When Trick or Treat Studios (Nightmare Productions) decided to tap veteran game designer Richard Launius to codesign (along with Taran Lewis Kratz and Pete Shirey) their new cooperative adventure game, I was intrigued. I have many fond memories of playing his Arkham Horror board games, and then once I found out it was set in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles with gritty crimes needing to be solved, I was all in.
LA-1 is a story-driven, co-operative adventure game where you take on the role of detectives working for Mace & Doyle Investigations. The game takes about 90 minutes to play…or longer if you are not very good detectives.
Gameplay Overview:
LA-1 can be played either as standalone games or as a mini-campaign. Regardless, each player controls a detective with a unique power. The game comes with 4 case books (with one more in the expansion) that take you through various stories in the city. Each case has its own mystery to be solved, and they are best played in order.
The basic core loop of the gameplay takes place in 3 parts:
1. Darkness phase: Draw and resolve a darkness card. These are almost always bad and represent the darkness and evil elements holding sway over the city. The main thing to know here is that it usually moves your token up the darkness track, which can trigger the endgame (and a loss) if it gets too far.
2. Action Phase: This phase lets players move around the board, power up (or heal) their characters, and in general, prep for the investigation phase.
3. Investigation Phase: This is the heart of the game where you can either investigate leads on your case, fight back the darkness, perform stakeouts, or investigate locations around the city.
Investigation cards will have a bit of narrative text and then usually require a skill check. There are 6 skills in the game, and players can optionally play matching skill cards to boost their results. Then they draw cards from the fate deck until they draw a card that doesn’t match the check type. Then they add up all the numbers and see if they succeed. Each card will have different outcomes depending on whether they passed or failed.
One of the main goals here is to collect clue tokens from the board, which can be spent advancing the case, leading you towards solving the mystery.
Game Experience:
One thing to know right off the bat is that LA-1 is not a deduction game. While you are trying to solve a case, you aren’t piecing together clues of a puzzle trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. Instead, you have a story-driven adventure game. While the case is the overall driver of the game, the story will unfold somewhat randomly based on what cards you draw.
This is actually really nice because cases in LA-1 are meant to be replayable. For example, after investigating a suspect, the game may tell you to draw card 143. However, in the deck there are 5 different card 143s. That means that your suspect may have been the culprit, or may have an alibi and be ruled out depending on what card you draw.
For those looking for a Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective type mystery game, this isn’t it. Which I’m ok with because the system in LA-1 works great. The cards aren’t so random that things are coming out of left field. But there are just tweaks to the story here and there, and your culprit in one game may not be the same one in another. That’s great for replay value.
Speaking of randomness though, luck is going to be a bit of a factor in your games. The main goal on turns is to get clue tokens from the board. However, most are face down, and they can be either basic tokens or clue tokens. While basic tokens are always useful, they aren’t going to drive the story. So if you keep drawing the wrong type, you are going to be slowed down.
The other place luck shows up is with the skill checks. Instead of dice, you have a card deck. To resolve a skill check, you will be drawing cards from the fate deck. Get an icon matching the check type (1 in 6, plus good and bad luck cards), and you can keep drawing, adding to your score. Get an unused icon, and you stop. That being said, there are various ways to help get around a bad draw. Each character has 2 skill types they can use to influence the draw. You can also spend karma tokens to redraw a card. Overall, the checks never felt unfair, and with good planning, you can usually succeed at a check.
LA-1 reminds me of old-school Fantasy Flight games. A large board where you are moving around, beefing up your character, trying to resolve skill checks. The game is constantly fighting you back, making things tougher, but gives you ways to try and eke out survival. It’s a bit of nostalgia for me, updated for the modern age. There are lots of things to do on your turn, and you’ll never feel like you have enough actions (or money).
Overall, the designers did a great job of capturing the gritty, post-apocalyptic cyberpunk theme. There are androids, mutating people, an elite upper class that literally lives in the clouds, and the desolate undercity where only the most desperate of people go. And you, somewhere in the middle, just trying to eke out an existence and survive until the next payday.
Final Thoughts:
I think LA-1 is pretty great. The cases are interesting, the overall gameplay loop is engaging, and I keep coming back for more. With only 4 cases in the core game, I do wish that there were more. But I’m encouraged that they are all replayable. While they won’t be wholly different, you also won’t have the same ending each time you play, which is a nice trade-off. However, if Trick or Treat Studios makes another expansion, I’m all for it.
For those looking for their next deduction game, this isn’t it. But if you enjoy cooperative, story-driven adventure games, LA-1 is a great option for your next game night!
Final Score: 4 Stars – A game with an old school FFG feel that is updated for the modern age. Get to sleuthing!
Hits:
• Cases are fully replayable
• Smooth game flow
• Challenging without being unfair
• Interesting stories
Misses:
• Luck of the draw can set you back sometimes
