I thought Observance was a cool game with easy-to understand mechanics. It actually heavily inspired me with my poaching game and gave me a good foundation to work with when I started writing up my rules.
Despite enjoying the game, there were a couple things that stood out as thing’s I didn’t like. I first of all wasn’t very impressed with the paper presentation of the game. I know that it probably exists somewhere in a finalized form and that it was free to print-at-home, but good quality materials makes games feel a bit more real. I also have never really been a fan of the battle-ship style announce and reply when it comes to trying to find where your opponent has things placed. I would have preferred a system that allowed me to see where the border patrol agents were, and subsequently would have allowed me to move around them. I suppose it makes sense that mexican migrants should be hidden to avoid detection, but it just pulled some of the immersion from my gameplay.
Things I liked:
I really enjoyed that the game wasn’t exactly balanced. It paints a picture for how difficult it actually is to cross the border from a migrant’s perspective. I wish for the sake of playability that I was able to have at least 1 or 2 more openings in the walls to increase my chances at winning, but that would take away from the story.
I liked the different search patterns, that the border patrol could do, it allowed me to stay in the game so long as Clay chose the wrong search pattern for where I was. I do wish I also knew where the green card was, if nothing else, because it would give me a slight advantage and a goal to work towards, instead of mindlessly throwing migrants at random spots and telling the border patrol where that person is.
Overall, I would def. play the game again and it did a good job at conveying a story of Mexican migrants essentially battling with the border patrol on the American-Mexican border.