Fairy Tale
Finally!
If you read my blog with any sort of regularity, you know I'm a bit of a complainer. Of late, it's been the rare new game that has really impressed me. So, when I find one that makes me lean back and smile, I have to tell you about it.
Fairy Tale is actually a Japanese game designed by Satoshi Nakamura. It first came to my attention about a year ago. A friend of mine sent me a note telling me he thought Fairy Tale was similar to one of my prototypes, Jet Set. As intriguing as that sounded, I didn't get a chance to play Fairy Tale until today. All I can say in response to my friend -- I wish.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jet Set is a fine game. And, apparently, so did the 2002 Hippodice committee that named it as a finalist for that year. For one thing, Jet Set is a smaller game than Fairy Tale. Where Fairy Tale could take up to twenty minutes, Jet Set would be stretching it to make it to the ten minute mark. Jet Set has a public draft, where Fairy Tale has a more closed draft system. Finally, Jet Set has a two-step scoring process -the first step uses a multiplier, and the second step is basic majority. Fairy Tale has much more to consider.
The drafting mechanism is probably the coolest part of the game. Each player starts with five cards. You take one and pass the rest of the cards along. You do this, one card at a time until you're left with the five cards you chose. Then everyone takes their hand of five cards and chooses three of them. These three are played one at a time, simultaneously. Some effects come into play here, mostly dealing with cards being flipped (not scored) or unflipped (scored!) After everyone has gone through this process four times, they will have 12 cards before them. The ones that are still face down are out of the game and not considered for scoring purposes. Everything else is scored. I won't go into the scoring aspect, but it's very simple and offers a decent amount of depth.
Alec and I played five two-player games in a row (he won 4 of them - grr!) and we both really enjoyed it. It seems to work very well as a two-player game, but I look forward to playing it with more. It's also pretty tight. With most of our scores in the 40s/50s, none of our games ever had more than an 8 point difference. Of course, in my only victory, I beat Alec by one point. After he beat me soundly several times in a row he had the AUDACITY to offer me pointers ("I think you concentrate too hard on the STAR cards, Dad.") How dare he question my beatable strategy!
I am officially impressed.
5.04 out of 6.3 stars
Fairy Tale is actually a Japanese game designed by Satoshi Nakamura. It first came to my attention about a year ago. A friend of mine sent me a note telling me he thought Fairy Tale was similar to one of my prototypes, Jet Set. As intriguing as that sounded, I didn't get a chance to play Fairy Tale until today. All I can say in response to my friend -- I wish.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jet Set is a fine game. And, apparently, so did the 2002 Hippodice committee that named it as a finalist for that year. For one thing, Jet Set is a smaller game than Fairy Tale. Where Fairy Tale could take up to twenty minutes, Jet Set would be stretching it to make it to the ten minute mark. Jet Set has a public draft, where Fairy Tale has a more closed draft system. Finally, Jet Set has a two-step scoring process -the first step uses a multiplier, and the second step is basic majority. Fairy Tale has much more to consider.
The drafting mechanism is probably the coolest part of the game. Each player starts with five cards. You take one and pass the rest of the cards along. You do this, one card at a time until you're left with the five cards you chose. Then everyone takes their hand of five cards and chooses three of them. These three are played one at a time, simultaneously. Some effects come into play here, mostly dealing with cards being flipped (not scored) or unflipped (scored!) After everyone has gone through this process four times, they will have 12 cards before them. The ones that are still face down are out of the game and not considered for scoring purposes. Everything else is scored. I won't go into the scoring aspect, but it's very simple and offers a decent amount of depth.
Alec and I played five two-player games in a row (he won 4 of them - grr!) and we both really enjoyed it. It seems to work very well as a two-player game, but I look forward to playing it with more. It's also pretty tight. With most of our scores in the 40s/50s, none of our games ever had more than an 8 point difference. Of course, in my only victory, I beat Alec by one point. After he beat me soundly several times in a row he had the AUDACITY to offer me pointers ("I think you concentrate too hard on the STAR cards, Dad.") How dare he question my beatable strategy!
I am officially impressed.
5.04 out of 6.3 stars
posted by Stephen @ 5:17 PM
0 comments
