Blind Luck: The Last Engineer Preview

What is your idea of a nightmare? Scary monsters? Dying alone? Clowns?? We all have our own personal ideas, but one I can certain see myself not liking is being thrust into darkness forever with an unnatural horde of beings sent to dominate and eradicate the human species… unless someone can get the power station back up and running to provide survivors with light, and subsequently the ability to more easily fight back against the horde. Such is the premise of Blind Luck: The Last Engineer.

Blind Luck is a solo print-and-play RPG. In it, the player becomes the last beacon of hope to the human race – the only person alive who can restore power to the power station to provide light. It is this light that frightens away the “Scuttlers,” a possibly-alien race of spider-like beings bred to kill all in their path. But can the player, the Last Engineer, find enough Parts to fix the power station and bring hope to the humans, or will too many failures result in death and despair? Ooh, I am chilled just thinking about it!

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a file for the PNP copy of this game for the purposes of this review. It is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the game from the publisher – the link is below. -T

Setup is a breeze. The game requires several pages to be printed out, but the player must provide a pen/pencil and a typical deck of playing cards. The cards will need to be sorted by suit, then each suit shuffled independently face-down, but with the Ace of each suit as the last card of each deck. The player will choose a character class (for this review I chose The Fighter). I also separated my Explore Chart, Success Chart, and Failure Chart into stacks for easier navigation. The hunt for survival can now begin!

Each deck of cards depicts an area within the city to explore – The High Street, The Neighbourhood, The School, and The Leisure Park. On each turn the player may search any area by drawing the top card of the corresponding deck. Whichever card has been drawn is then referenced on the Explore Chart for flavor text and instructions. Many times the player will get a sense of something nearby or an idea of a location in which they may be. Following the flavor text may be a challenge to overcome.

Challenges are usually given in a range of target numbers. For example, the range may be 15-30. Whenever a player is given a challenge or fight range, they must then enact the brilliant Blind Luck sheet to arrive at a number. To do this, the player closes their eyes (it IS complete darkness in the game) and draws a circular(ish) mark around a group of numbers on the sheet. All numbers that are completely encompassed in the drawn shape are then added together. If the player successfully manages to hit a number within the target range, the challenge is defeated and the player consults the Success Chart. If not, the player consults the Failure Chart to arrive at the result of the failed challenge. Some challenges result in finding weapons, or Parts that are needed to win the game, while other challenges result in a battle with one or more Scuttlers. Similar to searches, battles with Scuttlers involve hitting a range of numbers from a drawn shape on the Blind Luck sheet. Weapons will alter the range, but when a player successfully hits a target number the Scuttler is defeated. If not, the player receives a wound and marks it on the character sheet.

Once the player collects all six Parts needed to restore the Power Station and successfully completes an Ace from the bottom of one of the location stacks, they win the game! If not, then it is a sad (and deadly) day for humans as all is lost to the beady-eyed Scuttlers.

Components. Well, this is usually my favorite part of writing reviews, but as this is a PNP (print-and-play) game and I provided my own pencil and deck of cards, I do not have much to say. There is almost no art throughout the game, with some stylization on the rulebook. So I cannot comment much here.

However, gameplay is solid and something that I really enjoyed. This idea of searching a town blindly and needing to close your eyes and draw a circle around a group of random numbers is simply a marvel in design. It’s just a really smart pairing of excellent setting along with an appropriate mechanic to help drive the game’s story. Now, some skeptics may see this and suggest that it cannot or should not be played several times, as the overall plot is revealed in the first game. I understand the sentiment, and agree to a point. Yes, it’s a battle between humans and Scuttlers, and any game can be won with a bit of luck, but the randomness of the numbers on the Blind Luck sheet prevent savvy players from using muscle memory to draw a perfect shape around just the right numbers. So, even though the plot is somewhat spoiled, the outcomes of the locations are not at all a gimme.

I have yet to play on the Hard mode, but even playing as The Fighter offers a bit of challenge, and forces me to try again. Any game that lures a player into multiple plays is definitely a winner in my book. My next steps with Blind Luck is to pimp it out a bit: professional print job, perhaps lamination, a dedicated special deck of cards, and about a million copies of character sheets and Blind Luck sheets. I will say, while I typically appreciate the separation of game and app, I do believe this one is ripe for a companion app, similar to that of the Chronicles of Crime game system. It would be much more enjoyable to have an app playing eerie music while guiding the player through the game in place of a deck of cards. Maybe I can commission an amateur collegiate app developer to provide me something like this. Hmm…

Overall, I do enjoy Blind Luck a lot. It offers a great mix of creepy atmosphere, a great mechanic to mimic total darkness actions, and is light on monetary burden. If you are looking for something like this to enhance your collection that provides a fresh experience, I recommend you check out Blind Luck. Download it from the publisher’s website and enjoy! I might suggest grabbing yourself a pitchfork in-game that offers a +5 to fighting. It lasted me the entire game and I wouldn’t hunt Scuttlers without it!