Impulse

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 6 out of 10

   Abdul

   Some cool ideas in here, all the craziness I expect from a Chudyk game. The shared actions track that players build together is particularly clever, it is not easy to pick a card that will only push your strategy without benefiting the other players. The long downtime between turns hurts the game though. Each players turn drags on a bit, as it will always be a long impressive chain of actions, but with little for you to do in between (aside from resolving the occasional combat). Plays very quickly though, so doesn't outstay it's welcome.

2. 7.5 out of 10

   bcnevan

   I have the second edition from Czacha. Impulse manages to provide a 4X feel in a short play time--though it's probably rare that you'll hit that exterminate condition. The experience is driven by the Chudyk-style multi-use cards and card combinations. Players that dislike a high volume of direct player confrontation and the appearance of a lack of control will dislike this game more than other Chudyk games. To explain a bit regarding this game's control, at least as compared to Innovation, Impulse foists more control over to the players. If an opponent has a juicy combination ready, players may need to force battles to whittle hands down in size and deny access to those cards (while being careful not to hand too many points over to that opponent). There's many different paths to points and Impulse seems to provide more of a sandbox as compared to Innovation. Gameplay requires planning, timing and, of course, some fortuitous card draws. The game does give a number of ways to mitigate bad draws -- and bad planning can exacerbate the effect of a bad draw -- but it seems to take a few plays before players start understanding the hand management and how certain 'bad draws" should be used. At least with my current plays, Innovation seems more susceptible to a degenerative state than this game; we'll see if that changes with future plays. To continue the comparison to Innovation, the interface is improved over Innovation; there's much less bookkeeping. In theory, down time can be less in Impulse, but large chains of actions can increase down time from turn to turn. Impulse: All Your Base (2017) Impulse: Brake for Launch (2017)

3. 7 out of 10

   andylatto

   very short; I"m a little worried that it will be luck-dominated by who gets good cards early. 2 or 3 player may have much more control than 4.