Navia Dratp : Game Review
=========================
Alan Kwan, 10 Sep 2005

Setting
-------

The game is set in a fastasy setting, but it is in the style of
some fantasy Japanese anime. The world is split into several
warring countries, and a few young women are gifted with the
ability of the "Navia", and can summon and control "Maseitai"
(magical creatures) in battle.

The player takes the role of the "Navia Commander", who
accompanies and directs the Navia in battle, kind of like a
sports coach.

Components
----------

The componens are gorgeous. The playing pieces (Maseitai and
Navia) are finely detailed, plastic sculpted figures. The
Gyullas crystals are made of colored clear plastic. The
Gulleds are flat plastic pieces.

The cardboard gameboard, though not as gorgeous as the coveted
tourney prize/demo vinyl mat pictured on the game box, is IMO not
bad.

The movement pattern of each piece is illustrated by a grid on
the piece. For the figures (Maseitai and Navia), the movement
grid is printed on a "compass" which is at the front end of the
base of the figure. If the piece Dratps, the compass is rotated
(upside down) to show its Dratped movement. The pieces have
excellent functionality.

Description of game play
------------------------

Navia Dratp borrows its primary play mechanism from chess:

1. Each player has several different types of pieces.
2. Each piece type has a specific movement pattern.
3. When a piece moves onto the same square as an enemy piece, the
enemy piece is "captured" (lost by the opponnet).
4. Each player has a "King" piece (the Navia in this game). If
this piece is captured, the player loses the game.

Note that by "chess" above (and hereafter) I refer generally to
all chess-like games, in particular (western) chess, Chinese
chess and shogi, which are probably the three most popular forms
of chess being played. The above four characteristics are common
to most or all chess games, and it is not useful to try to
distinguish which particular one Navia Dratp is a descendent of.
In fact, Navia Dratp has inherited smaller details from multiple
forms, as well as having many innovative elements of its own.

So what is new in Navia Dratp? Navia Dratp is a "collectible"
game, meaning mainly, you can choose the composition of your
force. To those who are alarmed by the word "collectible", you
can be comfortable: functionally all pieces are "common", meaning
that it is quite easy to "collect" all the pieces you need for
play strategy.

Each player's force consists of one Navia, 7 Maseitai (the
stronger pieces), and 9 "Gulled" pieces (the equivalence of
the Pawns in chess). The Navia and the Gulleds are fixed; force
construction involves choosing your 7 Maseitai pieces.

The question that immediately comes to mind, when we talk about a
chess game with force construction, is game balance. How do we
balance the game between strong pieces and weak ones? What stops
a player from building his force with all "queens"? Many
"miniature" games, and some other (more or less) chess-like games
with force composition, employs a "point system": each piece
costs a number of points to employ, and each player is assigned a
certain number of points with which to buy pieces, at the start
of the game. This system does the job, but the game becomes
quite limited, and is clumsy in practice.

The true elegance and the strongest point of Navia Dratp is that,
it manages to maintain the game balance without using the point
system. You can, indeed, freely choose which 7 Maseitai to
include in your force!

How, then, is the game balance maintained? It is done through
the "Dratp" system, which is /loosely/ based on the "promotion"
rule in shogi. When a Maseitai is summoned into play, it starts
in its "undratped" form. Later, you can spend "Gyullas" energy
to Dratp the Maseitai; this increases its movement range, and/or
gives it some special power or effect. For example, Maseitai
"Agunilyos" starts with a King's move, but by spending 16 Gyullas
to Dratp it, it gets a Queen's move thereafter. The cost to
Dratp each Maseitai varies according to its power, of course.

Gyullas energy is earned either by moving a Gulled, or by
capturing an enemy piece. When you capture a Maseitai, you earn
an amount of Gyullas equal to its Dratp cost. And this is how
the game brilliantly enables force construction without requiring
a total point limit. If a player uses too expensive Maseitai to
compose his force, not only will he be unable to Dratp many of
them, but also, his opponent may be able to get lots of Gyullas
by capturing his pieces. Chess players will know that, in many
situations it is possible to invite or force an exchange of
pieces; and a player can earn an advantage by exchanging his
cheaper pieces for the opponent's expensive ones.

Besides the traditional checkmate, there are two other ways to
win the game. If you collect 60 Gyullas (without spending them),
you can win by just Dratping your Navia. In practice, this is a
very common way of winning, especially against an enemy force
composed of many expensive Maseitai. (Remember that you can earn
lots of Gyullas for capturing an expensive Maseitai.) Another
way, much less common, is by marching your Navia across the
length of the battlefield, and scoring a "Navia Goal" by crossing
the "End Line" on the opponent's side of the board. This is
actually inherited from shogi (which doesn't actually have this
as a specified win condition, but a King on the opponent's side
of the board would be very hard to checkmate, because in shogi
most pieces are not good at attacking backwards); in Navia Dratp,
this rule has eliminated most end-game draws, allowing the player
with a clever positional advantage to win should both players
become materially exhausted.

Reviewer's comments
-------------------

The combination of the Dratp system, the Gyullas system, and the
Navia Dratp alternate winning condition provides the backbone for
an excellent strategy game. The "starter" forces are balanced
ones, which can hold their own by trying to overwhelm and
checkmate a force composed of cheaper Maseitai, and trying to
force some exchanges to win by Navia Dratp against a forced
composed of more expensive Masitai. Even the game with the two
starter forces alone is very interesting, with good replay value
because each game plays differently, and I dare say that there
are more variations in here than in (any of the main three)
standard chess.

Despite a brilliant backbone mechanism, if there are serious
imbalances in the available Maseitai, the game will quickly
degenerate and become repetitive. Fortunately, it seems that the
game has been throughoutly playtested, and the Dratp cost for
each of the available Maseitai seems just right. Until now, the
game still has not been dominated by a few "over-powered"
Maseitai. Thus, the players can afford to freely explore using
different Maseitai and trying different strategies, while still
enjoying a decent chance of winning.

Unlike many "deck construction" games, which are largely decided
by deck construction and the luck of the draw, in Navia Dratp the
playing of the pieces is very important. I would say that any
piece is as strong as how effectively the player uses it. Even
between the same two forces, the battle can play out differently
each time.

Besides the multiple victory conditions, another factor which
contributes to the replayablity is the summoning system. The
games starts with the Navia's and the Gulled's on the board,
while the Maseitai are later summoned into play, onto one of the
"summoning squares" on the friendly end of the board, by spending
a move. This frees Navia Dratp from the limited set-up and "book
openings" of traditional chess games. In fact, what, when, and
where to summon is a very important part of the playing strategy.

A game ahead of its time
------------------------

More than being a commercial merchandise, I see Navia Dratp as a
serious attempt at incorporating the force construction aspect
into chess. And I can only conclude that, the attempt has
achieved great success, regardless of the response the game gets
in the commercial market.

Until I see Navia Dratp, I have not understood the true strengths
of chess, but rather look at them as more or less dated stuff,
not as exciting as the newer generation games we have today.
(And I still maintain the same view now.) Unlike some other
chess-like games with force/deck construction, Navia Dratp has
faithfully kept the basic format of chess, the four points I
mentioned near the beginning of this article. And after playing
Navia Dratp, I realize that, this format does have the potential
of providing the backbone of a great game - in particular one
with force construction - although the traditional forms are
indeed dated, putting a limit on how far that potential can be
realized.

I have realized that, the best aspect of chess is point #3, that
any piece can capture any enemy piece by moving onto it. This
means that a weak piece can sometimes defeat a strong one, and
that weak pieces in a mutually protecting formation can hold
their own against a single strong piece. This gives more room to
strategy and tactics over brute piece strength. Most deck/force
construction games, even chess-like ones, use attack/defense
strength numbers. With that system, the result of a battle would
tend to depend more on the strength of the combatants, than the
skill of the players.

Thus, those games have to either impose a limit on the total
"strength points" you can put in your force, or require some form
of resources ("mana" etc.) to bring your powerful cards into
play. (Some games, being stupid child's play, even neglect that
altogether...) But in Navia Dratp, you can freely compose your
force, and you don't need to pay any summoning cost to bring your
Maseitai into play (although you do need to pay a cost to Dratp).
This gives the game a whole lot more freedom, more room for
strategy than the others.

Navia Dratp is a chess game with force construction. It is
perhaps the best chess game in existence, with more variety and
depth than even the traditional games; indeed it brings out the
true potentials of the chess format. It is also perhaps the
best force/deck construction game in existence, with more freedom and
variety in the force construction and game play, and being a game
of skill rather than luck; allowing competitive force
constructions beyond obvious "combos" and "power cards", the game
enables the force construction format to shine its true strength -
namely, variety. Just like the GIPF project games, Navia Dratp
is a game ahead of its time - more developed than its
contemporaries, and perhaps even too advanced for the average
unsuspecting customer to appreciate. But, just like many of the
greatest works in history, with the passage of time, the true
greatness of these works will be revealed.

I am a huge fan of Navia Dratp, so I am going through all of the reviews...just because I can and want to. Excellent write up sir. I agree with everything. I like reviews that don't go into detail of the rules but give opinions on what the writer liked and disliked, which is what you have done. Though there were no dislikes in this one, which I have a hard time coming up with any myself.