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Baby Dragon Bedtime: Review

Baby Dragon Bedtime: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Deck Building, Real time
Player Age: 6+
Player Count: 3 - 8 Players
Time to Play: 5 Minutes 
Game Designer: Steve Darlington
Game Artist: Steve Darlington
Publisher: Tin Star Games
Year Published: 2018
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

‘Baby Dragon Bedtime' is a unique mix of real-time and deck building that includes memory elements. 

The mother dragon has demanded her little infants go to sleep but like normal kids, they don't want to go to bed until they absolutely have to. You will be playing as one of these baby dragons trying to get the most loot before ultimately having to go to bed. 

Card Anatomy:

Each card contains an explanation of what they do and some cards will have a letter of A-G this will help the players to determine their starting deck.

Within this game there are three categories of cards; starters, points, and others. 


Starter Deck:

A starter deck consists of all the cards that have the same letter in the top left. This deck will contain two ‘Peeks’, two ‘Grabs’ and one ‘Flip’. Flip allows you flip over one card in the middle play area; peek let's you look at a face-down card and grab let's you grab any face-up or face-down card and add it to your discard pile (not activating the ability of the new card until you draw the card later). 

Point Cards:

These consist of one ‘Chewing Gum’ card worth negative two points, five ‘Dust Bunnies’ worth negative one point, four ‘Hoard’ cards worth positive two points and eleven ‘Gold’ cards each worth positive one point.

Other Cards:

There are several other cards. These consist of 'Roar', 'Flap', 'Swoop', 'Crash', and 'Mama'.

Roar:

Roar allows you to discard the top card of a players deck back into the middle play area. This can only be done to an awake player (a player still active in the game).

Flap:

Go through your deck and discard one card face-up or down into the middle play area.

Swoop:

Swap your entire deck including the swoop card with another player of your choice. This can only be done to awake players.

Crash:

Every awake player will discard the top two cards into their discard pile.

Mama:

When played from a deck the game will end as mama dragon has caught all of her naughty babies staying awake.

Set up:

- Deal each player a complete starter deck and put the rest away. 

- Shuffle the remaining cards and place every card face down spread across the table. 

How to Play:

This game is played as real-time, so every player will be playing and doing their actions simultaneously and competitively. As fast as they can, each player will look at the top card of their deck and either complete the action of the card then discard, or simply discard the card without the action. Once every card in their deck has been discarded they will either flip over their discard pile or shuffle their deck and start again. At any point in the game, a player can choose to go to sleep by covering their deck and stop playing cards. This is normally done if they are happy with the score they have gained and no longer want to risk gaining negative points. If every player except one has gone to sleep, or every card in the middle is face up then the game has ended. Each player will then total the points in their deck, the winner is the player with the highest score. Alternatively, if mama dragon is gained into a deck and later played then the game also ends and points are tallied. 

Final Thoughts:

Pros: 

- Great player range.

- A unique take on the deck building genre as it incorporates real-time and memory.

- Easy to learn and fun to play.

Cons:

- The game container is a tuck box.

- Would be interesting to have more unique scoring cards that used set collection or other elements.

'Baby Dragon Bedtime' is a fun take on the deck building genre as it creates a fast-paced action-filled game instead of the usual combo driven deck builders. This is a great family game or filler game as it is quick and easy to play but has every player completely involved for the game. If you are too eager with the grab cards you will stack your deck with negative points, but one carefully timed swoop can change that in your favour. There's an interesting push your luck part component to the game as it can simply end when the other players decide they are finished. That, coupled with the real-time play leaves the game feeling energetic, chaotic and fun for the whole family to enjoy.

Click...feed the addiction: 

Tin*Star Games
Baby Dragon Bedtime on BGG
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