Alex Coulombe, the judge for the competition, played FAZA with his gaming group multiple times. Check out his detailed document outlining what they loved about FAZA, with some highlights below.
He described FAZA as "far and away the most polished and engaging, while also offering the most value on repeat playthroughs, especially across 2, 3, and 4 players." After playing the game multiple times, they "realized there was no 'sure-fire' strategy, and the game forced us to adapt and improvise to changing situations." He went on to say that "FAZA is the best co-op game we’ve ever played."
If you get further into the document, he continues listing out the many wonderful aspects of playing FAZA:
If you get further into the document, he continues listing out the many wonderful aspects of playing FAZA:
- "Never have I played a game before that is so thoroughly engaging for all players the entire time. While some co-op games achieve this to a certain degree, the level of strategy and planning for an upcoming Faza round in our games had everyone feeling like brilliant tacticians working together."
- "Great balance with the different roles and their abilities. Everyone felt like were able to pick a role that suited their play style, and they had something meaningful to contribute every turn."
- "The game keeps the pressure on continuously-- from the word go we basically always felt like we were about to die (or run out of drones), then felt enormous exhilaration and relief when we managed to stave off our demise."
- "Rules are laid out in such a way that made reading through them easy, which is impressive considering there are some fairly complex elements in this game. The rules are exceptionally well-written with clear graphics and worded with a level of precision that immediately answered nearly every question we had."
- "Great synergy between theme and mechanics. I honestly couldn’t tell you which one the designer likely started with."
- "Average playtime for a game became 1 hr 30 min, which felt like the perfect length. We ended every game on a high of wanting to play again and adjust our strategies and roles to see how it might affect our next playthrough."