You Can'T Win Them All

Thursday, 23 May 2019

You Can'T Win Them All

It's surprisingly rare that we buy a game that turns out to be a dud. We're usually pretty good at spotting games that will and won't appeal to us, and I generally read reviews and where possible try games out before purchasing. We've also gotten fairly lucky with impulse buys that turned out to be great games, but that isn't always the case.

I really like 7 Wonders but I've always held off on adding a copy to our collection because of the relatively large player count required to make the game interesting. 7 Wonders: Duel seemed like a perfect solution: a two-player version of the game, and in fairness, it does do a good job of approximating the full game's aesthetic and core mechanics.

The problem is, the whole point of 7 Wonders is that it is a card drafting game, where you start with a hand of cards, keep one, and pass the rest along. There are two basic approaches to drafting: either take the cards you need, or take the cards you don't want your opponents to have. 7 Wonders: Duels approximates the draft using a tableau of cards with rows that overlap one another. Players draft cards from the tableau, with the catch being that you can't draft a card if there's another card on top of it.

This leads to a lot of "take that" style play where you uncover a card you need only to have your opponent draft it, and unlike in the full multiplayer 7 Wonders, you know who is taking your cards. It makes the game just a little bit too frustrating and adversarial, which is too bad because the engine-building part of the game is interesting, and the illustration and graphic design are top-notch.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) Although I do like the game design, I think the game play is just a little bit too adversarial for a two player game that doesn't actually focus on combat.

What we'll play instead: Race for the Galaxy is a similar tableau-building card game that works great for two players and doesn't seem quite as confrontational.