Review: Seeders from Sereis: Exodus

Adam “Ox” Wilson’s Rating: 8.5

If you break down some of my favorite Sci-Fi shows like “The Expanse” and “Battlestar Galactica,” they have fun technology, scheming and spaceships. Seeders from Sereis: Exodus includes all three elements in one impressive package. 

I first encountered this game at Gen Con. The booth rep pitched Exodus as a heavy card drafting game. I love a good old-fashioned brain burner, and I was a little underwhelmed as I read the rules.

Once I started to play, the high points of Exodus really started to shine.It is easy to teach with a streamlined basic rule set, but the Ark cards provide interesting options and their interactions with one another encourage new tactics on subsequent playthroughs. Add in the depth of choices of each phase and the strategies they offer, and you have some good old fashion action-paralysis on your hands.

Overview

When the Seeders’ home is on the brink of becoming uninhabitable, they build giant colony ships, or Arks, to seek out a new home. You create an Ark through card drafting and bidding. The game is played over four rounds of five phases.

Components

The game comes with a two-sided board. The side you play on is determined by the number of players in the game. The main meat of the game is 192 Ark cards broken down into six factions of the Seeders’ civilization. Each faction has its own units and crews you can integrate into your Ark. You also receive a player board for your resource gems, six faction negotiators and influence cubes.  

Phases of the Game

Phase One: Preparation 

In phase one you untap any exhausted cards and establish turn order for the round. The player with the lowest score gets first choice on where they act, then remaining players pick empty spots in reverse order of their scores. This mechanic makes for some interesting strategic choices. Going first might allow you to get ahead on bidding for a specific card, but if you go last you can react to how everyone else plays cards. 

Phase Two: Card Drafting

The foundation phase is the card drafting aspect of the game. The first player deals four cards to each person. You keep one and pass the rest until you receive your last card. Do you take the card that is better for your Ark, or the card that is really good for your opponent? 

Phase Three: Bidding

The negotiation phase is the most involved part of your turn. You bid openly for cards on the game board. Each player has one negotiator from each of the six factions on the board. Each negotiator places one influence cube on the cards on either side of it. If the negotiator’s faction matches either of the cards it is adjacent to, you place an additional cube. There are either three or four spots around a card depending its location on the board. After all spots are filled, a winner is determined for each card. 

When you win a card, you add it to your hand and remove one of your adjacent negotiator chips. Any negotiators left on the board level up. That negotiator gets to place an additional cube onto one of the adjacent cards in future bidding phases. One negotiator can level up to four times, placing three cubes on adjacent cards and a fourth if factions align. On the last turn of the game, the remaining negotiators score points according to their level. 

This is by far my favorite phase of the game. First you want to analyze if there are any must-have cards on the board. What is the best way to win that card? Will anybody else be trying to bid for it? If the cards don’t float your boat, do you try to win some for resources or avoid winning to level up your negotiators? 

After the first round people tend to start collecting one or two main faction types. There is no way to really hide this. You may also see a card that would be really good for your opponent – channel your inner Loki and cause some mischief. If there is a tie for the most negotiation cubes on a card, it is discarded. I have seen a number of players use this tactic and it’s become an important part of my strategy. 

Phase Four: Actions

In the integration phase you use all the cards you drafted and won in bidding. In turn order you either recycle (discard) a card for its resources or integrate a card into your Ark. Each unit you place into your Ark can hold up to two crew members. During this phase you are also allowed to move current crew from other units to allow for optimal placement of new cards. 

During this phase you will also activate Technical and Caste abilities on your integrated cards. These abilities allow you to do a variety of actions like gathering resources, stealing opponent’s crew, destroying units and protecting your own assets. You are allowed to carry over one card from your hand for the following turn. Once you run out of actions or choose to move on, the next player will take their integration phase. 

The first time I played the game I thought, ‘why wouldn’t you want to go first?’ The other people are trying to destroy and steal your cards. If you go last you may not have anything left. This isn’t always the case. For example, the deviant faction possesses a number of disruptive abilities. The Arkiteks are composed of engineers who specialize in destroying and protecting units. Finding a good balance of aggressive and defensive abilities is crucial for your path to victory. 

Phase Five: Scoring

The final activation is the scoring phase. You can reorganize any cards in your Ark. Once optimized you score prestige abilities on your cards. The player who has the most prestige points at the end of the game wins. 

Future of Seeders

You are only creating an Ark in Exodus. They hope to make a ten-part game series where each game explores a new adventure of the universe and the Seeders’ struggle for survival. In France they have already released three expansions and episode two is in development. Exodus is a popular hit over there and when I was talking to the publisher from Sweet Games, they hope it will be a big hit in the United States as well. 

WizKids is taking on the publishing for the English copies and Sweet Games is anxiously awaiting to see the response. If all goes well, Sweet Games fully intends on getting the three expansions pushed out through WizKids to the United States. This will allow for Sweet Games to release future Seeders games in both countries simultaneously.

The Good

• Easy to learn the basic rules of the game.
• Two-sided board to accommodate different player counts. 
• Different card combos provide high replayability options.
• Fast to set up and take down.
• The vast strategic options give you a thirst for trying different approaches. 

The Bad

• The complexity of the cards can make it hard for newer players to understand the downstream effects of their choices.
• Exodus is susceptible to analysis paralysis due to its multiple strategic options.
• I had to sticker all the negotiator chips myself. This could change with the WizKids production copies. 

The Verdict:

I love every bit of this game and I want more. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys heavier strategy games. Seeders from Sereis: Exodus is scheduled to launch sometime in the Fall of 2020. You can currently preorder the game from a variety of online retailers.