So, You've Been Eaten Review

So, You’ve Been Eaten is a colourful, two player game with an unusual concept: one player takes control of a Miner heading down the alimentary tract of a giant Beast, the other player acting as the aforementioned Beast.

The two roles are asymmetric, with completely different actions and aims. On the Miner’s turn, they roll three dice and use them to activate or upgrade sections of their console. Their aim is to capture nine crystals, along the way picking up useful tools and batting away bacterial attacks from the Beast.

The Beast, on the other hand, is aiming to digest the Miner, either by maxing out bacterial growth or by deploying five Immune Response cards. At the same time, they can try to steal back crystals, downgrade the Miner’s console and generally mess with their plans.

Despite coming from Scott Almes, pedigree designer of the Tiny Epic series, our first game of So You’ve Been Eaten was rather uninspiring. The rulebook is concise and cheerfully written – but also lacking; it misses specifics for how particular actions and cards work; it also fails to provide any guidance to beginner Miners and Beasts on how they should approach the strategy of the game. Our first encounter ended with a dispiriting feeling that the entire scope of the game was ineffectually shuffling around cards.

Happily it turns out there’s much more than that going on. Once we eventually got our head round the rules, a tense back-and-forth showed up. Limitation is often the source of adrenaline in games; so much to do, but never enough room to fit it all in. That concept is taken here, and slid as a knife edge between two players with wildly opposing win conditions. Having more crystals on the board makes it easier for your Beast to buy Immune Response upgrades, but do you risk letting the Miner steal more crystals? Attacking the Immune System seems easy as a Miner, but your choice is between five equally important actions… and you only ever have three dice to spend.

Things start a little easier for the Miner, but that difficulty curve slowly shifts against them as the Beast quickly stacks up Immune Response cards, allowing them to take chained and bonus actions. The closing moments of a game tend to see the Miner battling for their life, both players on tenterhooks to see if a crystal will be snatched from the jaws of victory.

The game ships with solo player modes, either playing against a Robot Miner or a Hibernating Beast, (or even pitting the two AI players against each other for a fun-free zero player option). Sadly, the crunchy challenge of out-planning your opponent is less impressive when they have a predictable algorithm making their decisions. The portion of each game that really makes the game sing – the “How will I get out of this?! Unless… If I do this first? Then this? Then… Oh no, hang on…” moments – are mostly absent from the solo game. Fine for killing half an hour, but not worth seeking out.

The game is beautifully illustrated and well made. Our copy even shipped with bonus crystal and bacteria upgrade pieces, although frustratingly the gem colours were a little indistinct, leading to confusion. No one wants to watch the board state like a hawk, only to find out the wrong piece was claimed accidentally. It’s also worth criticising the rulebook again; it desperately needs more images to explain actions, and I still don’t know exactly what the ambiguously worded “Swap” Immune Response card does, despite searching the deep troves of the Internet for the answer.

Niggles aside, this is a punchy versus game that consistently lasts the promised 30 minutes. An easy recommendation to both intrepid Miners and gargantuan Beasts.

Chris Lowry

PLAY IT? MAYBE

Try this if you liked Royal Visit

Read the full review here

Both games have a similar play length, with a satisfying tactical to-and-fro just under the surface. The puzzle is tighter in Royal Visit, but So, You’ve Been Eaten adds asymmetry into the mix.

Designer: Scott Almes

Publisher: LudiCreations

Time: 30 minutes

Players: 1-2

Age: 14+

Price: £30

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