Designer: Diego de la Torre (EXO: Mankind Reborn, Sombra Sobre Isla Negra)

Artists: Pedro Andreo, Xabi Gaztelua (EXO: Mankind Reborn), Ana Marco (EXO: Mankind Reborn, Rey Paparajote), Alberto Cernuda Navarro (EXO: Mankind Reborn)

Publisher: Plast Craft Games (EXO: Mankind Reborn)

Genre/Mechanisms: area control, area movement, dice rolling, modular board, resource management

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Dark Flow is already fully-funded, with 3 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About:  A competitive sci-fi-themed area control game with miniatures and engine-building.

How It Works: Dark Flow is played over 5 rounds, or Ages. Each Age is comprised of the following three phases: Black Market, Action, and Recovery. During the Black Market Phase, each player chooses a Relic Token. During the Action Phase, players take turns performing actions until each player has performed each of the 6 actions: Develop, spending resources to gain Development Cards; Recruit, spending resources to deploy figures to the battlefield; Move, moving your figures across territories and leaving behind Conquest tokens; Attack, an enemy figure or Wandering Monster; Extract, gaining resources from your territories with Workers and/or Refineries; and Build, spending resources to build structures. Players may also take the following Free Actions: Gain Contracts, Open Portal/Summon Leader, Activate Relics, Use Boosts. During the Recovery Phase, players’ Action and Relic tokens are reset, the First Player token passes to the left, the Wandering Monster moves and possibly produces Spores, and a new Development Card is placed on the board.

After the end of the fifth Age, end game scoring includes: the player with the most controlled territories scores 10 Dominion points, the second-most 6 points, and the third-most 2 points; for each 1-6 Pillars of Influence built, players score 1/3/6/10/15/20 points; players score 5 points each for opening a second portal, summoning their Leader, destroying another player’s Leader, and destroying a Wandering Monster; players score 1 point for each Spore they destroyed and each unused Boost at the end of the game; 3, 4 and 5 points for deploying the maximum number of each type of figure; and the number points indicated on their fulfilled Contracts. Whoever has the most points, wins.

Comparisons:  This is purely an action selection game. The strategy of the game comes down to the order players take their actions each turn, and how they adapt to the developing board and other players’ action choices, as well as how they supplement the order of their choices with free actions. In that sense, it reminds me a bit of Scythe. Simpler in some ways without the paired player boards and one set of actions unlocking more powerful bonus actions, but perhaps making individual choices more specific and impactful. The colorful minis call to mind those of Tsukuyumi: Full Moon Down, but that game focuses on combat, skirmishes, and variable player powers; whereas the combat in Dark Flow is occasional, and part of some larger plan when it happens, like that in Lords of Hellas or Vindication. It also reminds me a bit of Gaia Project, Terra Mystica, and even Eclipse, where players are choosing from among a set network of actions, building a system of efficiency targeting specific items from among a point salad of scoring options.

What Should I Pledge?:
$93 Commander Pledge: the Core Box, all unlocked stretch goals, and all free unlocked goals.
$153 Field Commander Pledge: includes everything in the Commander Pledge, plus the 5-6 Player Expansion.
$179 EXO Commander Pledge: includes everything from the Commander Pledge, plus a bunch of items from Plast Craft’s previous Kickstarter. campaign: the EXO: Mankind Reborn core game, the EXO: Mankind Reborn cardholder, the EXO: Mankind Reborn Daku & Oz character expansion pack, and the EXO: Mankind Reborn Okay & N’zila character expansion pack.
$185 Conqueror Pledge: includes everything in the Field Commander Pledge, plus the artbook, card holder, and dice tower.
$271 EXO Conqueror Pledge: combines everything in the EXO Commander Pledge and the Conqueror Pledge.

Add-Ons:
$9 Card Holder Round Trackers
$60 5-6 Player Expansion
$10 Dice Tower
$20 48-page Artbook
$8 Sha’lek miniature
$6 Riveter FRC Worker

KS Exclusives:
The 56 Conquest Banners, Sha’lek miniature, Riveter FRC Worker, the Zokkor Wandering Creature miniature, and the Avatar Wandering Creature miniature, if it ends up being unlocked before the end of the campaign. 

All-In Total: If you’re not interested in the EXO: Mankind Reborn items and don’t feel the need for the extraneous artbook, card holder, and dice tower, then in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $153 for the Field Commander Pledge, $8 for the Sha-lek miniature, $6 for the Riveter FRC Worker, and an estimated $26 in shipping for a total of $193.

Dark Flow completes its Kickstarter on Saturday, October 5th and tentatively ships in December 2020.