Luddite arrived at my house about a month or more ago, but I have been afraid to open it.  Why?  I mean Luddite was the #5 entry on my Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2024!  I paid money and Kickstarted it!! Why was I worried?

Luddite “looks” big because it has a graphic novel associated with it; there’s a lot of story here.  I was afraid I’d mentally have to prepare myself to embrace it.

I don’t know why I worried!  At the end of the day, this is “just” a roll-and-write game!   You roll 3 dice, mark off spaces on your sheet above (See above) and try to score points (aka damage)! The base game is pretty straight-forward!

The object is to do enough damage to move to the next level! You need 60 at easy difficulty; see above as I miss by 1!  Heart-breaking!

In order to inflict the damage, you have to “move” the metal token (left side above; from the START to the END): if you don’t move that token, you can’t do any damage at all!  So, while trying to get “points” (aka, damage), you also have to make sure the token above moves!

The game plays solo, cooperatively, and competitively.  The solo game is all about doing enough damage,  and the competitive game is “who can do the most damage to win”.   The cooperative game is really just multiplayer solitaire: take the scores of all players and average them to get a score; if that score is high enough, players collectively win!

To be clear, there is NO cooperation in the cooperative game; each player just takes their own book and plays completely independently.  Players can’t help each other, they can’t share anything, they can’t use a dice on another players board … nothing.  This is as multiplayer solitaire as you can get.   If you want an experience where you are working with your friends, chatting, strategizing, working together, … this isn’t the game for you.  BUT if you have friends who are “suspicious” of cooperative games, or people who don’t like the cooperative games, this can still work for you! 

No one will tell you what to do, as everyone’s head is down and looking at their own board! See above!  And no one gets in anyone else’s board in any way!

I made the mistake of getting 3 more “Additional Player Packs” (see above), but what this means is that 3 more people can play!    Basically, Luddite can scale to as many people as you want because there is no interaction between players!!  I am thinking of trying a 7-Player game of Luddite at RichieCon this year! (I have 4 packs in the base game and 3 packs from additional buys = 7 player boards!)

So, you can view this complete lack of player interaction as a good thing or bad thing, depending on the group you are playing with.

Solo Experience

If this was all there was to Luddite, there’s not much making it stand out, is there?  It’s a pretty good roll-and-write game for the solo player, and it’s a pretty good cooperative roll-and-write that scales to any number of players … even if there is no player interaction.

However, if you let it … this game can be an experience!  The Graphic Novel that comes with the game tells the story of some people who have been “made redundant” by AI and how they are fighting back!

The Graphic Novel gives you a back-story, then at certain places, tells you what chapter/pages to turn to! See above!

This was more immersive than I expected.  If you let it, this game can feel very immersive.  For my solo experience, I read the graphic novel that came with the game …

… and each new game is a progression of the story, even if the boards look very similar. See above as I win (solo) chapter 3!

Somehow, it seems for a game named Luddite (Luddite: someone who eschews technology) … that you HAVE to read the physical graphic novel, right?

Cooperative Experience

It turns out, the comic book is also online … in a video!  It has voice-acting, and shows the comic progressing!  See above!

For the cooperative game, it’s “harder” to enjoy the graphic novel in its physical form … you have to pass it around, or wait for others to read it, or read over people’s shoulders.  But, if you go to the Cotswold Group website, they have the entire graphic novel online! (And even a little tutorial)

So, even though it’s seem against the spirit of a gamed named Luddite, the cooperative experience is made so much better by watching the comics-turned-to-videos!  Arguably, that experience engulfs you and all your friends into the game!  It’s a shared story you are all experiencing!

To be fair, it helps the experience if you can show the video on a big screen or TV: see above. It feels more immersive that way.

House Rule/Hack (Get it? Hack? In a game about Hacking?)

The dice are a shared resource everyone shares in the cooperative game: they are rolled and placed in the middle for everyone to see!  But sometimes, in the heat of playing, you may forget which dice you used for which activity.  Surprisingly, there’s no place on the sheet to “notate” which dice we used !!

Since you don’t compute your damage until the very end of the game,  you can use the Damage section!  

This little house rule/hack made it easier to play the game cooperatively, as you could all independently note the dice rolled and how/when/where you used them.  

Conclusion

If you let Luddite be an experience that carries you along in its story (either as a graphic novel or comic-turned-video), I think this can be a really fun and immersive experience.

A reductionist might say “Luddite just a roll-and-write” …  but at least it’s a good one. I really enjoyed all my plays of this.   The base game is pretty straightforward and quick, and it has lots of meaningful decisions.

The cooperative game has literally no interaction between players, which can be a curse or a blessing, depending on the group you are playing with.   But, because of that lack of interaction, this game can scale to pretty much any number … as long as you have the boards!

This is a good solo roll-and-write (7/10), and a pretty good cooperative roll-and-write (6.5/10 or 7/10, depending on what you want), but it’s the story and experience that elevates this just enough that I would recommend you try this: 7.5/10.

I still think it’s hilarious that a game called Luddite has such a great online presence.  I mean, a game called Luddite should ONLY have the physical version, right?

Appendix: Binding

I normally despise this kind of binding, especially on something you need to hold open! See my review of War Story, Freedom Five, and Forests of Admiron if you don’t believe me!  For a graphic novel, it’s “okay” since you are just reading it and holding it open. See below.

Where this binding fails is when you have to read the directions in the back of the book!  See below as I try to wedge the book into the edge so it’ll stay open!  I hate this kind of binding for rulebooks!

See above as I attempt to hold it open!!!   Honestly, the rules should have been in a second standalone book that could be lain flat and open.  As a graphic novel, this kind of binding is “fine”.  But the rules portion of the graphic novel (in the same book, this really made me grumpy.