Welcome back to Cooperative Surprise Month! This month has seen a surprisingly good cooperative game set in 700 BC called Sammu-Ramat, a “lost” review of Chainsomnia, and a light-and-fun cooperative game called Hissy Fit with the surprisingly weird theme of taking cats to the vet! This week, we take a look at another game with a surprisingly weird theme: NYC: Emergency Room!

NYC: Emergency Room is billed as “A Cooperative Medical Mystery Game” for 1-4 players, Ages 14+. That lower bound of age may seem low or high, depending on who you are, as there are discussions you would want “mature” adults discussing (birth control, the human reproductive system, death, pain, diarrhea). So, be aware that this medical mystery game requires an adult attitude!

NYC was a game I picked up at Target a few weeks ago (early February): I was on the fence about it. On one hand, I love murder mystery games (see our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games) and escape room games. On the other hand, I generally don’t like medically themed games (too depresssing). Should I pick it up?

Then I remembered how the TV show House was originally billed as a a medical mysteries show. If you don’t know the TV show House, it is basically Sherlock Holmes as a doctor solving strange mysteries, but in the medical field (Get it? “House” & “Holmes” … “Wilson” & “Watson”). The show, while pretty dark, is quite interesting!

In the end, that’s why I picked up the game: “a fun medical mystery like House”. Or at least, that was my hope!

Unboxing

NYC: Emergency Room is a pretty standard sized box. See the Coke Can and #2 pencil for perspective.

The game is really just a bunch of envelopes!  All the components are in one of six envelopes.  

Four of the envelopes are cases for four different patients.  Each one of these is a different case.

There is one envelope that has components every game needs: that’s the Code/Research/Rules envelope. See above.

The first patient, though, is not one of the four envelopes… there’s a tutorial that walks you through your first case: Nurse Judy recognizes you are just starting out, and tries to help you through the process!

It’s kinda cool is that every envelope tells you exactly what’s inside (see above)! I can totally see passing this game onto other people after I am done, so it’s good to make sure each case has everything you need to do it!

Considering this is a game from Target, the quality is actually pretty good for everything (see above for some contents of the first envelope).   It’s surprisingly good how good these components are!

Rulebook

There is a rulebook, but you don’t even start with it.  You start with Nurse Judy’s tutorial pamphlet.  It walks you through your first game, and honestly, it does a fantastic job.

By the time I got through the Tutorial, I don’t think I ever looked at the rulebook!  (It comes in the black Codes envelope).  Seriously, I can’t complain or laud the rulebook because I never needed it.   The pure joy of the Tutorial made the rulebook almost unnecessary.  I may have looked it at once later for a rules clarification, but I’m not sure how much you’ll use it.  Listen to Nurse Judy, and you’ll be fine!

The Tutorial

The tutorial takes you quickly through a simple case with Luana Kapule: see above.

This was very easy to set-up and a very quick game.  I think I got through the Tutorial in about 20 minutes.

Seriously, this is one the best tutorials I have seen in a while.  You see all the things you should do, the things you shouldn’t do, and the game walks you through the playthrough very precisely.  

You know that a Tutorial is good when you don’t think you need the rulebook anymore:  20 minutes in, and I think I know the game.  I call that a successful tutorial!

Gameplay

The game is all about what tests and consultations and medications to administer to a patient over a night (a timeline).  You are measured by, frankly, if the patient survives the night.  You have a sheet that you keep track of everything you do and what time you do it: see above.

As you run tests on your patient, you will get codes to look up in the code book: they tell you what happens: frequently, this means you draw a card from a deck of “how the patient is doing”.  Note: the results of the tests do change as time marches forward!  Gulp! Make sure you run that test at the right time!!

What tests do you run?  Holy cow, all the things you can do or know is presented in about 5 pamphlets brimming with medical information!  See above.  This particular mechanic kind of reminds of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. 

Not directly, but the sheer volume of medical information in the game reminds me of the sheer volume of materials in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective: the maps, the phonebook, the newspapers.  This is a good thing: it really feels like medical mystery! You just have to look in the right place to solve the mystery!

If you can keep the patient alive by running the right tests (remember, tests can be invasive in many ways) and finding the right thing to do (which may be medication or something else), you win!

It goes without saying, but if your patient dies, you lose!

Solo Game: Patient 1

Strictly speaking, my first solo patient was from the Tutorial: but Nurse Judy basically kept me out of trouble, so I don’t know if that counts.

Before I began, I made a copy of the timeline sheet (see above) and left room for notes on the left.  I strongly recommend you do this as well!  First, by making a copy, you can reuse the first case later.  More importantly, I think, is that having the extra space to make notes was a big deal.

You never forget your first patient: mine was Shyla Patel.   

I had to make sure I interviewed her to make sure I knew what was going on.

I was able to do the proper tests and figure out what was going wrong with her.  Along the way, there were places where I could have done “something bad”, but in the end, I kept Shyla alive.

She left the Emergency Room alive and in good health. It was a good day.

Shyla never saw me looking, but my head was buried in these medical pamphlets the entire time.  This is a game about research, it’s a game about following up, it’s a game about what it’s like being a doctor.  (I always wonder if doctor’s do the same thing when we aren’t looking … “What the heck was that?  I gotta look in my pamphlets!”)

It was incredibly engaging, but there was a lot of research, a lot of taking notes (see above) and a lot of reading.  I love that stuff, but some people don’t.  

Why watch an episode of the TV show House when you can just play it? I really enjoyed this game solo.

Cooperative Game

It’s Charlie’s fault I started watching the TV show “House”, so I felt it was apropos that he and Allison play this with me!

Rather than try to explain the game to them, I simply had Charlie and Allison go through the Tutorial.  This was interesting: I am so used to explaining games to people, but I realized this game is just complicated enough that it makes sense to use the Tutorial again!  Rather than teach the game, just play the Tutorial! It really is that good!

After they finished the Tutorial, we encountered Patient 2: Adrian Alexopolous.

The cooperative game was very much like the solo game, but now we have a group of “other doctors” we could bounce ideas off of!  I like this shared responsibility: it’s a little scary to take full responsibility for a patient yourself, and this shared burden made it a little easier to endure.

The burden of taking notes, reading cards, consulting pamphlets also made the game move a little more quickly than the solo game.

Although I liked the solo game, and didn’t have any problem taking the full responsibility of a patient myself, I can see many people bouncing off this!  By having a team of doctors helping each other to help the patient, I can see many people preferring the cooperative mode over the solo mode.  

What I Liked

The Tutorial is fantastic.  It just gets you into the game right way: it’s the best way to teach new players, even if you already know the game!

I like all the medical information available.  I wish the medical pamphlets were bigger books written in a bigger font. I did a lot of reading and research with these!  It felt like the world was large, something to explore, even though I was only reading medical texts.

The mysteries are interesting and engaging.  And the components are great too, especially for a Target game.

What I Didn’t Like

I already said this in the What I Liked Section, but I wish the medical pamphlets were bigger with bigger fonts.  In fact, a lot of these pamphlets had two or three different things in them! I wish they had been broken up a little better … I am sure this is a “it costs money to make big pamphlets” issue, but they would have made it a little easier to use.

In the end, I made copies of the charts/timeline, but it bugged me a little that there weren’t multiple copies of these little sheets: there was only one for each patient!  For multiple reasons (extra space for notes, enabling this patient to be re-used), I strongly advise you to make a copy like I did above!

Conclusion

I really enjoyed NYC Emergency Room and so did my friends.  As long as you don’t have trouble with the theme, mature situations, and potentially life-or-death situations, this is a great mystery game! 

In fact, you could argue that the theme is very engaging because you are making “real” life-and-death situations for a person you meet in the Emergency Room!  Those tense situations may be too much for some people, but if you can handle it, I think it is fantastically riveting!

Allison gives this a 8/10, Charlie says it’s a “Solid Game” (I couldn’t get a number out of him).  I think I am right with Allison: this a 7.5/10 or 8/10 for me.  My hesitancy comes only the theme being potentially being very divisive: “I don’t want to be a doctor right now, that sounds too stressful!“.  I get it, sometimes it might not be as appealing to be a doctor in a stressful situation! Having said that, in the cooperative game, that burden is shared making the game a little more palatable. 

Why watch an episode of House when you can play it?  Just remember when doing patient interviews: “Everybody Lies.”

Welcome back to Cooperative Surprise Month! Last month we looked at the brand new game (Sammu-ramat) which was so surprisingly good! This week, we surprised ourselves by finding an old review which we never published! This is a review for the cooperative game Chainsomnia by Seiji Kanai! Let’s take a look!

Chainsomnia was a cooperative game I picked up from GameNerdz fairly recently (EDITOR: at the time this was written, it was June 2023 .. ahem).  It was a Kickstarter game, but I didn’t know that when I ordered it from GameNerdz (I guess I missed the Kickstarter).  Chainsomnia was appealing to me because it looks like a light cooperative game from the designer (Seiji Kanai) of Unicornus Knights!  I think that Unicornus Knights is something of a hidden gem (see Part I and Part II of our review), as it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2017!

This game is about a bunch of nightmare-ridden little kids trying to get out of a castle of nightmares! It’s for 1-4 players, 40-60 minutes, and ages 14+. Let’s take a look.

Unboxing and Gameplay

This is a pretty deep box.  The Coke Can actually fits inside it pretty well!

Seriously, this is a pretty deep box: mostly for the tiles.

Each character takes the role of a child trapped in the castle:

Each character has a standee and a character sheet.

Each character has some abilities (Strength, Luck, and Wisdom) which will form the the basis of a two-dice ability role.

For example, Chloe above has 3 Strength, 3 Wisdom and 3 Luck.  She can also get rid of Bad Dream easily with an AP (Action Point).

AP stands for Action Point.  The little chart to the left shows you how many AP you have per turn.  As you get Chains in the game (Ryan above has 2 chains), it reduces the number of AP you have per turn.

The Summary Cards summarize what you can do, but basically explore, search, give, skill, move, use or take.

In order to win, the characters must cooperatively explore the Castle to find the way out: the Way Out is the last card in the tile deck.  See Chloe winning the game for everyone by finding the Way Out … when there are no Bad Dreams on the board.

Like most cooperative games, there are “Bad News” cards that come out.  In this case, the Bad News cards are called “Events” and come out every time you explore and discover a new Room.

Generally speaking, the Event cards are full of nightmares that clog up the rooms.  You can’t enter a room with a nightmare until you take it out.  How do you take it out?

Each Bad Dream is different (for example, above you have to discard an Item), but generally you have to make a skill check on 2 dice, and roll higher than your skill.  If Ryan’s Strength is 5 and requires a 11+ Strength to Vanquish, then Ryan will need to roll a 6 or more (6+5 >= 11) on two dice to succeed in the Skill check.

Incidentally, skill checks are how you get Items (very useful tools): generally, each room will tell you what you need to roll to get one.  In the first room (see below), if you roll a 12 or higher on any skill check, you get an item.

There are other very bad cards that modify the Event Deck (see Shriek above) but if you make it through all Event cards without finding the Way Out you lose.  If you can get to the Way Out and defeat all Bad Dreams on the board you Win!

The components are quite cute, if a little minimal.  The cards are not linen finished.

Rulebook

The rulebook is good, except that it doesn’t talk a lot about edge conditions.  As we played the game, a bunch of questions came up (“Are Action Points dynamic?  Do you immediately lose/gain an AP as a result of a chain change?”).  There was a FAQ, but it didn’t answer the questions that seem to come up with us.

The components list had no pictures, but the Set-up was well-labelled to counteract that.   In general, there were appropriate pictures and the game was explained well-enough.  I even like that it had a FAQ, it just didn’t seem to address the questions we had.  I’ll call the rulebook good enough.

Solo Mode

Congratulations to Chainsomnia for following Saunders’ Law and having a solo mode!

Unfortunately, the solo player must take control of 3 characters.  Similarly, a 2-Player game would have each player take control of 2 characters.  Basically, there must always be 3 or 4 characters in the game.  This isn’t ideal for the solo because there’s always the context switch issue as you jump from character to character, playing each one separately.

Luckily for the solo mode, the context switch issue is not too problematic: each character has a pretty simple character with one “major” power.   For example, if one of your characters were Ryan (see above), it’s easy to remember he’s strong (strength of 5) and can also eliminate one monster for one AP.   There’s not too much to remember for each character, so context switching from character to character isn’t a big deal. Contrast this to the characters from Marvel Zombies: Heroes Resistance where each context switch becomes heavier and heavier as the characters get more and more abilities in the game (see our review here).  While the extra abilities in Marvel Zombies: Heroes Resistance are cool, it makes it significantly harder to play multiple characters.

It took me two solo games to get a win.  I remember losing my first game and saying, “Nope! I wanna play again! I know what to do now!”   I think your strategy really depends on the characters you choose, so my second game was with the same 3 characters.

I made one major mistake in both solo games: I forgot to save my Ominous Event cards and my Auspicious event cards.  In most every other cooperative game, you throw away events when you are done … Nope!  Here, they are a measure oh how well you did.

When you open the secret envelope, you need those cards.  I didn’t realize this until after my second game! 

(Picture deleted from review to avoid spoilers)

Minor Spoiler: Basically, you measure your victory (in the event of a win) by how many Auspicious Events and Ominous Events you got.    That was kind of cool: it’s a hidden and secret way to measure success, and gives you a reason to play again to try for a “better” win.

I didn’t love solo mode (mostly because of the 3 character issue), but it was fun enough to play again.  It also gave me enough insight to teach to my friends.

Cooperative Mode

This game went over pretty well as a cooperative game: probably better than I expected.  Since you always need at least 3 or 4 characters in play (this totally reminds me of Unicornus Knights), a 3 or 4-player game is probably ideal: that way every player gets exactly one character to operate, and it’s easier to inhabit and connect with the game if you are “that character”.

I noticed that, as we were playing, we really did consult each other a lot … and console each other a lot.  “Hey, don’t worry: I can take care of that nightmare!”  “Hey, don’t worry, I can get you an item!”  Sara’s character’s power allowed here to give items to other people anywhere on the board … this was huge! It allowed us to power up!  Even if we had a bad role, the game evoked a pathos: “It’s all right, we’ll get you out of that mess.”  Maybe there’s something about being a little kid that brings out the best in people, and makes them want to help each other?

There were a lot of fun little moments playing cooperatively.  I knew the game had gone well when we spent the post-game talking about all sorts of other ways we could have won/lost, been more strategic, etc.  People cared enough to keep thinking about the game, even when it was over!

Repacking

What’s going on with this box?  It has a huge insert, but the game doesn’t fit back into the box unless you do one of two things:

1. Always remove the plastic bases
   OR
2. Pack the dice into the fingerholes!

Those of you who have played GloomHaven know the problem with constantly removing/adding the plastic bases!  Basically, the bottom tears!  So, I chose to leave the plastic bases on.  Which means the game box WHICH IS HUGE doesn’t fit the game!  I had to be clever … and put the dice in the fingerholes.

Yup, not ideal, but then the game fits. See below for pictures of how I fit the game in.

Conclusion

Chainsomnia was pretty fun.  Although the rules were missing a lot of edge cases, the game was still pretty easy to teach and play.  The group liked it, but didn’t love it:

• Teresa, Rich: 7/10, liked it, would suggest it
• Sara: 6.5/10 liked it, would happily play, maybe wouldn’t suggest it as first choice
• Andrew: 6/10 Liked it well enough, would play again

The biggest issue with the game was that it felt a little “samey” after a few plays.  You could mitigate that by switching up the characters to have different strategies.  It was also maybe a little too lucky with so much emphasis being placed on the dice.

Chainsomnia was fun enough.  We actually would not recommend this for kids: even though this game is cute, the nightmares attacking kids might not go over well with younger players.  This game is more for older kids who like light cooperative games with an anime look.

EDITOR: At the time Our Top 10 Cooperative Tile-Laying/Placement games was written, Chainsomnia just barely squeaked onto the list as #10. I hate to say it, but I think Race for The Raft came along, moved to the top of the list, and pushed everything down one space (see our review here: it’s that good)! So that means Chainsomnia is #11 now …