What better way to practice this crucial aspect than to play a game which you work together openly and communicate what each player should do on their turn to accomplish the objectives of the game. So this weeks “Dr. Gamer” therapy session is a game by Pandasaurus called The LOOP.
The LOOP (2021)
The LOOP is a quirky co-operative game in which you battle the evil Dr. Faux. Play a Temporal Agent in four different game modes, full of new challenges and replay value. Gather powerful artifacts, defy the Doctor's duplicates, and sabotage his maniacal machine. Make the most of your cards and master the LOOP to use them multiple times in impressive chains — but the Doctor isn't going to make this easy on you!
The evil Dr. Faux has built a terrrrible time machine! With the help of the duplicates of himself that he is creating through the ages, he aims to carry out his Omniscience 2000 project to become master of the universe. But the rifts that he is opening in spacetime will probably destroy quantum space way sooner...
Join the Agency in the shoes of one of its most legendary agents, and co-operate to foil the fiendish schemes of Dr. Faux, using quirky but still powerful artifacts.
—description from the publisher
Weight 2.79/5
A Little More Info
This game is a 1-4 player game in which you work together to accomplish your goal of completing 4 missions plus any extra requirements based on the mode you pick.
The game has a solo mode rulebook, an “operational booklet” that talks about each of the five characters and the four different game modes to play, and the agency rules of procedure” which is the main rule book providing everything else you need to know (such as setup and game play). More details about the last two below.
Operational Booklet:
The operational booklet discusses the different characters and game mode found in the game and all that is outlined in this book.
The game includes five different character each with their own abilities and complexity levels (two easy, two medium, and one hard).
The game also has four different modes to choose from (one easy, two medium, and one hard complexity levels) and within each mode are three different difficulty levels.
Agency Rules of Procedure:
This book discusses the set-up, how to play, and provides additional information regarding the mission tiles and artifact cards.
The 18, yes 18, step-by-step setup directions is great and is not hard to follow at all. You may be thinking that 18 step is a lot, but really it isn’t because some of the steps is “place the game board” or “place the player aid tile.” One of the last steps in placing X number of clones on the board and artifact cards based on the number of players.
Next in the book is the “how to play” section and details will be outlined below. The last few pages in the book outline the 10 different mission tiles (only seven are used in the game) and details about various artifact cards, icons in the game, and agent tiles.
How to Play:
Each player turn consists of five phases which are the following:
I. Faux Phase:
This two part phase is where you add clones based on which cycle you are in plus an artifact card and then you draw a Faux card and move Dr. Faux to the era* drawn and drop a number of rift (red) cubes a minimum of 2 (plus number of clones in Faux’ era) into Dr. Faux’s machine which spreads them out over Dr. Faux’s era and the two adjacent eras.
*An Era is one of the seven areas of the game board. There are only seven Faux cards, one for each era.
II. Action Phase:
This is where each player can take any number of the three different actions available as long as they can do it. The first action is move. Each character has one free movement they can do (this is moving one adjacent space) by using their character cards energy. Additional moves can be made by using and energy (green) cube in the Era they are in.
Next action is use an artifact card. Each player has 6 unique artifacts cards they begin with and you can acquire more during the game (next phase of the player turn). Each players hand consists of three face up cards to use during your turn. Once you use a card, you turn it sideways (tap in Magic the Gathering terms) to signify that it is done.
The last action you can do is perform a LOOP. This ability uses the energy cubes in the Era you are in. Doing a LOOP allows you to untap all the cards of a Elementary Dimension artifact cards (ones with a symbol is card type) so you can reuse again on the same turn.
Once you are done performing actions you then move to the next phase
III. Acquire Artifact:
If you end your turn in an Era that contains a artifact card, you may pick one and put it on top of your draw deck. This adds to the deck building aspect of the game.
IV. Complete Mission:
If you end your turn on an Era that has an active mission that the requirements have been fulfilled, you then complete that mission. This is the only way to complete a mission. Each player then gets to add a new artifact card to the top of their deck (the person completing the mission draws a card for each player plus one, the left over card is destroyed). If you have completed all requirements in the game mode you are playing (4 missions plus whatever else) you immediately win the game. If you need additional missions, you flip of the mission in Dr. Faux’s area or the next one available in a clockwise direction.
V. Refresh:
This last step of your turn consists of flipping your character card back over if you used your free move, discard your whole hand (used and unused cards), and draw up to three new cards from your deck (if another player has less than three cards, they also draw until they have three). Lastly, if there are no Faux cards in your cycle, you shuffle and prepare the Faux deck for the next cycle.
Additional Info:
What needs to be pointed out is that on each players turn a new Faux card is drawn. This ensures that the game will be over in a maximum of 21 turns. If there is an Era that gets more than three of the rift cubes, a vortex is created and that Era looses it’s mission (revealed or not) and any artifact cards drawn can not be placed there.
We had discussed how to win the game already, so now let’s look at the defeat conditions. You immediately lose the game if you reach the end of the 3rd cycle (if you need a 22nd turn), if you have to place a 4th vortex on the board, and/or you have to place a second vortex in an Era.
What we like about the game
First thing I want to point out is that even though some of the colors of the Era’s are harder to distinguish, the game has symbols that are easy to identify with for each area making the game color blind friendly. The overall aesthetics of the game is wonderful and just gives you the feel-good feelings.
The game itself being a maximum of 21 turns total (not each player) is very attractive to us. Does that mean the play time decreases? Nope, with more players and more decisions to be made the game can be slower as you communicate with everyone coming up with the best strategy to win. Is it a turn-off for us? Absolutely not.
The next thing that we like is that the game has the four different modes to choose from and within each mode there is three difficulty levels to pick to play making the game more challenging and replayable in our eyes.
The game being truly co-operative where you win or die together is outstanding. If you recall with The Age of Atlantis (see Entry 81) it being a semi co-operative game with someone still taking a win, The LOOP is a “ride or die together” game.
The last thing that we really love about the game is the whole dropping rift cubes into a pseudo-dice tower to disperse them over a three-Era area. It made the game fun even for our 3 year old who always wants to us play our games.
What we don’t like about the game
My wife feels that if you are able to randomize the location of each of the Eras (like the game Sovereign Skies does) it would make the game even more playable. I personally feel that it is fine the way it is because you randomly draw a Faux card.
There isn’t anything else that have haven’t liked about the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We have enjoyed the few games that we have played so far. This game is going to be fun to introduce to other players that love the challenge of completing different missions as a team.
We are looking forward to trying the game using the more complex characters and more the difficult game modes to make it more challenging. Even if you do not want to do the more difficult levels, the game is fun and replayable at the easy level.
Oh, as a side note, the bottom of the box contains achievements to aim for in the game.
FAMILY GAMER VERDICT
This game deserves a solid 9 out 10.
The game is the next step up in co-operative play from the Forbidden series. It is fun and exciting, and it is a game that you definitely want to communicate, communicate, and communicate.
Is the game worth adding to your collection if you like co-operative games? The answer is a HUGE yes it is.
There are expansions to the game called The Revenge of Fauxzilla (2021) and The Fur Brigade (2022) that we need to add to our collection.
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