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BANG!
by Emiliano Sciarra
art Alessandro Pierangelini
publish daVinci/Mayfair
Players: 4-7
Duration: 30 mins.
PACE: Quick.
COMPLEXITY: Low. Only a matter of learning which cards do what.
LUCK: High. The cards you get can limit or dictate your play, but fits gameplay.
TENSION: Low. A "take that" card game with deduction, but not especially tense.
VICIOUS: High. Since you are trying to eliminate half the players from the table AND you do not know who is who, this game is quite vicious, but light and not tense.
SOCIAL: High. Just a fun, funny game with some role bluffing.
VISUALS: Good. The cards are clean and well designed and have a good look to them.
THEME: High. For a card game that claims to be a spaghetti Western game, it succeeds. Bullets flying, lit sticks of dynamite being tossed from player to player...
GAMER APPEAL: Maybe. Lots of luck, very social, some people are better at deducing who their own teammates are than others. Can be a bit arbitrary.
NON-GAMER APPEAL: Yes. If you get in the spaghetti Western frame of mind, you should enjoy this. There are Beer cards, and the whole game is about shooting each other, but it is very tongue in cheek. Very popular so far.
2 PLAYERS: Yes, with variant, but a very stripped down version of the game. Not recommended.
REPLAY: Good. Good game to play with non-gamer friends who aren't ultra-serious. Partnerships and special abilities make this game change a bit from playing to playing.
RATING: 8/10
I've played 10+ times.
Good with 4-7 players.
Best with 6-7 players. |
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Quick summary | Not only did the theme of this game grab me (there aren't a lot of good German games with a Western theme) but also the gameplay grabbed me. BANG! has action cards, partnerships, hidden roles, special abilities for each player, different goals for each partnership -- and even more that make this game special. Players start out with one character (eg. 'Black Jack' or 'Jourdonnais') which is made known publicly, and that character has a special ability no one else has (eg. 'Trade 2 cards to regain a life point' or 'May draw a card everytime he is hit'.) So part of your strategy will be to take advantage of your character's ability to the fullest. Then players are dealt a 'role' and this is kept secret -- and herein the enjoyment of the game. You see, depending on how many players play, the roles are different, but however they are distributed, they are teamed together -- sort of. For example, in a 5 player game, there is 1 Sheriff, 1 Deputy, 1 Renegade, and 2 Outlaws. The roles are be dealt out and kept secret, except for the Sheriff, who declares himself. Now in order to win, the Sheriff and the Deputy need to kill both Outlaws; the Outlaws must kill the Sheriff; the Renegade must kill everyone, but loses if Sheriff dies before the Outlaws do. 'Well,' you say, 'that's not too hard to follow.' Ah yes, but remember that no one knows who anyone else is. And at the beginning of the game you can only 'shoot' the player on your right and the player on your left. So the Sheriff may start out by taking a swipe at the person on his left -- who may well be his Deputy! So the first important goal for each player is to try and figure out who is on his team -- and more importantly, who is not -- so he can start attacking his opponents! But even that is not as straightforward as it appears, because anyone who kills an Outlaw gets a 3 card reward -- even if it is the other Outlaw who makes the kill!
Some light deduction, quick cardplay, and a good atmosphere make BANG! a very fun game to have in your collection. |
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