Dwarves In Trouble - Gen Con 2016 Pre-Sale Game Review

Two-Gun Pixie Presents:

LEGENDARY

GAMING

011 – Of Avarice

& Dwarves

“According to the Scrolls of the Mountain Seers the numbers couldn’t have been wrong!” Halfdan races ahead of his companions. His mind races even faster as he recalculates the numbers in his head.

Ivor tosses several gold coins at Olafur as he speeds past his old friend, “How kind-hearted I am!”

“It’s not mine!” Olafur pushes his uncle, Borje, in front of the incoming gold.

Old Borje catches the coins and panics, looking behind him as they run. He stops, stares ahead of the others and says, “What was that?!” The group of dwarves all stop short and Borje slips the caught coins, and a couple of extra, into Frej’s backpack.

Catching their breath Halfdan tells them he thinks he made a mistake. The others eye him suspiciously. Stroking his long, tri-braided black beard he takes a deep breath. He explains that the ancient Mountain Seers who kept track of the Dragon’s movements recorded every departure and every return. Ivor and the others snap at Halfdan that they already know that. Halfdan continues his thought saying that calculating the time of the dragon’s most recent departure they should still have at least four days until ol’ Ormr’Dolph’s return.

Halfdan agrees and releases and irksome sigh. He drops his head while pinching the bridge of his nose, “We forgot. We forgot that the ancient Mountain Seers considered any day with an eclipse two days, not one.” The others take a moment to let that information sink in. “And since this cycle has begun…”

Old Borje finishes Halfdan’s sentence, “There has been three eclipses!”

RAAAWWWRR!

Ormr’Dolph smells his stolen gold and roars throughout his cavernous lair!

All the Dwarves toss out a handful of stolen gold back onto the floor.

Ivor tells the others legends state that the dragon will only eat the thieves caught red handed and throws a handful of coins at Halfdan for dooming them all, “Don’t say I never give you anything!”

“Whip Round!” Olafur yells and all the dwarves throw the stolen gold at Halfdan but the dwarf is gone. From behind a large stalactite Halfdan hides, thinking to himself, “I’m not here! I’m not here! I’m not here!” He hears his so-called-friends run ahead into a new tunnel. Halfdan drops the rest of his ill-gotten coins and the dragon rushes by him like a dark red blur of smoke and scales. Halfdan truly is sorry for the miscalculation but his friends should be following him, not condemming him. In their fear they forgot that he mapped their way in here in the first place. He knows how to get out of here but his friends, all he knows is that those are a bunch of...

Dwarves in Trouble

This installment of Two-Gun Pixie Presents: Legendary Gaming

is part of our special the 2GP GEN CON 2016

Board Game Reviews series!

The review for this non-collectable card game

is based upon a high-end prototype and not the final product.

Designed By: Anna Owarzany

Artist: Rafal Szlapa

Publisher: Hex Games

Year Published: 2016

Suggested Player Age: 8+

Number of Players: 3 – 6

Average Play Time: 15 – 40 minutes

Game Mechanic: Hand Management, Take-That

Category: Card Game, Fantasy Game, Party Game

Shipping Weight: 1 pound

The Box

Let me tell you, for a prototype/beta version of the game the box is surprisingly sturdy. I’d even say sturdier than a few final-product boxes on my shelf now. I believe that this box will take the rigors of travel well and should keep the cards and coins safe for a long time to come.

I like the art on the cover. It tells me right up front that this should be a fun game.

Maybe because this is a prototype game but I must report that the information symbols and icons which have become product-standard these days; How Many Players, Suggested Player Age, and How Long A Game Runs are all missing from this box – They are also missing from the rules booklet. Yes, as I said, it may be because this is a beta version but I have received prototypes games before and have not seen this missing before.

BTW – I did find that information online. ;-D

The Components

1 Rule Book

110 gold coin tokes

89 cards

The rule book is a fast and straightforward to read. The symbols the game mechanics utilizes are easily understood after a couple of rounds of game play.

The art on the dual-sided coin tokens with dwarves on one side and dragons on the opposite side is very cool. Now, as I said, this is a high-end prototype and it shows in the tokens which are very thin. I have faith that when the final product is released these tokens will be of a hard, sturdy quality.

The cards. OK, again, keep in mind this is not the end product.

The cards are a bit thin and are already showing signs of wear. As mentioned above, concerning the gold coin tokens, I am sure that the final version of this game will supply better made playing cards so please keep that in mind.

The art on the cards is great, by the way. The pictures perfectly capture the flavor text of each card and show the players exactly what the card’s effect is with easy-to-understand symbols.

Set-Up

Each player gets 20 coins, all stolen earlier from the “evil” dragon.

Remaining coins are set aside and now referred to as the Dragon’s Treasure.

Remove the Dragon card from the card deck.

Shuffle the deck and place it face down in the center of the play area. This is the Draw Deck.

The Dragon card is placed on the bottom of the Draw Deck.

Each player takes 4 cards from the top of the draw deck to form their starting hand.

Now you’re ready to play!

Set up time literally takes minutes.

Game Play

The object of the game is to either get rid of all your gold or have the least gold when the Dragon Card is revealed.

The players decide which of them the “Most Generous” is. This may be a simple choice or you all can petition for the first player position by telling tales of exactly how generous you are. After the discussion or platforming the decision is made.

Starting with the first player each player, in turn, may play as many gold coin cards as they want.

Gold coin cards are cards that have a gold coin icon on the upper left corner.

These cards have various effects, each with an identifying symbol on the bottom and a similar short flavor text on the top such as; “How kind-hearted I am!” which shows a symbol on the bottom of a dwarf and an arrow to another dwarf with a number of coins (Such as 3x) above the arrow. This means the player who used this card may pass 3 coins to any other player.

Shield cards are the other type. These are response cards that can be played at any time another player plays a gold coin card on you. Again these cards have a short flavor text on op and an identifying symbol on the bottom such as; “It’s not mine!” which shows the symbol of an arrow with a coin above it pointing to one dwarf with another gold coin arrow pointing to a second dwarf. This means that the player who used this card may pass the gold coins they just received to any other player, even the player who just gave it to you.

Some cards will have you passing gold coins back-and-forth between each other and some may cause you to move coins between yourself and the Dragon’s Treasure.

It is not easy to get rid of your coins. So far the games the Twenty-Sided Warriors have played has yet to end with anyone winning that way.

The third card type that can be drawn is the Dragon Card.

The Last Card.

When this card is drawn all the players count their gold coins.

The player with the least gold coins escapes the notice of the wrathful dragon and runs away, winning the game.

Final Thoughts

Dwarves in Trouble is a hysterical "Take-That" game of back-stabbing friendships. This game takes the basic concept of the children's game of Hot Potato and gives it an amazing fantasy theme. As the players rush to give the stolen dragon treasure to each other the hilarity escalates. Both the art and the flavor text are funny, usually in an overly humble fashion but quite effective.

Myself and the Twenty-Sided Warriors are already planning many more games of Dwarves in Trouble. The playtime is under an hour making this a great, quick filler game. Since the rules are so simple and the symbols on the cards so easy to understand Dwarves in Trouble is a great gateway game - especially since it is basically Hot Potato, a game ever one knows. Because of the light-heartedness of this game, the fun art work, and the easy rules Dwarves in Trouble is a great family game. Dwarves in Trouble is also an easy game to travel with since the box is small and other than cards the only components are cardboard gold coin tokens.

One thing we here in the Nerd Wasteland did with this game was very slightly tweak one rule. According to the game, you are supposed to place the dragon card at the bottom of the draw deck after it’s been shuffled. We found this eventually lead to less a dramatic and exciting game as everyone was counting down to the dragon's appearance. What we eventually did after several games was to shuffle the dragon card into the bottom 5 cards of the draw deck to add the element of surprise. Let me tell you, this one minor tweak took an already fun and enjoyable game and jumped it up three more notches! With us not knowing exactly when the dragon would appear but knew it still lurked near the end of the draw deck really increased the level of excitement tremendously.

This is an excellent game that should give you, your family, and friends many hours of entertaining fun.

Personally, we here at Two-Gun Pixie CAN'T WAIT to see the first expansion fr this game!

Finger's crossed!