Project Pandora: Box Contents

So while Mantic was running their Dungeon Saga Kickstarter, I picked up some of their games to get an idea about the quality of the production and game play.  Project Pandaro was a game they produced a few years ago prior to the new Deadzone.  This game was from before the kickstarter waves so was very modest in scope.  I got it clearenced priced on their webstore for like 25 dollars but it has now returned to normal price of closer to 50.    The box itself is pretty small and a cardstock material.  Reminds me of the boxes that Battletech or D&D sets used to come in.  Those boxes general had corners popping out and other issues after some abuse but if you were ok to them they will hold the contents for years.  Those where boxes for holding mainly books and paper or card stock components which is to mean flat things.  Miniatures are not flat once put together and might not store very well in the box.  I will have to go back and look at that as right now they are sitting in another bin.

Inside the box comes dice, small form rulebook, counter sheet, tile sheets, and 2 bags of miniatures.  The counters are used not just to track the affects on the board but you also draw them to influence the number of actions you have available.

While I spend another post on the miniatures, I just wanted to show the packaging here.  These are resin/plastic minis that have all been essentially cut from any sprue and then placed in a bag together.  There is no assembly guide or info about how the pieces go together or anything.  You get 10 space rats.

And  10 humans.  They still have some sprues for holding the heads but also mostly cut off and thrown in a bag.  So that was about a dollar and a quarter per figure which makes them pretty reasonably priced but one might not have any other use for them.

 

The rulebook is small format and black and white inside.  There is some artwork and the tiles layouts match to exact tiles as opposed to just shapes.  The first thing I note is that their are only 6 missions included which seems a bit on the light side.  Maybe that is enough with two different sides to try out but still seems low.  I also found it strange that their were no miniature pictures in the rulebook to help people with assembly.  I will run through a mission in another post to check out the game play.

The tiles are pretty thin cardstock with pretty colorful images of space ship decking and cargo areas.  They range in size from like 2 by 1 to 6 by 6 but have nothing to attach them and are pretty light.  Setting them up on a smoothed topped surface is not a good plan as the will get knocked about quite a bit.

One of the things I noted with this set is that assembling miniatures to play a board game is sort of a drag.  I am sure I am not the only one who has more than a few unfinished projects lying around.  While the preassembled plastics have their issues with quality sometime the convenience of them being ready to go as soon as you open the box can outweigh that.

Overall at 50 dollars it would have seem pretty weak in terms of contents compared to the only marginally more expensive D&D Coop games and such but at 25 dollars I only have to get a couple of plays on it to say it has covered that cost.