Gaming and The Matrix: CURIOUS CARGO review

My buddy, Rob from the Board Boys Podcast, has a term for that experience gamers have when they see the interconnected systems in a game, and make all the rights moves. He calls it “Seeing The Matrix.” Of course, the phrase comes from the iconic film from the mind of The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Lawrence Fishburne.

In The Matrix, the hero learns that our world is a simulation, and that behind the simulation is a grim dark apocalyptic mess. But he learns to navigate the simulations — the Matrix — and becomes the savior. Hope I’m not spoiling this 26 year old movie too much.

Let’s apply that concept to gaming. Have you ever sat down to play a medium weight euro, and found yourself just “pushing buttons” all night? My friend, you’ve been playing in the simulation, just gaming on the surface without seeing the deep interconnected systems that the designer installed. But, I’m sure you’ve also had those moments where you can see a move or two or more ahead, and chain combos together like a prize fighter.

That feeling, that’s when you are Seeing The Matrix.

But it leaves me with a bit of a conundrum today. I’ve been playing Curious Cargo all week, a two player tile laying puzzle game from Ryan Courntey (Pipeline) and published by Capstone Games. I’ll start with a confession: I have yet to win this game, in fact, I’ve yet to even qualify for a win. Can a person have a favorable opinion about a game that has exposed their absolute ineptness at playing? What a pickle.

It might help if I briefly explain how the game works. In Curious Cargo, players run rival whatzit manufacturing plants, with trucking lanes and docks on each side of the space. Each turn, they will lay tiles connecting the machines that produce (and somehow also refine) the products to the shipping and receiving sections of the board. Once connected, goods are manufactured, and if the player has a truck ready, will be shipped out to make its way to the other player’s board. If the opponent likewise has an active connection between the dock where the goods land and a machine, your good gets offloaded.

Sounds simple, right. The gameplay is simple, of course, but like any good modern game, it’s how you get to the destination that makes all the difference. The tiles are not simple little four way junctions. Instead, the tiles are made up of one or two (or even three in hard mode) colors of pipe that twist and turn every which way on the tile.

Players are limited in their actions, too. There are two phases: construction phase, where players get three actions to draw random tiles from a bag and place them onto the manufacturing floor. Sometimes I feel clever when I place a tile that generates bonus actions, or helps me connect two different loading docks back to my machine, but that is very rare. Most of the time, I’ve stared bewildered at a hand of tiles, uncertain of how to make sense out of the spaghetti.

The next phase is shorter. Each player gets one action, basically, to either send another truck down the shipping road alongside the plant, or burn either tiles or truck cards for truck cards or tiles. It might sound simpler or shorter, but it is even more frustrating, because some of the trucks, of course, have blocked spaces on their truck bed. This means that you could have the perfect active connection ready to send a red robot through the red tubes to the waiting dock, but have no open space on your truck.

Courtney has taken a very simple system — lay tiles, connect them to the side of the board, and then ship and receive blue or red abstract goods — and made an immensely tough challenge for my brain. In all of my games this week, I’ve never come close to qualifying for the win, which requires players to ship at least two of each type of product. I’ve never come close to scoring stars, which are awarded when players create ten active connections or demonstrate maximum proficiency in receiving.

I’m definitely not the Neo of Transportation. In fact, every game, I’ve put my hands on the back of my head, scratched furiously, and whined about how terrible I am at this game. So one would think that it is not a pleasant experience, or could be rated a good game, right? Not exactly.

The problem is that at the start of each game of Curious Cargo I have this feeling of being in control, that this time I am making good connections and setting myself up for shipping and receiving. That this time, I am going to ship enough goods and maybe even make it to the star level in connections. I have this feeling at the start, and then I have this feeling as I am putting the game away, dejected after losing yet another game.

Smart kids in school sometimes need tougher assignments to challenge them. Good teams need to play better-than-equal competition in order to sharpen their skills enough to challenge for championships. Songwriters need to step out side their comfort zone, and try new time signatures or melodies to find the inspiration to write the next great lyric.

I’m the same way. I need a game like Curious Cargo. I really enjoy my plays of Curious Cargo, despite my limited skills. It’s true that I have not yet solved the puzzle of this game, heck, I apparently cannot even see that I’m playing a simulated game that only scratches the surface of the strategy needed to win.

But hope springs eternal, and this game causes my brain to continue firing long after the game is back on the shelf. “Next time”, my brain tells me, “next time we will show you the secrets of this game.” And for some reason, I believe my brain every time.

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!

— BJ from Board Game Gumbo

** A complimentary copy of the game was provided by the publisher. **