In the world of board gaming, true originality is exceedingly rare. Hundreds, if not thousands, of games hit the market every year, and more often than not, I can glance at a box and say something like, “Ah yes, this is basically X, but with a dash of Y and a sprinkle of Z.”

That probably makes me sound a little jaded, and maybe I am, but I don’t mean that as a criticism. Games building on other games is how this hobby evolves. Iteration is healthy. Innovation is to be commended, but originality is something else entirely. Genuine white elephants don’t come along very often.

Syncanite Foundation is one of those rare beasts.

This is a game I struggle to describe through comparison, because it doesn’t slot neatly into anything else I know. It doesn’t borrow a familiar skeleton and dress it up differently. It’s not some evolution of existing mechanics that I recognize. It’s neither European nor American, despite having a German designer. It’s a game that marches to the beat of a drummer I have yet to meet, and possibly doesn’t care if we can keep up.

In fact, even on the Kickstarter site, the publisher struggles to mention some of the games you might relate to this one, listing Root, Hegemony, and Twilight Imperium, but that is a wild stretch at best. The only thing this game has in common with those games is that all three, like Syncanite Foundation, are white elephants. Rare, unique games that really don’t conform to gaming norms any of us are familiar with. Notably, all three of those games can be described as “hard to teach” and “hard to grasp”, perhaps some might even call them “complex”, all sentiments I think you will find Syncanite Foundation has in common.

That’s why my experience with the game, for better or worse, was consistently exciting, curious, and engaging… while also, at times, frustrating and confusing. Exploring a game that feels untethered from the rest of the hobby gives it a strange kind of edge. Expectations bend. Assumptions break. You’re forced to recalibrate how you think about play, progress, and even success.

I’ve been obsessing over this game for a while, turning it over in my head, trying to figure out how to talk about it. Even writing this introduction proved more difficult than expected.

Syncanite Foundation is complex, not just because the rules have weight, because they do, but because of how its systems collide and stretch the game beyond basic explanations of the rules. Player actions don’t simply advance the game; they reshape it. Decisions ripple outward, altering mechanical interactions and sometimes completely redefining the game state on the fly. There’s no familiar formula here, and even the playtime refuses to behave, ranging anywhere from a brisk 45 minutes to sprawling 3–4 hour political epics. I suspect you will find yourself playing this game several times and running into entirely new mechanics and interactions even after several plays.

Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so, at least it’s not what I would quantify as bad design; quite to the contrary, it’s fascinating and fresh, but it’s not a game that will simply snap into place for you the first time you play it.

From session to session, this game will feel like an exploration. More than once, your group will deliberately poke at the mechanics, perhaps even confident you understand what will happen, only to watch the game spiral off into unexpected states, forcing you to rethink everything you thought you had under control.

That all sounds very abstract, and that’s intentional. Because I should warn you up front: as I explain this game, you probably won’t fully get it. In fact, even after a few plays, you still might not. Syncanite Foundation is unorthodox in both structure and philosophy, but when the pieces finally do click, when that moment of awareness hits, something genuinely brilliant reveals itself beneath the chaos intended for you to discover by the designer.

You may find yourself, as I did, realizing that you’re playing something that feels like more than just another board game. For aficionados like me, that’s the sweet spot, for many, I think this will be “something weird”. Something hard to wrap your head around, and it might even leave you uninspired. Sentiments I have heard often about truly unique designs like Root, Hegemony, and Twilight Imperium. It is the bane of true originality to suffer at the hands of mass popularity and conformity.

If you’re an obsessive board gamer with a taste for the unusual, a tolerance for uncertainty, and a curiosity strong enough to explore unfamiliar territory… this is one of those games that is going to give you unusual in spades.

Overview

Final Score:  (4.4 out 5) Fantastic!

Any conversation about what Syncanite Foundation really is has to start with its backstory. This isn’t optional flavor text. The game’s mechanics and its narrative are so tightly intertwined that going in without at least a basic grasp of the world will actively make the game harder to learn and harder to appreciate. So what is the world about?

At the center of the story is Syncanite itself: a rare, immensely powerful crystal that fuels this strange sci-fantasy world at the dawn of its industrial age. Syncanite is energy, influence, wealth, and longevity all rolled into one. It powers machines, enables magical feats, reshapes economies, and destabilizes entire nations. If that sounds a bit like spice from Dune, that’s not an accident. Syncanite occupies the same narrative role as a resource so valuable that society reorganizes itself around its control.

To manage this miracle substance, a governing body was formed: The Syncanite Foundation. Officially, its role is benign, overseeing the mining, refinement, and distribution of Syncanite for the good of the world. Unofficially? Well… power rarely stays transparent for long.

The Foundation quickly transforms from a regulatory council into a shadow government, quietly steering politics, economies, and wars from behind the curtain. Its leading members are oligarchs, wealthy, influential figures who understand that true power isn’t held by kings or generals, but by those who decide who gets access to the resource everyone depends on.

That’s where you come in.

In Syncanite Foundation, you play one of these oligarchs: a powerful, morally flexible architect of global manipulation. You aren’t trying to save the world. You’re trying to rule it. The game tells the story of how you pursue that goal, and whether you succeed or fail, through secrecy, influence, betrayal, and carefully timed chaos.

One of the most striking design decisions is that the game has no victory points, no public progress tracks, and no obvious way to tell who’s winning. Power is opaque by design. Much of it is hidden behind influence cards, the most powerful utility in the game, capable of sweeping changes in the blink of an eye, making it quite difficult to accurately assess another player’s position at any given moment or their plan for victory.

This uncertainty feeds directly into the game’s tone. Syncanite Foundation thrives on paranoia. You’re constantly conscious of the fact that someone at the table is closer to victory than they’re letting on, and that they might be about to pull the rug out from under you. That fear drives players to act preemptively, often ruthlessly, which in turn validates everyone else’s worst suspicions. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle of mistrust, and it’s completely intentional.

Where the game truly distinguishes itself, however, is in how its mechanics evolve.

Rather than presenting a fixed ruleset from start to finish, Syncanite Foundation unlocks new systems as the game progresses. These shifts are driven primarily by influence cards and political agenda votes, which can trigger world-altering events. A war might erupt, suddenly introducing a full “dudes-on-a-map” layer and unlocking a domination-based victory condition. Other events can reshape new options for economies, alter political power mechanics, and each will redefine what winning looks like.

Crucially, these events don’t just add new mechanics; they radically disrupt the existing game state. Economic balance shifts. Political alliances crumble. Board control changes overnight. And because players only directly control which influence cards they play and how they vote, the game can flip from “I’ve got this under control” to “everything is on fire” in a single moment. Which is why so much table talk is imminent, as you not only need to manipulate the mechanics from your seat, but you have to convince others that it’s in their best interest to act with or support you by making it seem like it’s in their best interest. Diverting attention to something other than your plan.

This subtle element of the game, however, doesn’t immediately appear on your first play, as simply grasping a concept like “how do you win” or “how do you prepare for winning” may be out of reach in your first game. Initially, you just do stuff; the thing that makes this game’s wheels spin is probably going to take a few plays with the same group before it all jives.

Adding another delicious layer of cruelty, victory conditions themselves are tied to cards you receive at the start of the game, and those cards can be lost through assassination and other interactive methods. It’s entirely possible for an event to unlock a victory condition you no longer possess, forcing you into the grim position of defending against a win condition you have no way of achieving yourself. You’re not trying to win, you’re trying to stop someone else from doing so. But they don’t know which it is, and so the paranoia spins on.

This constant propagation and mutation of mechanics is the beating heart of Syncanite Foundation. It’s what drives the relentless political maneuvering, the desperate deal-making, and occasionally the outright begging for mercy. What emerges is a kind of controlled, paranoia-fueled chaos, where each player scrambles to stabilize the world just long enough to exploit it. That control, if it’s even achievable, is at best temporary, so you have to act decisively and time your plays perfectly.

As a unique gaming experience, I found Syncanite Foundation to be absolutely brilliant. It’s just fun…

But it’s also brutal.

Syncanite Foundation is unapologetically a “take that” game of the highest order. Single-card plays can completely dismantle long-term plans. Direct, player-driven setbacks are frequent, dramatic, and personal. Feel-bad moments are not edge cases; they’re part of the design. Many things in the game feel outrageously unfair and too powerful. This is a game about power, and power is rarely gentle. For better or worse, the mechanics capture the spirit of these nasty politics perfectly.

Whether that excites you or terrifies you will depend entirely on your group. Syncanite Foundation does not apologize or offer any condolences or alternative for what it is, it’s kind of a take it or leave it deal.

Components

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros:  Nice art, very high-quality components, especially the cards.  Everything is built to last.

Cons:  Many misprints, vague card descriptions, and many missed translations in the English version.  Tiny fonts on cards that are hard to read.  Even the updated rules manual leaves a lot to be desired.

I’ve already gone into considerable depth on the components of Syncanite Foundation in my earlier preview, which you can find HERE, so I won’t rehash everything in full. Instead, here’s the condensed version.

In short, the component quality is outstanding. The artwork is genuinely fantastic, and the overall visual presentation of the game, from board layout to iconography, feels cohesive, confident, and deliberate. This is a game that knows how it wants to look, and it executes that vision exceptionally well.

My primary criticism of Syncanite Foundation remains unchanged: text size and legibility. Some of the cards suffer from very small fonts, compounded by the stylistic choice of white text on a black background, often layered on top of foil. While undeniably striking from a distance, this combination is rough on the eyes and very impractical. When playing Syncanite Foundation, you’ll want strong lighting and, if you’re anything like me, your favorite reading glasses close at hand.

It’s also important to address the rulebook situation again, because it directly impacts the usability of the components, especially if you are working with the first printing.

The printed manual included in the box (1st printing), by the publisher’s own admission, is insufficient for actually playing the game. To get Syncanite Foundation to the table, you’ll need to download the updated rulebook. That said, the irony here is almost impressive: the physical manual does an excellent job as a conceptual overview, while the updated rulebook does a comparatively poor job of conveying the big picture but does a decent job with the rules.

In practice, you’ll likely want both. One as an introduction and thematic walkthrough, the other as a functional rules reference.

Even then, I wouldn’t call the updated rulebook good by modern rulebook writing standards. All the necessary information appears to be present, but it’s poorly organized and inefficient to learn from. Expect unanswered questions, frequent rule lookups, and a fair amount of head-scratching during your first attempts to play.

It doesn’t help that some of the cards can be a bit vague, and the rulebook doesn’t really explain them. There is a wiki page, however, and you can find some answers there, but this wouldn’t be necessary if the wording on the cards were a bit more structured.

As a whole, however, aside from a few hiccups, for example, there are several places where German was used in the English version of the game, it’s mostly well done. Enough for a passing grade.

Theme

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros:  The game’s theme and mechanics are in perfect concert in this well-established and creative world.  This is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be.

Cons:  Some may object to the cruelty and direct nature of how that theme is executed mechanically.  It’s an edgy game.

When it comes to theme, Syncanite Foundation doesn’t just open the door, it rips it off the hinges and asks you what you plan to do with the wreckage. This is a rich, deeply textured world where mechanics and narrative are tightly interwoven, and every design choice feels intentional. The result is something genuinely extraordinary.

One of my favorite thematic touches is how operation cards feel like fragments of history rather than abstract effects. Each one carries the weight of an event, something that happened in the world you’re collectively shaping. Because these cards tend to be so impactful, they become moments players remember. Not just mechanically, but emotionally. “That time you dropped Hostile Takeover” is going to be a sentence that gets repeated long after the game ends.

That sense of living history is reinforced by the game’s “shifting sands of time” effect, driven by large-scale events triggered directly through player conflict. Political revolutions, economic monopolies, the outbreak of war, the rise of tyranny, these aren’t minor modifiers or temporary inconveniences. They are global disruptions that fundamentally alter the trajectory of the game. The board state changes. The balance of power shifts. The future rewrites itself. New mechanics are introduced.

What I love most is that this forces players to think beyond the immediate moment. Playing a card or approving a law isn’t just about what it does now; it’s about what kind of world you’re creating afterward, as each card played brings the game closer to triggering one of these world-shattering events. Decisions echo forward. Consequences linger. And that narrative persistence makes every choice feel heavier, more meaningful, and far more satisfying.

The theme here is, quite frankly, chef’s kiss. It’s executed brilliantly and delivers exactly what I was hoping for when I first cracked open the box and read the introduction.

If there’s any drawback at all, it’s this: Syncanite Foundation can be a cultural shock to groups that aren’t prepared for how viciously on-theme it is. The winner won’t just feel victorious, they’ll feel dominant. The losers won’t just lose a game, they’ll walk away slightly stunned by how cruel and surgical the experience can be. That brutality is absolutely intentional, and it fits the world perfectly, but it’s not going to be for everyone.

This game probably should come with a warning label.

Things can get nasty.

Gameplay

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: Highly dynamic and evolving mechanics, tons of moving parts to explore, so many different ways to win and approach the game.  Strategic exploration is robust.

Cons: This is a mean, edgy, take-that game that can feel unfair and brutal.  It’s not going to connect with everyone.

Alright, this is the part I’ve been quietly dreading.

Not because I dislike the gameplay (quite the opposite), but because there is simply no way to explain how Syncanite Foundation plays without leaving you with a long list of unanswered questions and a faint suspicion that I may be lying to you. I’m not, but the game has a habit of undermining anyone who tries to summarize it too cleanly.

Let’s start with something reassuring: Syncanite Foundation is not an especially complex game in the traditional sense, at least not at the start. I’ve learned far heavier rulesets and far more procedurally demanding systems. Where this game becomes intimidating isn’t in how much you have to remember, it’s in how deeply the mechanics interact and how wildly those interactions can evolve. I’m convinced I’ve only scratched the surface of the possible game states this system can generate. I think it will take many plays to really get your head around the possibilities and strategies hidden within.

And that’s where teaching the game becomes… problematic.

When you teach most games, players quite reasonably ask questions like, “What happens if war breaks out?” or “How dangerous is that strategy?” In Syncanite Foundation, any honest answer to those questions begins with “Well, it depends…” and ends with you apologizing later when the game does something completely different from what you predicted.

There are simply too many interlocking systems, too many conditional triggers, and too many player-driven variables to make reliable promises about outcomes. The game will, at some point, contradict you. It’s probably best to let players discover things on their own.

That said, we should at least try to describe how things begin, because the opening moments are deceptively calm.

At the start, everyone operates under nearly identical conditions. Players choose a character role that grants a unique ability, but otherwise, the field feels level. The game proceeds through a structured cycle of four major phases. During these phases, players place armies, collect resources, convert those resources into influence cards or additional forces, occasionally sell assets for capital, vote on laws, and finally execute role abilities before resetting for the next cycle.

On paper, it’s all very reasonable. Almost comfortingly simple. After the first round, you’re deceived into thinking this will be a simple game.

And then the cards start flying.

Most influence cards are operations cards that can be played at almost any time, and they are not subtle. These cards are powerful, disruptive, and always contribute counters toward one of five global events: Revolution, Monopoly, Military, Triage, or Tyranny. Many of them also strip victory condition cards from players’ hands. Even early-game laws on which players vote on using the other type of influence card, called bribery cards, can destabilize the board to such a degree that a global event triggers far sooner than anyone expected.

By the time you reach the second cycle, and certainly by the third, you are no longer playing the same game you started. What that new game looks like is impossible to predict because it depends entirely on which events have triggered, in what order, and how they’ve collided with one another between the layers of influence cards and laws you have put into place, and the impact on the resource you manage to walk away with, among many other things, like player role abilities.

It’s going to feel like a dizzying array of out-of-control events, and it’s not a simple thing to get your head around all of the interactions and how you should form a strategy to win the game around them. In our first play of the game, it felt like we mostly did stuff just to see what would happen. We had no idea how to control the game enough to form a winning strategy.

Take the Triage event for example, for example.

The first thing that happens with this event is that suddenly, the market dries up. Inflation may spike or collapse. Resources become scarce and nearly worthless or potentially gold mines to buy and sell. At the same time, players are pressured by the Dignity and Honour victory condition, which demands donations of food, goods, and Syncanite, or else they lose victory cards. If you’ve already lost the Dignity and Honour victory card by this point through assassination or some other effect, congratulations: you’re now stuck defending against a win condition you can no longer achieve yourself, yet are forced to contribute or fall further down the rabbit hole.

And that’s just one event.

Now imagine that layered with a Military escalation. Or a Headline card played by the Censor that swings military power dramatically. Or a war erupting mid-cycle. Or a player getting crushed so badly they become a Pariah, instantly shifting into an entirely different victory framework, emerging as a completely different threat to your victory altogether.

I understand that as I say those things, it probably makes little sense to you as you read this review, and rightfully so, my only point is that there is a lot of “stuff” happening in this game.

This is why Syncanite Foundation is so difficult to describe: the game state is fragile. Every small push has the potential to unlock entirely new systems. What was once a semi-passive, worker-placement-style resource grab can suddenly turn into a full-blown territorial conflict. Last round, you were carefully optimizing. This round, you’re playing RISK for survival.

And this keeps happening.

Every event, every law, every assassination, every influence card has weight. Nothing is trivial. Everything lands somewhere between “severe inconvenience” and “absolute catastrophe.” The game is about managing chaos, not controlling it, because true control is an illusion here. At best, you’re projecting confidence while desperately trying to stay afloat.

Which brings me to what I believe is the game’s hidden core mechanic and intent: player psychology.

Table talk, bluffing, accusation, persuasion, and gut instincts, I think, will matter just as much as the cards and systems once players grow accustomed to the games intracacies. With so much information hidden and power levels so difficult to assess, perception becomes reality. A player is never more than one influence card away from detonating the board, regardless of how weak they appear. That uncertainty fuels paranoia, and paranoia fuels interaction.

People will talk. They will vent. They will accuse. They will form alliances and break them five minutes later. And all of that, the social pressure, the manipulation, the narrative chaos, isn’t just emergent behavior. I think it will ultimately be the game.

I could keep going, but to fully explain every system would require an article longer than the rulebook, and honestly, it isn’t necessary to determine whether this game is for you.

At its heart, Syncanite Foundation is a highly interactive resource and card management game with evolving mechanics, brutal take-that elements, and constant “gotcha” moments. Like games such as Root, Hegemony, or Twilight Imperium, it’s almost certainly going to be a love-it-or-hate-it experience for most.

As for my friends and I?

I (we) think it’s pretty awesome.

This is a political game with teeth, one that fully commits to its theme and gives players the mechanical tools to be exactly what the game wants them to be: power-hungry oligarchs, lying, scheming, manipulating their way toward dominance.

It’s mean-spirited joy.

An unfiltered “screw you” simulator.

So… is Syncanite Foundation perfectly balanced?

That’s a harder question to answer than it first appears, because the way this game reveals its balance is, frankly, a bit deceptive.

One of the core challenges when learning Syncanite Foundation is that your understanding of the game arrives in sudden, jarring moments, usually right as the current game state crashes head-first into your assessment of how well (or how poorly) you think you’re doing. That’s a mouthful, but it matters.

What I mean is this: there were points during my play where I was absolutely convinced I was losing badly. Not “behind but maybe recoverable,” but hopelessly behind. My opponents seemed to have insurmountable advantages that I had no realistic way of matching.

I failed to secure much Syncanite at all. As a result, I had almost no influence in voting, and more importantly, I couldn’t acquire the coveted permanent cards from the Bribery deck, cards that don’t just feel but are completely overpowered. Watching other players stack these advantages while I floundered made it very tempting to label the game as unbalanced.

And honestly? If you stopped the analysis right there, that conclusion would feel reasonable.

But Syncanite Foundation has a trick up its sleeve.

If you fall far enough behind, so far that you lose all of your standard victory cards, you don’t just limp along hopelessly. Instead, you become a Pariah. And the truly wild thing about becoming a Pariah is how dangerous you suddenly are.

When you enter Pariah status, you gain a new victory condition that is, easier to achieve, completely secret from the other players, impossible to steal or remove, and exclusive to you alone

It is, without exaggeration, one of the most aggressive comeback mechanics I’ve ever seen.

This creates an incredibly delicate equilibrium. Everyone at the table is highly motivated to win, but no one wants to crush another player too thoroughly. Push someone too far, and they stop being a non-factor and start becoming an uncontrollable threat. A Pariah is often far more dangerous than all the players still competing over the default victory conditions combined.

So… is the game balanced?

I would argue yes, but I completely understand why it might not feel that way, especially in your first few plays.

The real issue is that Syncanite Foundation layers mechanics within mechanics within mechanics. To fully appreciate how balance flows through the system, and how many paths to victory actually exist, you kind of need to understand all of it. That’s a tall order, particularly early on, when players are still just trying to keep their heads above water.

The key takeaway is this: it is almost impossible to reach a point in Syncanite Foundation where you truly cannot win. There are no victory points. Victory conditions shift constantly. No matter how bad things look, there is almost always an out.

The problem is that discovering this takes time.

I strongly suspect that many players will bounce off this game before reaching that realization. And I’m not entirely sure whether that’s a flaw in the design or simply the cost of ambition. It is, however, a potential problem, both for players and for the publisher, because this is exactly the kind of sophistication that often results in lower reviews from people who never quite crack the code.

In that sense, Syncanite Foundation isn’t alone.

Games like Root and Hegemony, which the designer compares himself to quite accuratetly are filled with negative reviews from players who bounced hard off their asymmetry and unconventional balance. Not because those games are broken, but because they demand patience, curiosity, and a willingness to be uncomfortable while learning.

Syncanite Foundation lives firmly in that same space. It dares to be different, and that alone guarantees it won’t be universally loved.

Replay-ability and Longevity

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: This is one of those games that could easily become a lifestyle game.  Infinite possibilities with infinite outcomes.

Cons:  It might be hard to find a steady gaming group that is willing to engage in a game with this depth regularly.

I’ll keep this part short and sweet.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you could play Syncanite Foundation a hundred times and never have the same experience twice. The sheer number of interacting systems, hidden information, evolving mechanics, and player-driven chaos makes repetition almost impossible. Every session will reshape itself based on who’s at the table, which events trigger, and how aggressively or deviously people choose to play.

More importantly, this is a game that rewards scheming. If plotting, manipulating, and maneuvering behind the scenes is your idea of a good time, this design has an almost inexhaustible well of replay value.

That said, Syncanite Foundation is clearly ripe for expansion, and in fact, some already exist.

The most substantial is The Great Council Box, which expands the game to support up to six players and includes everything needed to make that work smoothly. That expansion is on its way. It also adds a solo mode, quality-of-life upgrades like player mats, and incorporates The Dignitary Pack, a system that introduces powerful, hero-like characters who can join your empire with unique abilities and effects. The Dignitary Pack itself can also be acquired separately as a standalone expansion.

My game was just the standard package, so I did not have any of these elements to review, but it’s not a hard stretch to imagine that this game would be a lot of fun with six players, albeit probably quite a long one.

The design space here is enormous. Additional global events (or alternate versions of existing ones), new player roles, more dignitaries, expanded influence decks, fresh laws, and new bribery cards would all slot naturally into the system. There’s plenty of room for Syncanite Foundation to grow over time.

That said, and this is important, none of that feels necessary.

The base game is already dense, ambitious, and loaded with content. There’s more than enough in the box to explore before expansions even enter the conversation. This isn’t a framework waiting to be finished; it’s a fully realized experience that simply could be expanded, not one that needs to be.

And honestly? That’s exactly how it should be. Expansions should be luxuries, not necessities.

Conclusion

I think it’s important to say this right up front: Syncanite Foundation is not a game for everyone. And that’s not a criticism, it’s a statement of intent. The overwhelmingly positive tone of this review, I hope I passed on here, exists for one simple reason: this game feels like it was aimed directly at my gaming soul. It presses all the right buttons for the kind of player I am, and as a result, it sticks the landing for me in a way few games do. I reckognize its not gaming perfection, but I’m not talking about a perfect game for everyone, I’m talking about a perfect game for me.

Which is strange because up until this box arrived at my house, I had no idea it existed. I’m not some zealous kick-starter who waited patiently for a game they “just knew” they were going to love, writing a positive review to defend my bank account’s honor. This was a review copy that arrived at my doorstep. I genuinely opened the box with zero information about what was inside; I just had that “what the hell is this” expression on my face and a natural curiosity to explore.

Truth is that this is a bold, ambitious design that stretches the very idea of what it means to sit down and play a tabletop game. It has its own energy, its own rhythm, and it generates atmosphere almost effortlessly. I would never claim it’s a perfectly engineered system, because it absolutely isn’t, but what it is is thrilling, devious, and unapologetically sharp-edged. The fun here comes with teeth, and I love that.

Most game nights are casual affairs. You grab something off the shelf, enjoy a few hours with friends, and everyone goes home happy. I love those nights. But Syncanite Foundation carries a different kind of weight. It has that “Let’s play Twilight Imperium” energy, the kind of game that makes you plan the evening around it, stay up later than you should, and keep replaying moments in your head afterward. It’s not quite an “event game,” but it’s certainly not typical by any stretch. To me, it’s a genuine gem.

I’ve been around long enough to know exactly who I wouldn’t introduce this game to. My more Euro-leaning friends, the ones who want to push cubes, optimize quietly, and relax, would find Syncanite Foundation stressful, confrontational, and downright mean. That’s not a flaw in the game, nor is it a problem with that audience. It’s simply how this hobby works. Not every game is meant to please everyone, no matter how loudly the majority of the internet insists that Brass: Birmingham is the universal peak of human game design achievement. For example, I found it to be .. meh… It was ok.

Syncanite Foundation instead carves out a fascinating niche of its own. It’s messy. It’s volatile. It’s confrontational. And it’s absolutely not afraid to make players uncomfortable in pursuit of its theme. I genuinely hope it finds the audience it deserves, because we need more games willing to step outside the safe, familiar, and frankly overworked confines of comfortable cube-pushing design.

It dares to be different, and different it most certainly is. For better or worse.

I, for one, am a fan.