Tabletop Simulator - Indonesia DLC

I just bought this game based on the sole reviewer's comment, "good rulebook." This is really, really important. A good rulebook usually means a good game. I'll update this after I play a couple games, but my first impressions: As other review said, this is a very simple design. It could even be a standard fan mod, as there's nothing really snazzy about it, and that's fine with me if the game is good. I really like the simple, earthy color palette, and as a fan of old maps and those weathered aesthetics, this design appealed to me. I like Robinson Crusoe, Navegador and similar historical exploration games in part because they make this design choice too. I look forward to playing this one! That being said, two small gripes off the bat: Calculators. I really wish we had some kind of counter for historical games, I am just sick of that damn default calculator. This is a minor complaint, I can find my own fix for it and delete them. But someone needs to mod an abacus or perhaps script a piece of parchment obj that performs calculations in a historical font or something :P The 2nd thorn is a little more annoying. I have a hard time seeing the words on the board. The font is lovely, as are the board and components, but unless I'm right over it I can't really tell what's going on. It would be nice if the font were bolder or more pronounced. Perhaps the designer could create a State 2 of the board with denser font, for those of us with crappy eyes. If this were a real board I wouldn't take this one to a low light environment like a game pub. Looking forward to playing this!!

Heavy economic, euro, auction, resource, competitve game. There is nothing fancy about the mod- no sounds and multiple buttons, but it has great solid gameplay and a nice rulebook.

The quality of the mod has been addressed already in the other reviews here (in short, it's functional) so I'll skip that. Instead let's talk about Indonesia. Splotter Spellen is a Dutch board game company that makes some of the best board games in the industry, but be warned: they are dense. The games they design have a pretty small rules overhead, generally speaking, but the depth and nuance that these rules create are impressive. Many games create rules with specific outcomes in mind, but Splotter seems to make rules in their games that can have far reaching implications with very little convolution. Nothing here is one dimensional, and the consequence of any given action may not show itself until three or four turns farther into the game. You can't make arbitrary moves if your opponents aren't, and if you do it's hard to get out from behind that 8-ball. All of this applies to Indonesia. The game is a logistics game where you are operating shipping and manufacturing companies in a non-specific era of Indonesia. You will start various goods companies, selling things like rice or oil, as well as founding shipping companies used to transport those goods around the islands. However, you yourself won't have enough to manage all of this on your own, so you'll be forced to use your opponents companies to make any real money. And that of course is a huge part of the game: making money yourself while limiting how much you have to give your opponents each round. Another huge piece of the game is the mergers phase. Two competing shipping companies may exist side by side for a while, but only so much time will pass until one of the two (or perhaps even a wealthy third party looking to buy up some companies from other players) will want to buy the other out, and this is where the crux of Indonesia is: company mergers. Companies can and will change hands as the game goes on, and in doing so they will grow to massive proportions, and perhaps even create monopolies. Knowing when to merge, and how much value to place on the merger is a huge part of what makes this game so fascinating. It's a tense, calculated phase of the game and every time it comes up you will be nervous and excited about what the state of the board will be after it's over. There's a whole lot more to Indonesia, and it's certainly worth the $7 to pick it up here assuming you have a few people to play it with that will be invested in learning its intricacies. It's not a friendly game, but it's a rewarding game and one of Splotter's best.