you know it, you are a person who knows the game. Moves too quickly? That's the nature of a digital version of a game. Oh, But the game has a player action log you can look at if you require time to figure out what just occurred. Didn't bother to seek that option out, did ya? The game delivers extremely detailed tutorials, highlights which actions are happening per phase, and again, there's that log I already mentioned existing. Do better people! Know your product before you crap all over it. Says less about the game and more about your lack of attention. Okay. Rant done. Thanks for reading. P.S. For better or worse, I am NOT going to uncheck the "Allow Comments" button. Feel free to agree with my complaints, infer that I'm the one who is wrong, call me an @sshole (as if I didn't already know that), or share your general opinion for my reading pleasure. Cheers.

Great board game adaptation without all the jank from TTS. Personally I wish they would release Uprising this way but this is just as good.

I've beat my veteran boardgame enthusiast friend Clarke twice in a row on our first ever games. Now he's off watching YouTube guides to improve because his ego can't handle losing to a noob.

大爱的桌游，电子版气氛音效一流，这么好的游戏要一个内置百科能够看全卡效果不过分吧？

Core game is a lean, laser focused, tight experience. A game where you need to be absolutely competitive to get the most out of it. If this is what you are after the game is a must as the competitive angle really is what puts this game ahead of many others. For me however, someone who doesn't want to be constantly making optimal moves and would enjoy some room to breath when it comes to creating my deck strategy and engine building it sadly leaves no room for manoeuvre. The deck building is especially a sticking point for me, while some cards give you manipulation especially when coupled with certain intrigue cards it doesn't leave me with any kind of plans coming to fruition as your carefully tailored card deck is trumped by single cards that bring in victory points or quickly move a faction up the alliances track. Someone needs to bring Shadowrun Crossfire to the digital space.