Everything that sucks about...
Smash Up
To read up on the concept of and motivation behind this review series, check up on the first review I posted under the „Everything that sucks about...“-banner.
What is it about?
„Smash Up“ is a so called „shufflebuilding“ card game, a game where you take two separate decks of cards and shuffle them together to get a playing deck you'll use during the game. It plays two to four players, takes a half to one hour and incorporates mechanics like hand management and area control.
Everything that sucks about it:
- „Smash Up“ is really easy to explain. Play a minion, play an action, score bases if necessary, draw to cards, bam, done. So everyone picks two decks, shuffles them, a starting player is determined, everyone draws their starting hand of five cards... Aaaaand the game comes to a screeching halt, because everyone starts to read all of their cards. There's no way the game could have been translated to some kind of symbology, I get that, but there's just so much reading involved in what should be a quick and intuitive game. Not just at the beginning, but every time anyone draws a new card.
- Talking about quick, „Smash Up“ isn't. At least not the first few times you'll play it. Games will drag. An hour for four players is realistic, but it can very well exceed this. That might not seem that long, but it is a bit long for what it is.
- Also, four players is complicated. As is three. As is two. „Smash Up“ is one of those games that doesn't seem to have a sweet spot. With two players, there's not that much going on and the game can devolve into a rather boring „I go, you go“. With four, the downtime can become excruciating. Not because it's too long, but because it's too long for what it is and because other people's turns aren't that interesting (more on that in a second). Three players finds a comfortable niche between time-commitment and interaction, BUT the scoring-mechanism is pretty flawed with three players. The fact that almost all bases (except for one, I think) award victory points to every player that is present, it is very hard to impede a player who has almost reached the point limit. Also due to this fact, a few factions, like the pirates, are a lot stronger in a three player game.
- Other people's turns aren't interesting? Yeah, true. 884
If there ever was one game that begged for some cards that could be played out of sequence, some kind of counterspell-mechanism, this would be it. Alas, nothing like that is happening in „Smash Up“. There are very few cards whose effects bite on other people's turns. That's positive in one aspect: If you had something planned for your current turn, it will work out. The drawback is that during each other player's turn, you'll just sit there and watch powerlessly while everything you worked towards is wiped out.
- The gamesituation can become very unclear very fast. And if you want to counter this, you'll need lots, lots of table space. During a game of „Smash Up“ there will be constant counting and recounting of totalized strength at any single base, confusion about which pile of minions belongs to which player, is situated at which base, is modified by which action cards, etc. pp. Combine this with special abilities on almost every card that should be taken into account and... yeah. That's all pretty cool and stuff. But it's also confusing as hell.
- There's luck. If you just keep drawing weak minions or no minions at all, you won't do that well. Also, this is not one of those games where you'll constantly cycle through your deck. I can't remember ever having seen someone reshuffle their deck because it was empty, so if your strongest cards are at the bottom, tough luck.
- And finally, there's a huge missed opportunity here considering theme. The idea is cool, the factions are neat and in theory, everything should work nice. The huge problem is, once you've mashed up your two factions and start playing... What exactly are you doing? The whole game extends to playing minions at bases until they are filled up enough to be scored (there might be an allusion to that one <PERSON>/Mr. T-joke in here, I'm not really sure about it...). Wow. Really? Everything my awesome, assault-cannon-carrying King Rex does is strengthen my grasp on Tortuga by seven points? Why can't I shoot anyone? Why can't i trample them? Why can't I eat them? 237