The one word Morgan and Dan use over and over to describe their new game Scorched Earth is "epic". As a fan of "big" games, I'd say this moniker definitely fits the bill. Morgan, Dan, John Squires and I sat down this weekend to play through the latest prototype of the game. Morgan cites Arkham Horror, Merchant of Venus, and Gunslinger as the main influences- I haven't played Gunslinger, but the other two are very much present in spirit. Part of the proposition of SE is that you can choose to play "the kind of game you want". Wargamers can fixate on driving around in your pimped-out car and blowing up stuff; Eurogamers can play the trade/network game.

For the curious, without going to much into the game's (numerous) mechanics, here's a rough breakdown:

THE BOARD:
There are 7 tiles made up of hex-based terrain (terrain affects movement and LOS), which are assembled randomly. Four of the tiles have towns, which have several functions:
- Trade centers for goods, using a color-based "pick up and deliver" mechanic
- Healing/equipment upgrades
- Missions to gain VP and access to better equipment/services

CHARACTERS:
Each player has a custom ("pre-rolled") character, each with his/her unique set of stats (a la Arkham Horror, BSG, etc.). As you "level up", you can adjust your stats incrementally. Some (Brains, Guide, and Toughness) simply improve, others (Appearance and Cruelty) slide to one side or another of a neutral center (think of alignment). Characters can acquire things like injuries or mutations during the game that affect their ability.

VEHICLES/WEAPONS:
Each player also drives a single vehicle. Aside from more speed, better vehicles also provide more room for cargo, which is implemented using a puzzle (Tetris) layout. Each weapon has a unique shape (better weapons take up more space and have harder-to-fit shapes), which must fit within the vehicles area. Weapons contend with cargo and passengers for space, which is the main indicator of your choice of play style.

COMBAT:
Combat is fairly straightforward- you attack with your weapon, which has a card showing its power at various ranges. Creatures have an attack strength and radius that expands in all directions; player weapons only fire in one direction. After comparing attack and defense values, the strike is resolved by drawing a card which may or may not assign damage based on probabilistic outcomes. According to Morgan, this is the Gunslinger mechanic, there ya go.

MISSIONS:
The meat of the game is here. Each town has a progression of missions that each player can work through to earn Reputation (points), credits (money), or simply access to the next mission. In addition, there are a group of available missions drawn from a deck that earn Reputation for the first player to meet the requirements (a la Twilight Imperium, I believe). Some of these are combat oriented (hit another player, kill a creature), some are geared toward the "shippers" in the game (visit all towns, tag a certain number of specific land types, etc.).

There are A LOT of moving parts to SE. To its great credit, the game doesn't feel weighed down with them, nor do they feel "gamey". After reading through the rules once I felt I had a good grasp of gameplay, I never had to look up a rule specific to a situation, and I didn't find myself remembering some important rules I forgot to use on a prior turn. Some of the more notable mechanics:

DILEMMAS: These are encounter-style cards, usually a mission for a town. When a Dilemma is called for, the scenario is presented to the player, who must then choose one of two stats to use to resolve it (e.g. you can use your Guile to talk your way out of a fight or Toughness to brawl your way out). The Dilemma has an outcome depending on whether the player's selected stat is above or below a given number. Occasionally, it's beneficial to be below the number. I really liked the narrative drive of these.

VEHICLE CONFIGURATIONS: As noted above. I liked the choices these forced on you.

WASTELAND ENCOUNTERS: Outside the towns are numerous critters, usually more annoying than dangerous. At the start of your turn, however, you can elect to move one creature and/or attack another player with it. Aside from the direct "attack your enemy" aspect, they provide useful roadblocks.

APPEARANCE & CRUELTY: The implementation of these as sliders you could move up or down to affect rather than a linear progression ("it always gets better") is a neat RPG implementation. For some Dilemmas, it pays to be cruel and/or ugly.

DRIVING SPEED: Each car has 3 gears (plus stopped), each of which allows travel over a certain number of hexes, as well as opportunities to turn a certain radius. Obviously, the faster you're going the less able you are to turn (if at all); moreover, you can only "shift" gears one increment per turn. Mix-Maxers will have a field day plotting out their routes.

TAGS: Each character has a limited set of available "Tag" markers (starting at 10, plus or minus) that are used to indicate partially-completed missions on the board. For example, one mission requires visiting each town- as you do so, you drop a Tag marker in each. It did make the board a bit busy, and it was not always clear which tags belonged to which mission, but it's a novel way to prevent players from spreading too thin and not completing missions quickly.

SCRAP: Players outfit their vehicles with armor by foraging for scrap in towns, which uses a bit of set collection based on chit draws. Based on the vehicle, a certain number of cargo spots can be used for armor. Each slot can contain one kind of scrap, but can contain up to 3 of that kind (think 1-3 HP of armor).

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In our session, Dan and Morgan predictably leaped out to early leads, while John and I floundered- John had a string of bad luck in Mutant Town, I was hampered by a slower vehicle. We called it after about 5+ hours, mainly because I was getting cranky about my main gripe with the game as-is: not enough guns and explosions. Dan and Morgan went through the trouble to create several guns, each with unique effects, but we spent most of the game driving around in our original vehicles with low-level hardware. We agreed that the game needed to scale this up more aggressively so that players get the bigger guns earlier.

There's another issue, in my opinion, of the balance between trade and combat. For a game ostensibly about post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem, it was disappointing to realize that the easiest path to Reputation was to get around the board as quickly as possible, dropping tags and delivering cargo/passengers. This really hit home for me when I was finally able to upgrade my wee dune buggy to a sports car- I had the opportunity to outfit a sweet new gun, but decided to forgo it so I could fit more cargo. Given my personal gaming inclinations, a little bit of me died inside when I made this choice.

Aside from some balance issues, however, the meat of a Really Good Game is there. The theme is nicely implemented, with a lot of narrative flavor. Aside from planning your driving routes, there's little room for A/P. For such a big game, I never felt overwhelmed by its mechanics. The rules to combat are cool, even if we didn't get to see much of it.

Even if the game didn't work (it does), simply the scope of what's on the table is an impressive achievement. Kudos to Dan and Morgan for creating a unique and, yes, epic game experience. I'm looking forward to playing the next rev of this!