Players: Ace, Amrita, Kevin

Continuing to experiment with new games this week, I pitched Until We Sink by Magnus Jakobsson (Archipelago). I was hesitant to pitch it, but it tuned into a really great game.

The premise is you're all guests or employees at a hotel on an isolated island. There are no other guests currently at the hotel besides the Players, well there was one more, but they were just found dead. Accident or Murder? You then go through a series of days, for each day selecting a prompt for some strange occurrence that day. Each occurrence by itself seems easily explainable, but when built up over several days with several occurrences, it's easy to start thinking there's something more going on.

Some of the prompts also include a simple die mechanic that singles out one of the players - this has the fantastic effect of throwing a sudden surprise turn of events; you think you know where the story is going and then "But then it can't be you?!" Just like a mystery novel.

The game requires A LOT of heavy lifting from the players, and it's a tricky balance of creating the mystery while trying to simultaneously unravel it. I personally feel as though the game would benefit from spending a bit more time on "world building" at the start (something we took the time to do.)

There's also a random element to when the game ends; once you've gone through 4 turns the game could end any turn, and you're forced to resolve any remaining questions. We skipped this rule, and I'm glad we did. You'd be better off deciding an hour or so into the game how many more scenes you want to play; this gives you more control of how questions are answered and the pacing.

I also wish it had more prompts. The ones with the game are fun and intriguing, but I could easily see how they'd get old after a few plays.

tl;dr - Was better than I expected. Take some time to define the setting before you start and don't shuffle "The Island Sinks" card in with the rest of the prompts; keep it off to the side until you're ready to end the game.