For those of you interested in Welcome Aboard, Captain, I'm happy to report that Play Brilliant has posted a fairly in-depth review of the game.

It's worth checking out.  By way of disclosure, I did not solicit the game to be reviewed – they cold-contacted me on the strength of the free adventure Charon Wormhole, and I supplied them with a free copy of the game for the review.  I also gave them permission to use some of the images from the game in their review.

On a personal level, I was really gratified to finally read the review when it was released this weekend. They really liked the game, which made my day, but I was also impressed to see how much effort they'd put into actually trying out the game.  In addition to the review, they posted an "actual play" excerpt of the game (for their Patreon supporters) which made clear that they'd really done a lot with the game. Play Brilliant doesn't just take a cursory look and dash off a review – they go in depth. They spent quite some time playing the game, and came back to me with some questions about the game and its design intent that I answered.  That approach, I think, gives their review more weight, because it's clear they dug into the details.

In particular, though Welcome Aboard, Captain is primarily designed as a solitaire game, it includes advice on using it to run the more traditional, multiplayer games with a gamemaster.  Well, Play Brilliant took the time to try that out as well as the solo mode, running a complete session of the game for players at a convention in Amsterdam. (It sounds like it went well.)

As you might imagine, as an indie RPG designer, I've been able to test the game in solitaire mode a lot more readily than in multiplayer mode, simply because I can do the former without having to recruit people to help. So it was particularly heartening to see that it worked well for other gamemasters running the game for other players – of all the contexts that I was worried about the performance of the game, it was there, simply because that's where I'd been able to secure the least robust playtesting. So it was really satisfying to hear that it held up in that context as well for Play Brilliant as it had for me.  There are many, many types of gamemasters out there, and the more who try the game and have successful experiences, the more confident I am with that part of the design.

Anyway, if you're on the fence about Welcome Aboard, Captain, I encourage you to head over to Play Brilliant and check out the review.

And thanks to Play Brilliant for taking the time to give this little indie game of mine a look. Indie game designers really struggle to get any traction, so every little bit helps!