Shaun

Having to get an early morning coach the other morning, I grabbed a couple of wallet games to occupy me on the journey. One of which was “Numbsters” the solo card game designed by Milan Zivkovic and published by Button Shy Games. This a game that very much fulfils the small footprint need of the lunchtime solo gamer, especially as most of the game play actually takes place in your hand.

Numbsters is game I have never actually beaten and sadly I didn’t on this occasion either, though in one game I did get very close! As with most Button Shy games, Numbsters consists of 18 cards. 17 numbers and a ‘mouth’ card.

Each ‘round’ the mouth card needs to eat one of the other cards. If it then ends up as the top card in your hand, you lose. If it manages to eat all the cards but one, and that one is on top of the mouth, then you win.

After shuffling the 17 numbers, you draw six then add the mouth to those 6 and shuffle again. This is your hand, you can’t reorder the cards in it. Each go, you draw a new number card and add it to the top of your hand.

You may then either reposition a card or swap two of them before the mouth eats. The primary eating rule is that if two sequential numbers flank the Mouth card, the smaller number eats the larger one. For example, in the sequence 7-8-9, the 7 would eat the 9. Additionally, each Numbster has a special eating rule that can be used instead.

It sounds easy but Numbsters is quite challenging, cards rarely fall into an edible sequence so balancing when to move, or use a card’s power creates a challenging puzzle; one I am yet to solve so thankfully games only last a few minutes.

Numbsters is an excellent lunchtime solo game. Fulfilling all the requirements of my small office gaming space. it’s portable so easy to carry, it’s short enough to play during a break, it has a small footprint, and yet remains challenging. It’s also the only game I can play that provides the punchline to the joke – Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9.

Eila and Something Shiny is a game I have wanted to play since it first came out. I am quite sure as I wouldn’t say narrative-driven games are must plays for me. Maybe it was seeing the artwork as people shared their plays. Maybe it was because it seemed so hard to get hold of. Whatever the reason after a couple of years of trying to find a copy it had become something of a grail game to me. It therefore, filled me with both glee and amazement when it suddenly turned up in my FLGS.

Though easy enough to set up, Eila is not a lunchtime game, it’s a big box and the game board isn’t small. It’s a game divided into chapters with each chapter being played out using sets of cards. Looking at the cards, there is no denying that Eila and Something Shiny is a beautifully illustrated game, with the lead character, Eila, being a cute rabbit. As you work through the chapter Eila encounters different challenges requiring it to take actions from shedding resources through to battling creatures. Much has been written elsewhere about the deeper meaning of the story which I will avoid repeating here.

The main gameplay mechanic is turning over card reading the text and then choosing an action which often determines the next card very much in the style of choose you own adventure. The aim being to complete the chapter aim within a set number of days (a day end when the deck of cards reaches it end). In addition to this main mechanic, variety is introduced in chapters with unique mechanics such as traversing a maze or taking on extra challenges. Throughout the game there are also resources that need to gained and managed, with each day end usually needing a resource being played so as not to lose a life. If you meet the chapter goal in the allotted time you ‘win’ the chapter and get to read the chapter outcome in a small comic. Each chapter has a variety of possible endings dependent on the decisions you made within the chapter.

There is much in this game that makes it a unique and engaging experience. So why did it disappoint me so much? Was it a case of it not meeting my grail built up hype?

Having got to the end, I had no desire to go back and find out what the other endings of chapters were , basically I didn’t want to go back and do it all again. Reflecting on why I think it boils down to simply too much rinse and repeat. Granted many games rely on this but I think the problem, for me, with Eila it feels a bit like rote learning. When you take a wrong path in a chapter it’s easy to note what went wrong and correct yourself next time: “Ah if I do this then I’ll get x which I need for y” after a couple of chapters the novelty wore off and it all started to feel a bit predictable.

So in the end while I can see why many fall for the charming aesthetic and heartfelt narrative, I didn’t find then journey quite as enchanting.