Factory Setting
SPARKS
Designer: Adrian Adamescu, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Florin Purluca and Kjetil Svendsen | Publisher: Alion
Sparks brings together four designers, with at least two whom you may already be familiar: Kristian Amundsen Østby from Santa Maria and Escape: The Curse Of The Temple, as well as Adrian Adamescu of Sagrada and Dice Theme Park fame. It’s a fair observation that these are chaps who enjoy a die, so it’s no surprise that Sparks centres around dice drafting.
The action takes place in a factory, building and sending robots down the production line (no purpose really given). Randomly, a team of animal assistants is there to help. The reason why staff take the form of animals is never explained, presumably because it would be too dull to have humans and too meta to have robots making robots? Either way, that’s as much backstory as Alion deigns to grant. It’s the first hint that perhaps not enough time has been spent on fleshing out a convincing theme.