Deck of Justice: Kickstarter Review
Information:
Mechanics: Team (variant), Player Elimination, Hand Management, BluffingTime: 1 - 60 Minutes
Player Count: 1-6 Players
Designer: Omar Khaled
Artist: Omar Khaled, Hussein Essam
Age Range: 13+
Disclaimer: This is a prototype copy of a print and play that I cut out and laminated so everything could be different when the game is on KickStarter and could change again once the game is finalized.
The Game:
There are four types of cards, heroes, load, ride and insta.Heroes are the driving force for continued play, once you have no heroes in your hand you lose. Also, there needs to be a hero in every fight.
Loads are weaponry items you equip to your hero. Each hero has two hands so they can hold two loads(one in each hand).
Rides are used to add more heroes to the fight depending on how many seats the ride has. Only one ride can be played per fight and will take up a hand for the main hero (they will be holding the steering wheel) however their other hand can still hold a load. Each additional character can hold their own loads.
Insta cards are used for game changing effects at any time that is applicable to the card. For example, the card 'Hide and Seek' would have to be before as the defender or attacker you play your combatants)
How to Play:
Let's first set up by drawing 7 cards each, one of these must be a hero otherwise you discard all the cards and redraw.On your turn you will first choose an opponent to fight. Now you become the 'striker' (attacker) by choosing heroes, loads and a ride as long as you follow the card rules (1 ride and 1 load for the driving hero, or 2 loads per hero, and only one hero unless you have more seats). Choose any one of these cards to be face up (see below), to give the opponent an idea of what they’re up against, and the rest are face down. This is how you can out-bluff your opponents; throw them off by showing a card with a misleading score so they won’t know what you’re planning.
The defending player responds to this insult by playing their responding hand face up, then the attacking player flips their cards over. Now it's time to execute 'em.
So in this phase each hero has special abilities that will now activate, the attacking player activates his first, followed by the defending player. After accummalating the horse power (HP; the game’s scoring points) of each player, whoever has the highest HP when the fights over will be the victor, but don't forget about those insta cards!
The winner of this battle will then return the ride and heroes to their hand and the loser will discard all their cards. All loads played in the fight are discarded as they are now empty/damaged (unloaded). At the end of the turn both players will draw 1 card from the draw pile and the win condition is checked to see if there is a victor or if any player is eliminated by having no heroes in their hand. If not, the next player will now play out their turn.
Variants:
Deck of justice is a simple game that can be enjoyed by many, and to add some extra character to the game, here are some variants to mix things up a bit:Team play (co-op): the main difference here is when one of your teammates gets eliminated you can discard an amount of cards and your teammate will be revived. They also get to draw half that amount of cards from the discard pile to create a new hand.
Grudge mode: As two player games are quite fast, each game is converted into a round and the player that wins the most out of 3 or 5 rounds is the victor.
Final Thoughts:
Pros- Great action fuelled art.
- Familiarity of the cards upon repeated plays
- Playing in a group allows bluffing to excel
Cons
- Largely luck based.
- Some vagueness on cards abilities
- Player elimination (personal preference)
Throughout playing Deck of Justice as a 4 player and a 2 player game, there was a constant feeling that something was missing for the game itself. I'm pretty sure I've identified this feeling and it is the bluffing that comes later on in larger player game once you are more aware of another players hand. In a group game, there is a real pressure of needing to annihilate your oppositions before you run out of cards, or before other players discover your combos and aim to remove that advantage. This falls flat in a two player game as the game can be too dependent on luck and a round (using the two player variant) can be too quick.
The category in which this game excels is as a palate cleanser/filler game for a larger group or party atmosphere, however, if you don't want players disappointed that they lost too early then I highly recommend playing the team variant.
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