Resident Evil 2: The Board Game. Preliminary Review & Solo Campaign 1A: Getting to the Police Department

As mentioned in the previous article, Games & Tea will largely be focusing on board games with a single player option for the time being, starting with Steamforged Games' Resident Evil 2: The Board Game.

Just like the original videogame, Resident Evil 2 drops the players into Raccoon City; the epicentre of a zombie outbreak.  And, just like the videogame, Resident Evil 2 is a game of survival horror.  Unlike some other zombie board games such as Zombicide, which reward players for going on a zombie-killing rampage, Resident Evil 2 will mercilessly punish reckless players, and leave you asking yourself "Can I really spare the bullet to take down the next zombie, or should I take my chance and just run past?"  The one and only goal in this game is to make it out of the city in one piece, and before the outbreak becomes inescapable.

Nice little nod to the videogame as soon as you open the box.

Rather than the simple box contents and gameplay format our reviews would typically take, this time we're recording a campaign run.  With the board consisting of modular tiles, the Campaign Book included with Resident Evil 2 allows you to choose between a number of different scenarios of increasing difficulty, each of which can be played as a standalone game session.  However, for those feeling a little adventurous and wanting something they can really get their undead teeth into, there is the option (and additional rules) to play them sequentially as a campaign.  For this purpose, the back of the Campaign Book does include a blank campaign sheet, which it's recommended to photocopy a handful when the opportunity presents itself.

If the photocopier at work is monitored with a login, try and con Kevin from accounting into copying some of these for you.  Everyone hates that guy anyway.

At the start of each scenario, the board needs to be put together using the modular tiles and following the map printed on that scenario's page in the Campaign Book.  As well as the board layout, this will also include the starting positions for the players, for all starting enemies, and any items, doors or terrain features.  Our campaign series will be using some of the Kickstarter exclusive upgrades to replace the terrain tokens with plastic models, however the rules and gameplay are the same as the retail version.  If the opportunity comes up to get your hands on the 3D upgrades however, it's highly recommended to take them.  As well as simply adding to the immersion of the game, the printing on the cardboard tokens is very dark at times, and can be a struggle to make out.

Once the board is assembled and ready to go, you should have something like this!  Next, you'll need you character card, a player board and health tracker token, and your starting equipment...

This campaign will actually be primarily following Leon, which is why I wanted to show some Claire love here!

Finally, the decks need to be prepared and then you're ready to go.  First of all, there's the Tension Deck...

At the end of each player's turn, a card from the Tension Deck will be drawn and resolved, with green cards having no effect, yellows presenting mild danger, and red being a high threat.  The makeup of the Tension Deck is outlined on the scenario page in the Campaign Book, but the deck should usually consist mainly of green cards.

Then there are the Item Decks.  Again, these are outlined on the scenario page, and are broken down into Item Deck A and Item Deck B, each of which can only be accessed by getting to a square with a corresponding token.  Deck B tends to feature the more powerful - or scenario-critical items - but the tokens tend to be in more hazardous to reach areas.

And without further ado, it's time to get this campaign started!

"The characters have arrived in Raccoon City, only to find it overrun!  With the streets no longer safe, they must make their way to the Raccoon City Police Department, which should be much more secure..."

During each player's turn, they are allowed to make up to 4 actions, choosing from move, open/close door, search, trade, use item, and attack, with no limits to the number of times they can utilise one type of action.  So players can either use a turn to sprint full-on towards the door, or could stand their ground and attempt to thin out an approaching hoard of zombies!

Seeing as Leon has started the scenario 2 spaces away from a zombie - and also for the purpose of explaining game mechanics - he's going to use his first action to attack.

Each weapon has different stats which are covered on the corresponding card.  Left to right, the first stat is the range - "LOS" indicating that if the enemy is in Leon's line of sight, he can shoot it.  Next is the number of attack dice to roll - the blue "1" indicating that one single blue die must be rolled.  The dice have impact and double-impact symbols on them, and the next two boxes show the results of those rolls.  The arrow under the single impact means the enemy would be pushed back one square, whereas the "1" under the double-impact means that one point of damage would be done to the enemy; enough to kill a basic zombie, but just a scratch to larger enemies.

The bottom of the card shows any special features of the weapon.  In this case the three bullet symbol indicates that the pistol is a rapid fire weapon, meaning that up to three bullets (and thus up to the three dice) can be used in a single action.

As I don't want to be too frivolous with my limited ammunition, I'm going to fire 2 shots at the zombie...

One single impact - the zombie has been pushed back, but is still on its feet...

...and now I've expended 2 rounds of handgun ammo, taking the count down from 15 rounds to 13.

After a second, single-shot attack which knocked the zombie back again, I moved Leon forward 2 spaces to complete his 4 actions, and ended the turn.  Now it's the zombies' turn!

After each player completes their actions, the zombies have a Reaction Phase.  During this phase, all enemies within range of a player will make an attack, and any which aren't within range will move towards the nearest player, as long as they're on the same tile or a connected tile.  This is where the importance of doors comes into effect.  If a door is closed, the two tiles are no longer connected, and enemies will stay where they are.  This can lead to some serious tactical decision making, over whether to spend a precious action taking the time to close the door behind you, or whether to leave it open and hope that you don't get (literally) bitten on the behind over the decision later on!

After the enemies have all made their actions, the final phase of the turn is to flip over and resolve a card from the top of the Tension Deck.  Fortunately as this is the tutorial scenario, 16 of the 18 cards in the deck are green (no effect), so at least I should be fi-

...

...

Never mind.

Well it could have been worse.  The red cards have the most serious effect.  This one simply means that if I'm on the same board tile at the end of the next turn, I'll draw 3 cards from the Tension Deck instead of just one, thus increasing my chance of hitting the dreaded red card.  Time to get out of here!

With ammo being scared, and 3 rounds already depleted, I decided to try and run past the zombie to get to the door!  But as anyone who's played the Resident Evil videogames will know, zombies are grabby creatures, and will not just idly stand by as you waltz past.  For those of you questioning the curved arrows on the attack dice from the previous shot, this is where they come into play.

Each player's character card includes the number of dice they must roll to evade.  If you attempt an action other than an attack while in a square with an enemy, you must pass an evade roll.  In this case, my action was to run past the zombie, so I needed to roll at least one arrow to get past.  Finally I struck lucky with my rolling and darted past the zombie with ease!  If I'd failed the roll however, the zombie would have had a free bite at Leon and I would have lost the action.

Dodging the zombie on my first attempt was a stroke of luck, as I had just enough actions to open the door and make it through before the end of the turn, negating the risk of the Echoes in the Darkness card.  I've had to leave the door wide open for now, but I can close it next turn to give myself some breathing space.

A couple of turns later and things are looking more promising!  No red tension card yet, and I've now obtained an ammo refill for the handgun!

After 11 increasingly tense turns (it turned out the dreaded red card was second from bottom of the Tension Deck!), Leon has made it through the streets of Raccoon City and through the front doors of the RCPD!  Along the way he managed to pick up the shotgun from Item Deck B - a much more powerful weapon which will hopefully come in handy in later scenarios.  It didn't come without cost, however, as an unlucky dice roll left Leon with an unfortunate zombie bite and one less health point.

As per the campaign rules, I was able to fully refill my handgun and add 3 extra rounds to the shotgun, but then had to discard the additional handgun ammo I'd picked up along the way.  Had I found a healing item I'd have been able to use that between scenarios, but as it stands I'll be heading into scenario 2A with a minor wound to take care of.

So tune in for the next scenario and see how Leon gets on within the walls of the RCPD!  As mentioned, this was the tutorial scenario, which made for quite plain sailing whilst also allowing a demonstration of the basic game mechanics.  There are additional mechanics which come into play in later scenarios, so we'll cover those as and when we reach them!

For now, I hope you enjoyed Leon's little stroll around the zombie infested streets of Raccoon City, and come back for the next scenario of Resident Evil 2: The S.T.A.R.S. Office.

On a parting note, one of Resident Evil 2's weak points is the box.  While the insert is great for keeping the miniatures and cards secure and in good order even if stored on its side, it doesn't really leave much room for the plethora of tokens included in the game (made even more of an issue if you get your hands on the 3D upgrades!).  As such, it's worth picking up a small hobby box - this one in particular was £3.99 from B&M, so shouldn't break the bank at all.  This way you can keep them all nicely organised and easy to get your hands on whatever the scenario requires.

So, breaking down the game and giving it an initial score based upon the first few scenarios (score to be updated when the campaign is complete):

The Good Points

• Resident Evil 2: The Board Game definitely captures the aesthetic of the source material, with survival favoured over the action more frequently seen in this genre.
• Solo mode is an option (huzzah!).
• Campaign mode will appeal to hardcore gamers, while more casual gamers can enjoy the scenarios on an individual basis.
• The mechanics are fairly straightforward, with the tutorial scenario easing players in nicely.
• The components are generally of a high quality, as expected from Steamforged.
• Mercifully short set up time, as long as the tokens have been pre-sorted.

The Bad Points

• Some of the tokens are printed very darkly.  The double-sided doors are a prime example, with it being difficult to tell at a glance whether the door is open or closed.
• The game may have limited appeal to those who aren't established fans, and therefore have no prior attachment to the characters and settings.
• The price is a little steep for the core game.
• A better box design to incorporate some token space would have been nice.

Recommended Number of Players: 2(?)

While this campaign will be putting the solo mode through its paces, many of the scenarios demand a minimum of 2 characters.  While up to four can be used (Leon, Claire, Ada Wong and Robert Kendo), the game does appear to be set up to favour 2 players.

Average Game Time: 90-120 minutes

The game length will vary depending upon the chosen scenario.  While it took me a while to get through the tutorial due to stopping for photos and typing, it probably should have only taken 15 minutes or so to get through.  The more complex scenarios later in the campaign, however, promise quite extensive play experiences, and the estimated time given by Steamforged themselves is 90-120 minutes.

Replayability: Medium

With a selection of different characters and scenarios, plus the random element provided by the tension deck, Resident Evil 2 should have a decent degree of replayability.  That said, there are only 8 scenarios in the core box including the tutorial, so a dedicated gaming group could probably exhaust them quite quickly.  The B-Files expansion offers more scenarios and the Survival Horror Expansion adds additional characters to give it a little more shelf life, but the core box alone runs the risk of fizzling out amongst a single group.

The Future: Bright

Resident Evil 2 launched with the aforementioned expansions already available, along with The Malformations of G (and The Malformations of G: B-Files), giving additional bosses to butt heads with.  All of this gives players the option of further fleshing out the core game once it starts to get a little stale.  In addition to this, there is also the possibility that Steamforged may push on in the wake of Resident Evil 2's popularity, and bring out titles connected to the other games in the series.  After all, who doesn't want to wander the creepy halls of the original mansion, or flee from the Nemesis through the zombie-ridden streets of Raccoon City?

Price: £65

Resident Evil 2 does carry quite a hefty price tag, and will set you back somewhere around the £65 mark.  While you may look at the above images and think you're getting a long of bang for your buck, it's worth remembering that these included all of the Kickstarter upgrades.  The core set includes 4 characters, 12 zombies, 4 dogs, 2 lickers and 2 William Birkin boss models, which doesn't feel like much for the asking price.

INITIAL SCORE: 7.5/10 (8.5/10 with Kickstarter upgrades)

Tea consumed during this review: Teapigs Darjeeling Earl Grey with a dash of milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew rating 10/10.

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Joking Hazard: An Offensive Card Game From Cyanide & Happiness

WARNING!

This review features subjects which may cause offence.  If you are easily offended by ANYTHING then for the love of God stop reading now!!!

Almost 3 years ago to this very day we posted our review for Cards Against Humanity (UK Edition), and it proved to be our most popular review ever by an incredible margin.  Now, whilst CAH didn't follow an original format (Apples to Apples being its main inspiration), it did set a pretty high bar for offensive "fill in the blank" games.  Since its release there have been many CAH clones trying to capitalise on the success, but finally it appears to have a true spiritual successor: Joking Hazard, from Cyanide & Happiness.

Cyanide & Happiness, for those who may not be aware, is an online comic strip series.  It features (usually two) stick-men, and over the course of three or four frames they play out an event which can sometimes be quite meaningful and moving, but most often dark and twisted.  For an idea of their format, you can check them out here (but please come back to us afterwards!).

Joking Hazard follows a similar format to Cards Against Humanity, but instead of creating a joke with black and white cards, 3-10 players compete to create the funniest (and usually most offensive) Cyanide & Happiness comic strip.

The box contains 350 cards, each depicting a single frame of the comic.  Many are generic and innocuous, but when combined in the right way can become something altogether more horrifying!  Unlike CAH, there are no black card/white card equivalents; everything is just of one single card type.

Each player begins the game with 7 cards in their hand, and then one player - chosen through non-violent means, as dictated in the rules - becomes the judge for the first round.  That player then draws one card from the top of the deck, and places it face-up in the centre of the table/floor/building site/satanic altar (here at Games & Tea we feel you should be able to play wherever you feel comfortable).

The judge then chooses one card out of their own hand to accompany this card.  It can be placed either before or after the first card, depending on what the judge finds most fitting.

These two cards now form the "setup", and all of the remaining players now submit a card to the judge to be played as the final frame of the comic, and the judge must select their favourite to gain honour and glory (and also a point).

So in fairly standard offensive game fare, the players above have gone for options of violence, anti-Semitism, and sex.  Once the judge has picked a favourite, that player gains a point, all players draw back up to 7 cards, and the next player around the table becomes the judge, repeating the process until one player scores 3 points and is declared the winner.

If a red-bordered card is drawn off the top of the deck then it becomes the final frame of the comic, and the players must instead create the two card setup from their hands.  And that's pretty much all there is to it!

There are a couple of variants included in the rulebook, such as a set of drinking game rules, or "The Neverending Story", wherein each turn just adds a single frame to an ongoing strip, leading to the creation of truly epic stories!

Of course Joking Hazard will be primarily compared to Cards Against Humanity (at least until the Joking Hazard clones start hitting Kickstarter), and we have to admit we found it to have some advantages over its spiritual predecessor, and some disadvantages.

The big advantage is that due to the storytelling nature of each round, the cards played have to make sense.  We've witnessed several games of CAH where points were won by players just because they played the most controversial white card, despite it not fitting with the black card whatsoever.  With Joking Hazard any non-relevant cards played tend to draw few laughs, meaning that even those most controversial cards have to wait for their golden moment!

The largest downside is ironically in the same vain.  We often found ourselves with setups which didn't work for any of our cards!  Sometimes this was just down to nothing being suitable, but a lot of the time it was down to having a card with the perfect response, just being delivered by the wrong character.

The other downside is that the game creates a bit less of a social atmosphere than CAH.  Joking Hazard is very visual by its nature, and quite a lot of the cards actually feature no dialogue, just actions or facial expressions.  This means that when the cards are laid out on the table (altar... whatever), it's usually quietly with all of the players leaning over to read them, and this is where you can really feel the difference between everyone being told a joke, and everyone reading the joke for themselves.  Now, in fairness, the rules do say the judge should read out the cards, but again those dialogue-free frames don't really work with reading out-loud, and some players don't feel comfortable with effectively acting out a scene.  At face value it might not seem like much of a difference over the CAH format, but it does feel a little bit odd when you start playing.  It's certainly not enough to ruin the game or make it an unpleasant experience by any means... just a little odd!

The Good Points

• Joking Hazard is extremely easy to learn, pretty much taking just seconds.
• If you're a Cyanide & Happiness fan, this will tickle your funny bone in all the right places.
• Capacity for up to 10 players, making an excellent party game.
• Requires a little more thought than CAH or most of its clones.

The Bad Points

• As with CAH, some people will find it offensive.
• Sometimes it can be tricky to play a fitting card for the setup.
• Can create an odd non-verbal atmosphere.

Recommended Number of Players: 4+ (The more the merrier!)

Again, as with most games of this format, 3 players is the minimum requirement for the game, but 4 players is the minimum to get a decent selection of cards going for the judge to choose from.  Of course you could always import the Rando Cardrissian rule from CAH, as we did!

Average Game Time: 20-40 minutes

If you're just playing to the three point win condition in the rulebook, a game of Joking Hazard will last about half an hour.  Of course, this is one of those games where you can set your own win condition or just say "to hell with it, let's keep playing!", so games can go on for as long as you want!

Replayability: High

There are a lot of cards available in the base set, creating a truly gargantuan number of possible strips.  With a set gaming group it should last for quite a while, but with a group of rotating members it could feasibly last for years.

The Future: Bright

At the moment Joking Hazard is fresh of Kickstarter, and the only expansion is the Blast From the Past 50 card pack, all set to a historical theme.  However, the fact that there's already an expansion ready to go means that there will almost certainly be more to follow, and the idea of them being thematic is very appealing.

Price: £25

Joking Hazard is now available to buy on Amazon for £25.  Whether it will remain an Amazon exclusive much like CAH or whether it will quickly find its way onto the shelves of hobby stores remains to be seen.  It is also currently available to buy online through the Cyanide & Happiness store for a price of $35, which includes the aforementioned Blast From the Past expansion.

OVERALL SCORE: 8/10

Tea consumed during this review: Tetley with milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew rating 7/10.

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Guild Ball - An Overall Sort-Of Review, Part 1: Team Lineups

Last year we mentioned a new tabletop system we were backing on Kickstarter, named Guild Ball, and a couple of weeks back we posted a brief article showing off the contents of our pledge after they'd arrived.  To summarise, we were extremely impressed with the components, and were left feeling excited about our impending first games.

Now in that article we mentioned that we wouldn't be reviewing the gameplay of Guild Ball, wanting to keep the focus of Games & Tea on out-the-box games, but frankly we were so enamoured with the gameplay that we couldn't resist putting together another article giving it our overall thoughts.

The reason we've never been interested in reviewing full tabletop systems over board/card games is that there are too many variables to go into - we like to talk about turn sequences, game components and so on, but when there's an infinite possibility of actions to choose from each turn, and the components are determined by the shopping habits and play style of each individual hobbyist, it can be a struggle to keep the article at a decent length!  As such this will be slightly different from our usual review format, and we hope you bare with us and still find it an enjoyable and educational read.

So for those who missed the Kickstarter, and missed our fanboy gushings over the game, and haven't seen it at the UK Games Expo (and so on and so on...), Guild Ball is a tabletop miniatures game which is half way between a sports game and a skirmish game.  It's set in the fictional Empire of the Free Cities, where the great guilds all play each other at the titular game - a medieval mob football style game.
The guilds are all based on areas of industry, and at the time of Season 1 there are 7 guilds to choose from; Butchers, Fishermen, Brewers, Masons (the Teamaster's personal favourites), Alchemists (the Tea Boy's personal favourites), Morticians and Engineers.  While not a guild, there is also the Union, which can be fielded as a team, but who's members are also free to play for a selection of the other guilds.

Each team consists of 6 players.  The captain and the mascot are both mandatory, and whilst we expect that later seasons will give us a selection, at this early stage in Guild Ball's life each guild only has one to choose from.  The remaining 4 places are where players get to customise their teams, and tweak them to match their preferred style of gameplay as they start to build up experience.
This is where Guild Ball stands out from the only other major sports-based game on the market right now - Dreadball.  It isn't simply a case of "These are your strikers, they kick the ball," and "These are your defenders, they stop your opponent from kicking the ball", each player has unique stats and abilities.  So instead you have "This is Harmony, she can do all of these wonderful things", and "This is Mist, he's basically Batman".  While the Union players are free agents and as such work as individuals, the guild-specific players all tend to have abilities to work off eachother.  In the Masons Guild, for example, the team starlet - Harmony - gets an armour bonus when close to their heavy hitter - Brick - as he's protective over her.  The team captain - Honour - gets an attack bonus when going after the same player as the mascot - Marbles.  Now this does mean that it will take a few games before any new players even begin to squeeze the maximum potential out of their lineup, but the trade off for this is that the team rosters have an incredible degree of flexibility, helping players to become invested in their chosen guild rather than having to go down the route of collecting multiple teams to get any kind of replay value from the game.

Just to give an example, here are two of the starting lineups for the Teamaster's Masons Guild.  The top team is pure Masons, and so there's a lot of synergy going on there.  In the bottom team, 3 of the players have been dropped out in favour of Masons-compatible Union players, so while the team no longer gels quite so well, it's now much quicker and favoured towards fast strikes.

At the point of Season 1, most guilds have 7 players on their own roster, with 4 compatible Union players to choose from as well.  So with the captain and mascot slots filled, this leaves 9 choices to fill the 4 remaining spaces, giving the players plenty of freedom to build a team to suit their style of play.
And speaking of style of play, how do they work?  Each player comes with a stat card, which tells players what they can do whilst at the same time allowing them to keep track of the damage done to that player...

The top bar of each card gives the player's stats, which come under 6 categories:

• MOV determines their base and maximum move distance, so for example 6"/8" means they can jog 6" or sprint/charge 8".  The higher this number, the quicker the player.
• TAC is the number of dice in their dice pool when attacking another player, so a higher TAC means a stronger attack.
• KICK is the size of their kicking dice pool and the maximum kick distance, so 3/8" would mean an 8" kick range and 3 dice to try and succeed in that kick.  The higher these numbers, the better chance of scoring goals and successful passes.
• DEF is the player's base defense, and is the target number an attacker must roll in order to hit the player.
• ARM is the player's armour, and dictates how much damage is deflected before getting through to the soft and squishy player underneath.
• INF determines how much influence the player generates, and how much they can be allocated.  So 2/4 means they'll generate 2 influence, but can be allocated up to 4.  We'll go into influence in detail in the second part of the review, but in a nutshell it's the currency used to perform almost any action.  Attacking, sprinting, passing, shooting - all of these require influence.

The Character Traits on the front of the card address any passive abilities the players possess, such as DEF boosts in the presence of other player, MOV bonuses, and so forth.  The bottom of the card shows the players damage boxes - once these have been depleted then the player is knocked out.

The rear of the card tells you their base size and melee range, the details of any activated abilities, and explains how they cause damage in combat.  Again, this will be further addressed in the next article.

Before we wrap this article up, we should also take a moment to talk about the quality of the miniatures, as this is a tabletop system and so the hobby element is a key part.

First of all, the sculpts themselves.  Long gone are the days of hunched-over Space Marines, shuffling awkwardly around the battlefields of the 41st Millennium.  These days, most miniature-based games do provide nicely detailed and dynamic models for hobbyists to enjoy.  Guild Ball is no exception, and in fact has left us salivating over some of the nicest models we've ever had the pleasure of owning.  The poses are incredibly dynamic for the best part, and even the ones which aren't don't feel disappointing.

In terms of casting quality and assembly, Guild Ball's quality shines through.  There's very little cleanup work required on the miniatures, with mercifully few mold lines and little to no flash on those we've built so far.  They also fit together very nicely, and don't generally require the fine tools of a NASA engineer and the steady hands of a neurosurgeon to assemble them correctly.  The only criticism we'd put forward is that the blisters include character artwork, but not an image of the built miniature, so we have on a couple of occasions found ourselves wondering where pieces go.  In fact one of our Union models - Snakeskin - came with a dagger sheath which ended up in the spare bits box, as it didn't have an obvious place to go and the model seemed complete without it!

So that's all we really have to say on the subject of the teams.  The model quality is astounding, the player lineup happily full of variety, and the synergy throughout the teams works to give Guild Ball an excellent learning curve.

Tune in for the second half of the review, where we'll talk about the gameplay, including how that influence works, gathering momentum, and the consequences of beating an otter into unconsciousness.

Batman Fluxx: A First Impressions Review/Preview

As most UK-based gamers will be well aware, this weekend is the 2015 UK Games Expo: an annual event held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel at Birmingham's NEC.  This year was the second year that we were in attendance, and whilst a general write-up will be forthcoming, there was something else we wanted to report on first and foremost.

A couple of weeks ago whilst pootling about on Twitter, we saw a retweet of an announcement for Batman Fluxx.  As fans of both of those words, this got pulses racing a little here at Games & Tea HQ.  It's scheduled for release in early August, so it was put right at the top of our shopping list and no more was thought of it.

What we didn't realise was that this weekend Looney Labs would have a table at the UK Games Expo, and that Batman Fluxx would be one of the games available for demo (along with a couple of other Fluxx prototypes, which we can't mention due to the copyright negotiations still ongoing).  So we had the opportunity to have a look through the deck, play a game with Fluxx creator Andrew Looney himself, and take a few photos along the way!  Seeing as we completely overlooked the fact that is was Games & Tea's 2nd birthday just a few days ago, this felt very much like a belated present!

The head Looney himself - Andrew Looney - proudly showing off one of the latest additions to the Fluxx family!

Now whilst we have done reviews of games in development before, this is the first time we've reviewed a game after just a single playthrough, and without a reference copy in front of us.  For this reason we've branded this as a first impressions review/preview, and will be putting up a full review once we've gotten our grubby mitts on our very own copy, and put it through its paces to determine its replay value etc.

As with our last few Fluxx reviews, we'll be dispensing with the basic gameplay mechanics, and just address the elements of Batman Fluxx which make it stand out from the rest of the family.  For those unfamiliar with Fluxx on the whole, take a quick look at our Monty Python Fluxx review, in which we explained the game's core mechanic.

So to start with the basics, Batman Fluxx is Fluxx with a Batman theme - yes, this may sound like we're stating the obvious, but the point we're getting at is that you'll find the familiar New Rule and Action cards in the deck which are fairly universal, eg. Draw 4, Trash a New Rule, Draw 2 and Use 'Em, etc etc.  And - as with all other Fluxxes - the backs of the cards are of the same universal design, meaning that they can be integrated into other decks.

Yes, this means you can have Pirate Batman Fluxx.

"Bring me the Jokarr!"

On the front of the cards, the first thing to notice is the illustration style.  Fluxx has always had a cartoony element to it, which both adds to its charm and serves to remind players that it's supposed to be a casual, fun game at its heart.  Whilst the recent Love Letter: Batman Edition featured illustrations from the New52 comics series, such serious imagery would look very much out of place in a Fluxx deck.  Instead, Batman Fluxx is filled with illustrations in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, which fits in very well with the general Fluxx feel.  Combined with the classy art-deco style sidebar and font, and Batman Fluxx is a game which is aesthetically very pleasing to play.

The Keepers in Batman Fluxx cover a range or characters, gadgets and locations.  As with most recent Fluxx incarnations, many of the Keepers have additional rules and abilities, just to keep the game moving at a more interesting pace.  Bruce Wayne, for example (above), must be discarded if Batman ever hits the table.  The Batmobile can be discarded to take an extra turn.  The Bank increases your draw by 2, and so on.  Other Keepers we remember off the top of our heads included Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, the Bat Signal, and Wayne Manor.

The Creepers (of which we sadly forgot to take any photos, due to being so caught up in the gameplay!) are where the game truly becomes interesting.  Each Creeper in Batman Fluxx is one of Gotham City's famous supervillains, and so there are a fair few of them in the deck.  The Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, The Penguin and The Riddler are all out in force, to name a few, so the chances are your favourite villain will be in there somewhere!  Now the most Creeper-heavy Fluxx edition to date is Zombie Fluxx, and it worked very well because many of the game's Goals required Creepers in order to achieve victory.  Batman Fluxx works in a similar way, with Crazy Love, for example, giving the win to the player with The Joker and Harley Quinn.  Now the interesting thing with Batman Fluxx - and the thing which makes its Creepers unique - is that if the active Goal doesn't include Creepers then no one can win if there are Creepers on the table.  This is a wonderful mechanic, first of all in that it gives players a Batman-style task of cleaning up the crime in Gotham City, and secondly in adding a whole new tactical element, as win conditions generally become harder.

That's basically all there is to say at this point about the new additions to the game!  In terms of how it all works, it does really capture the Batman theme while keeping things casual.  Things like the "no one can win" rule with the Creepers, Bruce Wayne's exodus from the table as soon as Batman appears, and the Bat-Signal's ability to 'summon' the dark knight from an opponent all fit together nicely.  The Goals we saw during our game were all nice little references to the cartoon/comics lore, such as Secretly His Daughter for having Commisioner Gordon and Batgirl (we are fans of Babs over here).  And of course the overall aesthetic is very pleasing, feeling very much like the cherry on top.

If we had to nit-pick (and as game reviewers, we do feel it's our duty), the win-condition difficulty increase as a result of the Creepers did feel like it would steer games of Batman Fluxx more towards longer play times than shorter ones.  Fluxx has always been renowned for games lasting anywhere from 90 seconds to 90 minutes, but the Creeper rule does seem to skew things more towards the latter, which may put off a few players who would normally consider Fluxx to be a filler game.

One thing we will be interested to see, however, is whether it can convert a few non-Fluxx fans.  It's always been a Marmite game in the gaming community, and we come heavily down on the 'love it' side of the line.  With Batman being so wildly popular, we can genuinely picture a few folks being swayed over onto our side, where we will be ready to greet them with hugs, cake and "I told you so's".

With a normal review this is where we'd do a summary breaking down the pros and cons, the price, average play time and so on, but seeing as this only a first impressions review we'll dispense with that until the full review in a couple of months time.  We will, however, quite happily give it a preliminary score based on our overall feelings from the day...

PRELIMINARY SCORE: 9/10

Love Letter: Batman Edition Review

Good day to you, ladies and gentlegamers! As we've mentioned in the past, we thoroughly enjoy every review we bring to our readers, but we get an extra bit of joy from reviewing a new release - purely because of the fact that it allows us to feel as though we're on the ball for once!  So, brace yourselves for probably the shortest gameplay walkthrough we've ever brought you, as we take a look at Love Letter: Batman Edition by Seiji Kanai, from Alderac Enterainment.

Love Letter itself is a very popular and well-established casual card game, and has been a staple of many gamers' collections for quite some time.  Even with comic book heroes very much ascendant in recent years, this is probably one of the most surprising games to receive a superhero paint job!

To date we haven't actually played the original Love Letter so will be unable to draw direct comparisons, but we're chalking this up as an advantage as it leaves us able to dissect the Batman Edition on its own merits, and give it an unbiased score.

Love Letter: Batman Edition is a competitive card game for 2-4 players, in which each player takes on the role of the Dark Knight, and has to outshine the other Batmonei (we established this as the plural of "Batman" on a Hobbynomicon podcast!) in recapturing the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum.

At the beginning of the review we mentioned that this would probably be our shortest gameplay explanation to date, and this is entirely down to the fact that Love Letter: Batman Edition is a mind-bogglingly simple game to play - to such an extent that we were left wondering why we never picked up a copy of the original version.  Before you click away though, we like to think our Cards Against Humanity review proved that simple mechanics do not a bad game make, and similarly our Arkham Horror review went to show that complex mechanics don't necessarily pave the road to a good gaming experience.  So stick with us as we go through Love Letter: Batman Edition and see how it plays out...

Contents-wise, Love Letter: Batman Edition is a very light game.  There are 16 Game Cards, each printed with lavish artwork depicting either Batman, Robin, or one of the many major supervillains from the Batman universe (for those DC fans interested, with the exception of The Joker they're all New 52-based).  Each of these cards contains a nice, plain-English explanation of how that card functions, which we'll go through shortly, and a number in the top-left corner which dictates the card's value (the higher, the better).

As an extra little assist for players, there are also four card lists included in the box, explaining the value of each character, the card's abilities, as well as a reminder of how many of each card are in the deck (there may be five Batmonei, but there is only one Mr J!).

"I'm Batman!" "No, I'm Batman!" "I'm Batman, and so's my wife!"

This just leaves a bag of small wooden Batman tokens, which are used to keep track of the scores across each round, and the rulebook.

And that's it!  Not a great deal to look at (although certainly very pretty), but let's put them all together and see what happens...

The aim of Love Letter: Batman Edition is to gain 7 Batman tokens before any of the other players, through rounding up the highest-valued Arkham escapees.

To start the game the Game Cards are shuffled and then one card is randomly discarded face-down, not to be used throughout the rest of the game.  Lover Letter: Batman Edition is a game of bluffing and deduction, so having one unknown card missing from the deck adds an extra challenge to the latter.

Each player draws a single card to create their starting hand, and then the round begins.  During each players (very quick) turn, they draw one card off the top of the deck, and then have to discard one from their hand,  Some of the cards have positive effects, some have negative effects, either of which can be used to try and misdirect the other players about the remaining card.  Some can be used to eliminate other players from the round, whilst some eliminate the player who discarded it, and one way to win the Batman token for the round is to be the last Batman standing.

If the deck is depleted then the round finishes, and the player with the highest value card in their hand wins the Batman token, or - in the event of a tie - the player with the highest value of discarded cards wins.

Confused?  That's fair, it's a far simpler game in practice than on paper!

For example...

Going back to Batman himself from the earlier photo, his discard ability allows a player to guess at the card in another player's hand.  At the beginning of the game this could be an outright guess, but as more cards are discarded deduction can start to creep in.  Of course players do have to rely on complete honesty from one-another, but frankly anyone who can't be trusted through a casual game has no place in any gaming group, in our opinion!  Batman is the lowest value card in the deck, so keeping him in hand serves very little purpose in the long-run, so he will usually get discarded/activated a lot.

Harley Quinn is a high-value escapee, with a value of 7 (second highest only to her puddin' - The Joker - himself), so keeping her in hand is usually going to be a good play.  However, her ability forces her to be discarded if Two-Face or Poison Ivy are drawn.  In the example above the player has just drawn Bane, who allows players to basically play a quick game of Top Trumps!  Now whilst the obvious play would be to discard Bane and hope Harley's 7 is enough to knock out an opponent, a sneakier play might be to discard Harley, leading the other players to believe either Two-Face or Ivy is in your hand.  Throwing the other players off the scent for a turn like this can be a devastating move, especially with such high card turnover and fast deck-depletion.

Each character in Love Letter: Batman Edition serves a different purpose, and learning how and when to use them most effectively is the key to victory... that, and a good poker face.  Catwoman, for example, allows a player to look at an opponent's hand.  Two-Face allows a player to trade hands with an opponent altogether.  Robin allows a player to ignore the effects of other cards for a full turn.  And The Joker (a personal favourite) puts the player who discarded him out of the round - you are playing as Batman, after all, so allowing Gotham's most notorious criminal to slip through your grasp is grounds for immediate dismissal.

As mentioned above (although now with a bit of context!) being the only non-eliminated player wins a Batman point, or after the deck is depleted, having the highest-value inmate in your clutches snags you that little wooden bat-symbol.  At the end of each round the deck is shuffled and the process is repeated until one player has 7 of those coveted points.

So that's Love Letter: Batman Edition.  With a learning time of roughly 90 seconds (no kidding, that's actually how long it took us to get a game going!) it's one of the quickest and easiest games to pick up on the market, but with some light-hearted theatricality and deception, it's still incredibly fun to play.

The physical components of the game are manufactured to a high standard, and the artwork - as mentioned earlier - is very nice to look at.  Being a quick game to play, it makes an excellent warm-up, wind-down, or intermission game to any games night, and the turns rotate so quickly that it feels more like a party game, as you always seem to be taking an action of some sort.  It's simplicity and short play-time make it an excellent game for younger gamers with shorter attention spans as well, so if you have a young Bat-fan in the family and you want to draw them into your gaming hobby, this might be a good place to start!

Criticisms of the game come very few and far between, however we've always prided ourselves on our impartiality, and so will work to find any negative points we can.  First of all it's not so great with just 2 players.  Even with the mystery card removed at the beginning of the game, the deductive side of Love Letter: Batman Edition falls a little short when you only have one opponent to outfox.  The only other criticism (and ye gods we're having to scrape the nitpicking barrel here!) is that there will inevitably be people getting upset over the choice of villains in the deck.  With a limited-sized deck and so many Arkham alumni to choose from, some people will end up having their favourites missed out.  (On a personal note, the inclusion of The Joker, Harley Quinn and Catwoman was enough to keep me happy, anyone else is purely a bonus!)

The Good Points

• Quick to play.
• Even quicker to learn!
• An excellent entry-level game for younger gamers, or those new to the specialist game scene.
• Nicely tactical, in spite of the simple mechanics.
• Very well presented, with nice artwork throughout.
• "I'M BATMAN!"

The Bad Points

• Limited appeal with only 2 players.
• No Riddler or Penguin, to name but two, so Nigma and Cobblepot fans will be disappointed.
• Very difficult to resist the urge to growl "I'M BATMAN!" with the Batman card in hand.  Anyone?  Oh, maybe that's just me then.

Recommended Number of Players: 3-4

As mentioned, Love Letter: Batman Edition struggles a little with 2 players, but it comes to life with 3 and excels with 4.

Average Game Time: 20 minutes

Each round of Love Letter: Batman Edition only lasts a couple of minutes, but with a target of 7 Batman points a full 4 player game has the potential to cap at 25 rounds!  However, this is unlikely to happen, and 20 minutes is a good average game time, which can even be shortened if needed by reducing the number of required points.

Replay Value: High

With its short play-time, this is a good game for filling gaps, whether a lunch break, or a pause between bigger games on a game night.  As a result, it's likely to be a game which is played little and often, and so will be very easy to keep coming back to.

The Future: Darkest just before the dawn...

Okay we have to admit that comment wasn't really relevant, but we just thought it'd look really good there!  Love Letter: Batman Edition is a standalone game, so really doesn't have anywhere further to go.

Price: £14

The RRP on Love Letter: Batman Edition is £14, and there are two versions available.  We've shown you the boxed version (as we like having pretty boxed games filling our shelves), but there is also a bagged version, which doesn't come with the box, but includes a Batman-embroidered canvas bag for ease of transportation.  Both retail for the same price, and with both Love Letter and Batman being very popular, we imagine it will be readily available on the shelves of most gaming stores before long!

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10

 Tea consumed during this review: Typhoo, milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew Rating: 7.5/10

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