Now Boarding Review – A Cooperative Game That Belongs in a Spreadsheet

Just like some people have comfort foods, for example, cheeseburgers or ice cream. I have a comfort designer. Tim Fowers has been on a streak of developing some fantastic games that tap into my soul whenever I play them. So I could not contain my excitement when I got my hands on his latest game Now Boarding.

However, it looks like I should have tempered my expectations.

Now Boarding is a real-time cooperative game about ferrying passengers across the skies of the United States. Every round you’ll draw several passenger cards face down, these are placed in different airports across the country.

Then each player’s plane can only hold a certain amount of passengers and move a certain distance. After every round, you’ll get to upgrade your plan to move further, add seats, or create new faster routes. Along with these upgrades come more passengers.

While these passengers start off cool, calm, and collected. If they’re forgotten about, and left in an airport without moving for the round, then they turn into Godzilla with bleach-blonde reverse mullet. And you can bet they’ll want to talk to your manager.

Now, that you have some idea of what’s going on. It’s time to flip the sand timer.

You now have 15 seconds to flip the passenger cards, move your plane along routes, and pick up or drop off passengers at different airports around the country. If you deliver all the passengers without accruing too many complaints, you win.

Bit of a whoopsie

Now Boarding is broken into three phases. The first, and most important is the planning phase. This is when you draw and place those passenger cards. Together you will plan and decide what you’ll be doing when the sand timer is flipped.

Ultimately, you want to deliver these high fliers as efficiently as possible. This means you need to coordinate who you pick up, and where you drop them off. For example, I might pick someone up who wants to go to Washington. But then if I’m going in the opposite direction, it’s probably better I drop them at an airport and let someone else take them to their destination.

Figuring out this plan is pretty satisfying, but it’s simple enough for one person to dominate the planning. What’s not so satisfying is after you agree, flip the timer, and reveal where the passengers want to go – and that completely ruins your plans.

With only 15 seconds on the clock, we found there wasn’t enough time for us to physically manipulate all the components and then change our plan. So we were much better off sticking to the plan 100% of the time, even if it didn’t align with the new variables added.

This seems like a bit of a whoopsie in terms of game design. Now Boarding is a real-time game, but the real-time aspect plays second-fiddle to the planning and upgrading. Which are both too simplistic to satisfy.

For example, during the upgrading phase, there’s no compelling reason for you to go for one upgrade over another. It’s all about personal preference, meaning that by game three, you’ve discovered your preference and will only change if you force yourself to.

Someone call Air Crash Investigations

Arguably the worst mechanic in Now Boarding is the complaint system. While it’s fine by itself, at the end of the game, your team gets one complaint for every two undelivered passengers.

This is the real disaster of Now Boarding.

Where instead of getting consistent feedback throughout the game on your performance, and knowing where you stand. You can fight tooth and nail to get to the last round, only to realise you lost. Because three rounds ago you messed up.

This was so frustrating and created a feeling of defeat so sour you’d rather be drinking off milk.

But that’s not the only issue with Now Boarding. While the efficiency puzzle is enjoyable, it feels like it should be played in a spreadsheet. Everything seemed so mechanical and mathy. There was an algorithm that solved this problem already, and we just needed to figure it out.

In retrospect, this shouldn’t be too surprising as Now Boarding started as a rudimentary computer game. However, you can also see a lot of mathematics within Tim’s previous designs. From counting steps in Fugitive to the algorithmic movement of the guards in Burgle Bros. However, both these games have enough charm and character to rise above their calculations.

But in this regard, Now Boarding never left the tarmac.

So where do we land?

Can someone, somewhere please write a blank cheque for Ryan Goldsberry? He produces some of the most fun and playful artwork in board gaming. Now Boarding is no exception. All of the passengers and pilots are done in his signature style and is everything we’ve come to expect.

Overall, Now Boarding is a missed connection for me. It just felt sterile, and therefore I didn’t find much enjoyment at all. This is a shame considering how excellent the previous titles from Fowers Games have been.

And before you say surely, I can’t be serious.

I am.

And don’t call me Shirley.