Innovation Review

For too long, I've had Innovation sitting on my pile of games to review. Way too long. It's a game I tried to learn and got lost a bit at the time and didn't try again until recently. In Innovation, players draw cards and add (meld) them to their tableaus. They also have the choice to dogma them, meaning they can choose a card to do its ability. This is where Innovation gets mean. A lot of cards will try to screw your opponents over. Most will give you opportunities to get stronger though. There are 10 numbered decks and you can only draw from what you've unlocked. Some of your cards will let you pull from higher ones if you meet the criteria. Luckily, if your opponent has more of the same symbols they get to do the action as well. Unless it's an I demand one, then they're screwed unless you've got more symbols. Some cards will let you splay your decks to allow you some protection from these actions. If you have more, these can't be used against you. Your key to victory is achievements. These are unlocked when you've scored a certain amount of points. The first player to claim a set amount based on the player count will win.

The Good: Innovation is a game I really wish I didn't sleep on the way that I did. It's really mean so you won't be making friends for the hour or so the game plays and that's fine. They'll get over it. The rulebook does a great job of explaining how you should explain the game to others when teaching it. I've never seen that before. I love how much stronger cards can get as you progress your civilization through the game. You'll need to plan ahead for when to cover some cards because they will become obsolete eventually.

The Okay: A lot of my problem when I initially played was around scoring. I had to watch a few videos to understand this. You can only do so with your dogma actions and that's if the card allows you to which can be a huge problem if you don't have any cards that will let you score. It can make the game get away from you in a hurry if you're unlucky.

The Not So Good: To put it bluntly, Innovation is not a looker. That's fine, it's not meant to be but that could cause some to overlook it. It's a shame because the game is actually very good. From what I've read it's a love/hate game for most and I fall into the former.

Final Thoughts: Innovation at first glance does not look like a civilization builder and you're not really doing any civilization management outside of advancement but it absolutely excels at what it does. You'll constantly feel that innovation throughout the whole game needing to make tough decisions to give up a card that will become obsolete soon even if it's a beast for your engine. There are a ton of expansions that you can add to the game to make it even more advanced that I'd love to have in the collection at some point.

Thanks to Asmadi Games for providing a review copy.