Cryptocurrency: Review

Cryptocurrency - Review:

Information:

Mechanics: Economics, Trading, Push Your luck, Action Point Allowance, Commodity Speculation
Player Age: 14+ 

Player Count: 2 - 4 Players 

Time to Play: 45 - 60 Minutes 

Publisher: Capital Gains Studio
Game Designer: Steve Ng Wen Xi
Game Artist: Wong Chun Xi

Year Published: 2018

BGG Weight: 2.00

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

The aim of the game is simple, you want to have the most money after 5 rounds (4 for a four player game). The challenge comes when trying to sell your cryptocurrency at the right time to gain the most return. As this is a stock manipulation game, this high return can be challenging to obtain as cryptocurrency (or cryptocurrencies if there is a tie) with the most negative ‘rumours’ result in a scam where any coins not already sold of these are suddenly worthless.

Component Anatomy:

Info Board:

There are four of these boards, one for each cryptocurrency, and they will hold the ‘rumours' and there will be a track for 'mining' which will tell the players how many hash cards need to be used when mining, how many coins they will gain and the amount of wonga (currency of the game) that will be gained per transaction cards that activate.

Market Board:

This board monitors the price of each cryptocurrency throughout the rounds and will hold the available coins that can be traded for at the bottom of the board.

Character Cards:

These will be your workers and they come in two forms; interns and experts. Each player begins with three interns as these are the base characters. They have no effects but provide one energy each. Experts have a hiring cost to the top right of the card, an ability that activates when they are used and an energy amount in the black circle above the ability. These experts are the workers you want in your organisation.

Transaction Cards:

Consider these cards as after-effects of the popularity in the cryptocurrency you create after mining. These effects will modify the market board after mining has occurred, effects will either be a positive 1 or negative 2.

Hash Cards:

These cards are used to determine whether or not you are successful at mining. There is one success with the other seven hash cards being failures, drawing the success in mining will determine if you are successful at mining.

Rumour Cards:

These are played in the rumour phase to modify the price on the market board of each cryptocurrency based on the positive or negative amount on the card. If any of these cards are face-down at the end of the game they will be revealed to create one more shakeup within the market. Keep in mind here, cryptocurrencies can be quite volatile.

Loan Cards:

These cards are used to give the player eight wonga at any one time. However, these loans will result in the player having to repay two wonga per round until the loan has been completed. Each player can only have two open loans at one time.

Holder Tiles:

These tiles are awarded to the players in possession of the most coins of a type of cryptocurrency when the game ends, giving that player 12 wonga per each holder tile.

Setup:

- Give each player three interns and six wonga.
- Place each info board in the centre with a marker on the first place of the mining track.
- Place the marker for each price on the market board based on the circled values on the board and place coins equal to the starting supply (shown at the bottom of the market board).

- Create a pile of the remaining coins for the mining pile.
- Reveal the top 5 experts to form a hiring line.
- Place three transactions face-down to form an ongoing transaction line.
- Draw two rumours for each cryptocurrency. One will be revealed and modify the market track, and one will be hidden next to the info board to be revealed at the end of the game.
- Create piles for loan cards, holder tiles, and hash cards so they are within the players reach.

How to Play:

There are four phases to each round; prep, action, upkeep and rumour. After the last round the final scoring will occur.

Prep Phase:

Let's first start this off by making sure the hiring market is good today. If all players agree, the hiring line can be discarded and a new line of potential workers can be drawn. Next, starting with the first player, everybody draws a rumour card (to be used later). Then they choose if they want a loan and hire one new worker if they so desire. This is a tight team of hackers, so whenever there is a new hire someone else must be fired (discarded).

Action Phase:

Once again beginning with the first player, players can do one of two potential actions; mine or trade. This will continue until no players have the energy to complete an action. If you have energy but don't want to perform an action you can pass, resulting in all your energy being depleted. When choosing one of the below actions you will exhaust a worker and use their energy and ability if you choose to. If you want you can exhaust multiple workers to use the total of their energy and abilities.

Mine:
Choose a cryptocurrency to mine and create a hash deck by adding one success and failures equal to the current difficulty (shown on the info board). If the difficulty is 6 it will be 1 success and 5 failures in this deck. Now shuffle the hash deck and draw cards equal to the energy spent, if you obtain the one succeed card then you have mined successfully! Congratulations, you are now going to gain coins of that cryptocurrency equal to the current reward on the info board. Flip any ongoing transactions, in the transaction line that their back matches the cryptocurrency and resolve their effect (then refill the line). Gain wonga equal to the number of transactions that occurred multiplied by the validation fee on the info board. Move the marker up one spot, unless it is on the last spot (this will alter the reward, difficulty and validation amount), and if you don't succeed at drawing the success card then the energy is spent and nothing else happens on that turn. Better luck next time.

Trade:
Let's first establish that you cannot buy and sell in the same turn as this would manipulate the market too much. However, with trading you can exhaust your workers and use their energies to buy or sell up to four cryptocurrency tokens for one type per one energy spent. For example, you can exhaust two workers for three energy and sell 12 of the same cryptocurrency token. When buying, you must spend the wonga matching the asking cost at the market for each token, and when selling you gain that amount. Although keep in mind that the prices change regularly and you should buy/sell during optimum times to maximise your chances of victory. All tokens sold or bought must come from and be returned to the market board. This will affect the market and once completed, the price on the market board for that cryptocurrency will either reduce by one for each four sold or rise by one for each four bought. This trading action phase will continue until all player’s workers are exhausted, remembering that you can only perform one action per turn but can use multiple workers to do so.

Upkeep Phase:

This phase is easy to remember, you un-exhaust all of your workers and can pay off your loans. You also have to pay the 2 wonga interest per loan you have gained in the prep phases (even if you pay off the loans this turn).

Rumour Phase:
Remember that rumour you received during the first phase? Well, now it’s time to give that rumour some life. Each player, beginning with the last player, will play their rumour on one of the cryptocurrencies following some guidelines:
- No placing the rumour on a cryptocurrency that has already received a rumour this round.
- The rumour has to be played on the leftmost space.
- The rumour has to be placed in the opposite manner to the last rumour played. This means that the new rumour will be face-up if the previous rumour was face-down, and vice versa. Playing it face-up will fluctuate the market straight away, whereas playing it face down will modify the market during the scoring. If there are two or three players, rumours will be played from the top of the rumour deck following the same guidelines to any cryptocurrency that did not receive a rumour.

Scoring:

So you have played through all the rounds and are now determined to see who was the best in the market. Players will receive holder titles based on whoever holds the most  unsold coins of each cryptocurrency at the end of the game. The rumours are now revealed and resolved, changing the market one last time. The cryptocurrencies with the most negative rumour value will be revealed as a scam and proven to have useless coins. Besides those useless coins, all other tokens are sold at market value and the player with the most wonga is the richest and the winner.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:

- Many paths to victory.
- There is an advanced side to the info boards and the market board that help make each cryptocurrency unique.
- Events can be added each round to keep the market fresh and unpredictable.
- Interesting dynamic of spending money to make a greater amount.
- Makes it much easier to understand real life cryptocurrencies.

Cons:

- Can be fiercely competitive.

'Cryptocurrency' is a fun and thoughtful stock market game that reveals more depth into the decisions of virtual currencies with every play. Layer that with unique workers and interesting cryptocurrencies (advanced side) and you have an engaging and challenging puzzle to make it rich.  As each round passes, you will have more resources at your disposal but will feel more pressure to choose the right moves. The first few rounds are used to gain stock in cryptocurrencies as well as effective workers, whereas the later rounds are devised to make decision making harder and more selective. With all this decision making it would seem that it would lend itself to longer turns and analysis paralysis, however, the game continues to feel fast and unpredictable. Cryptocurrency will have moments where your seemingly amazing wealth-inducing coins are rendered utterly useless due to a direct market crash caused by your fellow players. So, if you are not a fan of confrontational and sometimes frustration games then maybe you should avoid this one. Otherwise, the enjoyable intoxicating puzzle that is Cryptocurrency will be going on my shelf as my go-to stock manipulation game. The sheer magnitude of depth and decision making, is a great addition to any gamers collection and will be earning a seal of ‘Go-to Golden Game’.   

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