Guardians Call: Rapid Review

Guardians Call: Rapid Review

Information:

Mechanics: Bluffing, Set Collection, Social Deduction
Player Age: 14+ 

Player Count: 2 - 5 Players 

Time to Play: 20 - 40 Minutes 
Game Designer: James Hudson
Game Artist: Noah Adelman, Lina Cossette, Damien Mammoliti

Publisher: Druid City Games, Skybound Games

Year Published: 2019

BGG Weight: 2.00
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Rundown:

'Guardians Call' is a social deduction/ bluffing game that I can best describe as a mix between 'Cockroach Poker' and 'Sheriff of Nottingham'. 

The main action you will perform each turn is offering a player a certain amount of the same card while claiming that they are a specific card type. This may or may not be the truth but there are rules to this. You cannot mix and match cards or lie about the amount you are offering, but besides that players are able to lie about what the card type is. 

If the player correctly guesses that the player has lied or told the truth they will add these cards to their tableu and the offering player will get a coin. If they incorrectly guess the player offering cards will add the cards to their tableu. All of the cards have different scoring bonuses such as; the player with the most weapons will gain 20 points at the end of the game, or you can discard three artifacts to gain a treasure card which are high value points that an effect to help others or yourself.

Alteration:

The main alteration comes from the players at the table as this is the kind of game that is brought to life based on the different players. Can you read your opponents well enough to know what they are truly offering, or have they successfully convinced you with their deceptions. The other alteration comes from quest cards. Every game will have three quest cards that will activate when a council card is drawn or when a war card is drawn. These quests will give the players other scoring possibilities such as having exactly three weapons in their tableu, or having more artifacts than neighbouring players.

Production:

The production is great, especially the insert. The insert keeps all the tokens and cards in an easily accessible place with grooves to help the cards and tokens to come out when needed. To keep all of these parts from moving when stored, the token sheets are placed underneath the insert to keep everything stable. This is a great idea that I haven't seen utilised before.

Interaction:

Since players are constantly offering each other cards filled with lies or truths this creates a high level of interaction. No player need feel rejected if they are not chosen to interact with as a player must interact with all opponents before they can pick the same player to trade with again. 

Determination:

'Guardians Call' is a great step up from other bluffing games. It has enough depth for players to explore with each card having a different means of scoring, as well as the coins that players can use to buy cards to add to their tableu. Since there are numerous ways players can score there are moments that will have less bluffing than other games of the same genre. When the bluffing occurs there are multiple facets of bluffing that goes into it such as the players affinity for cards, which cards they/you want, what quest are available, etc. If you enjoy more in-depth bluffing games, Guardians call is a must try for your collection, i know for me it will be staying in my collection for a long time.

Click...feed the addiction: 

Druid City Games
Guardian's Call on BGG
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