Maximum Apocalypse Review

Critical Hits: A variety of post-apocalypse scenarios; hunger mechanics may increase tension; accessible to younger/newer game players.
Critical Misses: Uninspired, uninteresting design; balance and difficulty level is all over the place; redundant with a number of similar products on the market; under-written rulebook.

I'm not going to mince words about it. I do not like Maximum Apocalypse in the slightest, and I think it is an excellent example of the crowdfunded "shovelware" trend in board games publishing today. It is a shallow, empty game that offers virtually no indication of voice or vision and if pressed for a reason why one should play the game, the only thing I could come up with is that it is at least playable. That is not necessarily a complement. That is like saying a meal is edible at best.

I don't want to come off as a total heel here, so I am willing to at least offer the charitable assessment that younger or less experienced game players who have not played any of the vastly superior card-based adventure titles out there might find themselves at least temporarily entertained by this relatively simple game that bills itself as a cooperative "roguelike" experience. It is a decently presented title, with reasonable comic-book style art depicting the survivors and causative agents of the titular apocalypse. One of the neat things about the game is that it offers four different world-ending antagonists. Based on which of the 11 scenarios you are playing, you might be encountering zombies (yawn), mutants, robots or aliens and having to deal with their particular behaviors, attacks, and other gameplay elements.

Each player represents a different character that has survived whatever apocalypse you choose and in a not-exactly-clever twist, each character has a special ability and a unique deck of cards depicting their skills and individual equipment. The scenarios, which range from the absolutely execrable "find X of these cards in the draw piles" exercises in sit-and-search tedium to somewhat more compelling escape and defense missions, take place over an arrangement of location tiles. Each of these tiles has a number that spawns monsters on a 2D6 die roll at the outset of a player turn along with an occasional "when revealed" effect or other element. Some also correspond to red, green, and blue piles of resource cards. Each of these contains a different assortment of ammo, fuel, food, and equipment as dictated by the scenario card. Be advised, it's not a deckbuilding game at all.

On your turn, you get to perform four actions. If you are searching for a fuel card, you may as well stand there for four actions until you draw one. There are a couple of balances to prevent this, such as the arrival of random monsters or the occasional Ambush card when a monster jumps out at you while you rummage. But you may also want to play cards or attack monsters in front of you or another player if they are in your location or you have a weapon with what I guess is REALLY long range and can shoot into another tile. You can also move, of course, draw cards from your deck or perform card-based actions with an assortment of equipment or skill-based abilities.

At the end of your turn, any monsters in front of you do damage and you increase your hunger number by one, indicated by a D6. Because, you see, hunger is a part of the game. In fact, it is one of the only really interesting things about the whole design. Hunger is, of course, alleviated by eating those food cards you dug up, or if you are the Hunter you might be able to feed everyone with some fish if you have the right card. Once you hit 6 hunger, you lose your special ability and start taking hunger damage. So finding vittles is a top priority along with monster-bashing and completing whatever objectives you are going for.

This is fairly neat and sometimes creates some much-needed tension, but it also doesn't consistently create any sense of challenge- which is one of the biggest design-level issues about this game. Even the harder scenarios, I've found, are too easy as written. There are a number of difficulty-increasing modifications suggested in the rulebook, but I didn't find the basic gameplay interesting enough to bother with trying them. The design simply is not compelling, and it feels like the kind of game that might have plopped out on the market from a tiny publisher and disappeared unceremoniously in the early 2000s - if it would have been published at all.

Simply stated, there is no reason to play this game when there are numerous superlative examples of this genre and of this type of setting available on the market. Off the top of my head, I would direct interested parties to the Arkham Horror LCG or Dragonfire. Those looking for a post-apocalyptic scenario will find that Fallout is a vastly more interesting, innovative, and engaging design that isn't even really all that much more complex.

In the spirit of full disclosure, writing as the Editor of Review Corner, I'd like to make it clear to the reader that we only assign reviews in very limited circumstances and I am personally not ever assigned a game. Most of our reviews, including this one, are of games where the author was interested in covering the game fairly and thoroughly. This means that we do not cover games just for the sake of covering them, and we make sure that someone who has a fair chance of appreciating a game gets to write the review. I wanted to play this game, I wanted to check it out, because I liked the idea of the different apocalypse scenarios and I was hoping for a lighter, faster game of this type- I generally enjoy this style of game. But what I was not hoping for was a redundant, obviously crowdfunded and decidedly amateur product that brings absolutely nothing new or novel to the tabletop. There are far too many games to play and enjoy as it is, and another "playable at best" title is the last thing that this industry and we as players need.

With all that said, my assessment of Maximum Apocalypse fits squarely within our two-star review criteria and I wholeheartedly recommend that all readers interested in this title check it out for themselves. There are fans of this game, there are folks that will enjoy it much more than I did- this could be you. It's always disappointing and even a little sad to write a negative review and the intent is never to denigrate the designer's intent or effort, nor is it our goal to make fans of the game feel marginalized or to convince anyone that their opinion is wrong. This is my opinion of Maximum Apocalypse, and I hope that it is read as an invitation to look at what the game offers and come up with your own view of what its values are or are not.