What am I going to do? Usually, my game groups are 3 or 4 players, but this week ended being 5 players!! Argh, it is sometimes harder to find “non-party” games that work well with 5 players!! Hmm, I am looking at recent arrivals and see something called Freelancers! It just came in the last week (early September 2023). Looking at the back of my Freelancers game (a cooperative Crossroads game), it says the player count is 3-7! See below ..

This seems like the perfect game for tonight! We have all played Forgotten Waters (another game in the Crossroads game system) and really liked it (see here): Freelancers is the newest game in that line. We’ll probably like that? It looks fun! It looks silly! (Spoiler: it is VERY fun and it is VERY silly)

Unboxing

Well, I gotta unbox this before my friends get here … they’ll be here in an hour!

This is a pretty standard sized box, it looks pretty easy to unbox.

The rulebook looks pretty short (it’s only 12 pages). And I love this art!

Oh, the pieces are well-labelled (but they don’t correlate the list of components with a picture, Boooooo!)

There’s a lot of cool stuff in this box!

That set-up looks pretty good: I think this will be easy to get to the table!

Well, there’s some cardboard to punch (3 sheets, not too bad).

Oh my, there’s a lot of tokens! BUT!

BUT, there’s a lot of plastic bags that come with the game too! That’s great!

There’s a lot of cards: treasure, story, first stuff: this is all very readable and fairly well-notated.

The Location book looks really cool too!

The components looks pretty great! I love this art style and this game screams quality! I am super excited to get this to the table!

Solo Play! Oh No!

Oh no!  My friends will be here soon! I don’t have time to play this solo!  Gah!  I always like to play it solo so I can teach it first!!!  And it’s not even clear if I CAN play this solo!  (It turns out you can, but you have go hunting OUTSIDE the box: There are no solo rules included in the physical game, but the web site has rules for solo and 2-Players in the Variants section at https://www.freelancersgame.com/ ..  unfortunately, by the time I saw this, it was too late!  But Freelancers does follow Saunders’ Law!  There is a viable solo mode!)

Set-Up

This is a storybook game: see our Top 10 Cooperative Storybook/Storytelling Games for more examples of this type of game! 

In our case, this is yet another storybook game like Forgotten Waters where the story is all in the app! (No storybook required)! There is a giant amount of story being read by the app at http://www.freelancersgame.com!

Each player chooses one of the figures/characters to play (these are the Species in the game)! See above! There are an interesting assortment of characters! The Imp! The Hound! The Troll! The Mouser! .. and other stuff! This game can play up to 7! We are just playing at 5 right now …

Each player gets a Species sheet (above) corresponding to the chosen character: see one such Species Sheet above (say that 5 times fast). You’ll be filling in some silly information on this sheet: this game has a Mad Libs element where you will be using this information to “define” your character!

The second sheet you get is the Job: See the Warrior job above.  The most important thing on the Job sheet is the skill matrix: you will be using that to make skill checks (and mark up when you get better as you play).

See some other jobs above. You’ll note that Divorcee is a job. Yes, yes, Divorcee. If you had any idea that this was a serious game, you now know for sure this is a silly game.

Putting a Species and Job together, you get your fleshed-out character!

Each player also gets a starting item (see above.

There are also 7 roles/responsibilities that need to be assigned to the players: Since there were only 5 of us, some of us took two roles! This really makes the game very cooperative! Every player will be doing some role which is essential to the gameplay! (The Influencer board reminds of the the Sidekick of Interest (SOI) Track: see our post here about Resolving Ambiguity is Board Games).

After everyone fills out their sheets, they read aloud the story on the other side!

And we are ready to play!

Recommendation: Print The Job and Species Sheets

The game does come with a pad of a bunch of Species and Jobs, but there aren’t very many!  Before you play, you should go the web site (https://ww.freelancersgame.com) and print copies of everything! See the Friar job above in the app!

For example, there’s only 1 copy of the Divorcee sheet, so I had to print a copy for Teresa! I suspect EVERYONE will want to play the Divorcee, so you probably will want to print out copies rather than use the pads that come with the game.

There’s three copies of the Species (3 Hounds, 3 Mousers, etc), but only 1 of (most of) the Jobs! I strongly recommend proceeding to http://freelancersgame.com and printing out some Species/Job sheets before you play! Otherwise, you will use the included pads VERY quickly! (Each quest uses a new set of characters, so yes, you will go through them quickly!)

Tutorial

I was worried about learning the game as we played: it was NOT a problem!! The tutorial system that comes in the web site was fantastic! We DID NOT need to read a lot of rules! We just jumped right in! And the app guided us through the game easily! Granted, this is a relatively simple game, but this just worked.

Gameplay

The main mechanic in this game (besides the story in the Storybook/app) is that this is a worker placement game. The Location book opens to your current Location (see above) and sets the stage with a cool picture on the left, and the worker placement board to the right.

In a timed fashion (there is a little 45 second timer in the app), players have to place their markers in Influencer order on the current work page! The little graphics give you a sense of what you will get when you go there, but you are not supposed to have a lot of time to figure stuff out!

Once all players have placed their marker, the right side of the page gives more detail about what the Location does: you resolve the actions top to bottom. See above.

Most actions involve skill checks: you roll a 20-sided die for the base skill, but as you get “better”, you get a better and better bonus die to help you! First a d4, then a d6, d8, d10, and finally a d12! Usually, you get an upgrade to the skill you are going to attempt before you attempt it. Most skill checks want a 15 or higher to “do well”.

Of course, success or failure consults the app!  And you get some silliness or story advancement or further choices!  

There are a number of quest included in the game: each quest has a unique ending and twist! Our was to fight a dragon and beat it up!

Generally, the game game is run by the app, and all the players man their positions as they play: Game Master (runs the app), Bookkeeper (actions from Location book), Cartographer (handles map), Medic (keeps track of wounds), Scout (tracks Risk), Lookout (updates dials), Influencer (mans SOI chart).

As we play, we alternate between the Location book (with the Worker Placement Locations) and the Map (for exploration) Again, the app lets you know when you need to do stuff.

The App

The app (really, a web site you go to: https://www.freelancersgame.com, but it feels like an app) is quite good. The voice acting is really good! Surprisingly so! The story is pretty fun, if a little goofy. Actually, it’s very goofy. But it’s still really fun! We really enjoyed listening to the story as it unfurled. We miss reading to each other “a little”, but the 7 roles/responsibilities keep us engaged as we listen to the story!

We played online (meaning we were connected to the web-site the whole time), but you can download the content and play the game off-line: see https://www.plaidhatgames.com/freelancers-crossroads-game-downloads/

Silly

This is a silly game: between the Mad Libs on your character sheets, the silly (but great) art, the story, and the choices, this is a silly game! I think it’s even sillier than Forgotten Waters! This would absolutely make our Top 10 Cooperative Games With a Sense of Humor! (Note that Forgotten Waters is #4: Freelancers would probably make the #3 position!)

Just so you know what you are getting into: this game seems like it might be a “serious post-apocalyptic game” from the description on the back, but it really isn’t. This is super silly.

Cooperation

There’s quite a bit of cooperation as players each have a job to do! See the Lookout and Scout jobs above! Players almost feel like they are members of a crew keeping the party afloat … in fact, that’s exactly what players were in Forgotten Waters: a Pirate Crew! So, that analogy works better in the previous game, but the same idea still applies here: players work together as a party of adventurers trying to “keep the party going”. Each player has a particular duty and must do their duty to keep going!

That idea of giving each player a role(s) is a great way to keep everyone involved! This collaboration really contributes to everyone feeling important to the mission! It’s a really great mechanism: it’s hard to have an Alpha Player because there is so much to do, shared among the players!

Refinements upon Forgotten Waters

The general consensus was that this was a better version of Forgotten Waters: the system had evolved just a little to be a touch simpler and more interesting.

For example, consider that the level-up system is simpler in Freelancers.  In Forgotten Waters, there was a more complex system with marking up a constellation of stars.  That constellation system (where you mark out a constellation on your way to level-up points) is gone from Freelancers!

On the back of the Freelancer character sheet is a simple linear level upgrade (see sheets above).  Rather than having a complex system with the constellation of Forgotten Waters, Freelancers has a much simpler system!  My players enjoyed this: the simplicity helped moved the game forward (rather than getting stuck in the constellation).

The map and exploration system is also much simpler in Freelancers.  Forgotten Waters had a big hex map which players explore.

In Freelancers, the exploration is a little more “contained” on a given map: see above.  Generally, the exploration feels a little more on rails in Freelancers, but it is definitely simpler.

The skill upgrade system is very similar in both games.  The difference here is that the upgrades are simpler in Forgotten Waters: pluses just add to your skill rolls.

In Freelancers, you actually add a different die to your rolls as you upgrade (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12)!  This adds an element of randomness, but there’s something very cool about getting bigger and bigger dice to help your skill rolls!  See the skill sheet above.

In general, my players liked Freelancers better than Forgotten Waters: they liked the evolutionary changes to the game.  I think I like the changes/evolutions better, but I personally still like the pirate theme and more “open” exploration of Forgotten Waters.

In the end, both are great games.  Freelancers is slightly simpler and has slightly better/evolved mechanisms.  It’s the theme that’ll probably decide for you.  Silly Pirates or Silly Post-Apocalypse?

NSFW

So, the game can be NSFW.  At some point, a “choice” is made, and this makes the game have a section or two that is NSFW.  It’ll be clear when you make this choice: just be aware this is coming.  If you don’t mind some cursing and innuendo (and directness), then you are probably safe.   If you are playing with kids or worried about offending anyone, make sure you choose the “safer” and more “family-friendly” path. 

Conclusion

Freelancers went over like Gang-busters! Everyone had a fantastic time playing! The silliness, the story, the roles, were just so much fun! Everyone just loved this game! 8 and 8.5/10 all around. This will easily make the Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023, the Top 10 Cooperative Games With a Sense of Humor, and the Top 10 Cooperative Storybook/Storytelling games!

Oh ya! And it worked fantastically as a 5-Player Games! Sometimes it’s so hard to find a good 5-Player cooperative game!

This game was so much fun!