Villainous (Wonder Forge)

Wonder Forge is a game company known for making great, branded family games. From Richard Scarry to Dr. Seuss to different Disney IP's such as Frozen and The Lion Guard, there is a great variety of games that your children will love! Recently, Wonder Forge released another Disney branded game called Villainous, and with this game, they made a giant splash in the family-friendly strategy level gaming world. Villainous is a game for 2-6 players, ages 10+. It takes just under an hour to play and retails for $40. In the game, you take on the role of an iconic Disney villain (Captain Hook, Jafar, Maleficent Prince John, Queen of Hearts, or Ursula) and attempt to rewrite those "Happily Ever After" endings to something more your liking. For example, Captain Hook would finally get his revenge on the boy who gave him the hook - Peter Pan! Let's learn how to play.

Setup
1. Have each player choose a Villain. Then give them their corresponding Board, Pawn, Villain Deck, Fate Deck, and Villain Guide. This is now your Realm.
2. Open your Board, and place your Pawn on the left-most location of the four locations.
3. Check to see if the right-most location has a lock-symbol in the corner, and if it does, place a Lock Token on it.
4. Shuffle your Villain Deck, and place it to the left of your board. Then, draw four cards, keeping them secret from the other Villains.
5. Shuffle your Fate Deck, and place it to the right of your board.
6. Fill the Cauldron with Power Tokens.
7. Finally, pick a starting player and distribute Power Tokens. Player One receives 0. Player Two receives 1. Players Three and Four each receive 2. Players Five and Six each receive 3.

Game Play - On your turn, you will do the following three actions:
1. Move your Villain - Move to a different location on your Board that does not have a Lock Token on it.
2. Perform Actions - Each location on your board has different actions that can be performed. You may perform any visible actions in any order you wish. (Note: All actions are optional) The various actions are:
a. Gain Power - Take Power Tokens from the Cauldron equal to the number on the symbol
b. Play a Card - Play one Card from your hand, paying the cost in Power Tokens.
c. Activate - Choose an Item or Ally in your Realm, and pay the Activation cost to perform it's ability.
d. Fate - Choose an opponent and reveal two Cards from the top of their Fate Deck. Play one and discard the other face-up.
e. Move an Item or Ally - Move one Item or one Ally to an adjacent, non-locked location.
f. Move a Hero - Move one Hero to an adjacent, non-locked location.
g. Vanquish - Defeat one Hero at any location, using Allies at that same location. Once vanquished, both the Hero and Allies are discarded to their appropriate decks.
h. Discard Cards - Discard any number of cards in your hand, you do not wish to keep.
3. Draw Cards - After performing all the Actions you can, draw back up to four Villain Cards in your hand.

Play will pass to the next person and continue going until a Villain completes their Objective on their turn. Evil has won!

Review
Where do I start with the review portion of this post, except WOW! A lot of thought and love went into this game. Let's start with the components. It would have been easy to do cardboard standees or trendy to do miniatures, but they made gorgeous chunky pawns in shapes representative of your evil. Those pieces alone give the game a good table presence. The box is a wicked green and black that lets you know that this isn't your ordinary Disney game of good winning. On a slightly negative note, I will ask Wonder Forge to start shrink-wrapping their games and stop using those horrible stickers that leave a residue upon removal.

The art in this game is custom artwork of famous characters, items, and scenes from your favorite Disney film. Every card you draw will take you back to your childhood and watching these iconic films...or in my case last Saturday with the wife and kid. :)

With all the eye candy this game offers, where it really shines is in the game play. Though each character essentially plays the same, there are different objectives to complete in order to win. Each player has two decks of cards that are unique from any other player's deck. This adds a little bit of asymmetry to the game and makes you learn not only the character you are playing, but the other characters as well. How you move around in your realm and play your Villain cards will only get you so far in this game. You also need to be able to control your Fate and steer the Fate of others as well.

The theme comes through very well in this game. Yes, what it boils down to is your gathering power to play certain cards to win the game, but it feels like so much more. It feels like you are actually trying to rewrite the script to the movie. I think that is what I like best about this game. It would have been so easy (and lazy) to make this a game about "misunderstood" villains who aren't actually evil. No, this game you are evil and you are trying to succeed in your plot.

It may feel weird to play that role, but it is actually a blast if you let yourself relax and have fun with it. With the ability to play six players, and there being an equal number of male and female characters, this is a game that is great for anyone and everyone. I would go so far as to say that this is in my Top 2 family games of the year and belongs on every family game shelf! I will play this game anytime and anywhere, and I hope that there is a future expansion which unlocks some more villains like Cruella de Vil, Scar, Gaston, Shere Khan, etc.

Suspicion (Wonder Forge)

It's tough to be a jewel thief. Not only do you have to be good with your hands, you also have to be quick-witted. Imagine your delight when you were invited to a party at this luxurious mansion. Imagine all the jewels, you'll be able to steal. However, upon arrival, you notice familiar faces. These aren't people you've robbed from before, but fellow jewel thieves. You must not only identify these rivals, but you also steal more gems than them. This is Suspicion. Suspicion is a game for 2-6 players, ages 10+. It retails for $20 at Target.

Setup
1. Lay out the game board.
2. Randomly place one Guest Mover in each of the outer ten rooms on the game board.
3. Make three stacks of gem tiles, one for each type of gem. (Note: The size of the stack depends on the number of players.)
4. Shuffle the Invitation Cards and deal one face-down to each player. This is their secret identity.
5. Shuffle the Action Cards and deal two face-down to each player.
6. Give each player a Deduction Sheet, pencil, and a Yes card and No card.

Game Play - Each turn consists of a Movement Phase and an Action Phase.
1. Movement - Roll the dice to determine which two guests you will move into an adjacent room. (Note: The ? is wild and you can pick who to move.)
2. Action - Choose one of the two Action Cards in your hand and play it face-up. Carry out both actions on the card (in any order). When done, discard the card and draw one card to replace it.
3. Play then moves to the next player.

Game End
The game ends when one of the gem stacks is empty. Each player then makes their best guess on the identities of all the other players. Players will then reveal their Invitation Card for scoring purposes.

Scoring
1. Score seven points for each other player you guess correctly.
2. Score six points for each set of three types of gems.
3. Score one point for every remaining gem.

Review
Suspicion is a nice introductory game of deduction. It is fun to play with kids and other family members as well. The length of the play and fun nature of rolling dice and moving characters makes this a game that you can play a couple of times in a row and not grow tired of its simple mechanics. The nature of the dice rolls gives you ever-moving characters, I really liked the chunky and colorful wooden dice and player pawns. They could have easily done generic pawns or cardboard and plastic standees, but they spent the extra money and made this a treat for your eyes and your hands. I can't wait until my son is just a little bit bigger, so I can play this with him.

This game was provided to me for free by Wonder Forge in exchange for an honest review.

Really Bad Art (Wonder Forge)

In sticking with my Wonder Forge reviews this week, today I am looking at Really Bad Art. Really Bad Art is a Win, Lose, or Draw like game for 3-6 players, ages 12. It retails for $20 at Target.

Setup
1. Lay out the game board.
2. Choose a mover and take the seven guessing tokens that match your mover color.
3. Take a pencil and a few sheets of paper from the drawing pad.
4. Place all the movers on the starting space.
5. Place the timer and card box near the game board.

Game Play
1. Give every player a card face-down, but don't look at the card yet.
2. One player selects purple or orange, and that will be the clue on each player's card that they must draw.
3. Press the button on the timer. Wait for three beeps and a ding, then look at your card and start drawing. (Note: The timer only last six seconds.)
4. The player who picked the color collects all the cards (keeping them face-down) and draws one decoy card. Shuffle them together and turn them face up, putting one under each letter on the game board. Then, put all the drawings in the middle of the table.
5. Every player places their guessing tokens face-down on the drawings (including their own).
6. One by one each player turns over the tokens on their drawing to show the correct letter.

Scoring
1. Players get two points for putting the correct token on a drawing (not counting their own).
2. The artist of each drawing gets one point for every player (not counting himself) who correctly identified his drawing.
3. Play ends at the end of a round when someone reaches the Finish space. If multiple players reach the Finish space in the same round, the one who made it furthest past the Finish space is the winner.

Review
This game is a mix of Win, Lose, or Draw and Dixit. You only have six seconds, so you need to be quick to try and draw a coherent picture so that people will be able to identify your picture correctly. This will benefit not only them, but you as well. I like the party aspect of this game, because it is the easiest genre of games to teach and the one that new gamers or your extended family or most willing to play. However, I think the time given should have been a little bit longer, perhaps 10-15 seconds. Overall, this is a game my wife loved more than I did. I'm not a big fan of drawing or drawing games, but this one at least seems to level the playing field with the time limit. I would play this if asked, but it is not one that I would seek out.


This game was provided to me for free by Wonder Forge in exchange for an honest review.

Stick Stack (Wonder Forge)

When I was a child, I remember playing Pick up Sticks a lot. It was a cheap, easy, and quick game, so it never overstayed its welcome. Recently Wonder Forge released a game that looks somewhat similar, but plays vastly different. It is called Stick Stack. Stick Stack is a game for 2+ players, ages 8+, and retails for $17 at Target.

Setup
1. Assemble the tower by putting the post on the base and putting the cup on the post. Place the tower in the middle of the table.
2. Place all the sticks in the draw bag, so they cannot be seen.

Game Play
1. Draw one random stick from the bag or from in front of you if you have sticks from previous turns.
2. Place the stick on the tower so that all parts of the stick are touching only matching colors on the tower or other sticks. (Note: Your hand may not touch the tower or other sticks. You also may not move another stick intentionally with the stick you are placing.)
3. During your turn, if any sticks fall off the tower, you place those sticks in front of you. (Note: These count as points against you at the end of the round, if you can't get rid of them.)
4. Your turn ends when the next player draws a stick.
5. The round ends 1. When all the sticks fall off the tower or the tower itself falls over, or 2. A player can't draw a stick from the bag and has no sticks in front of them to play.

Scoring
1. Score one point for each stick in front of you at the end of the round.
2. Score five points if you caused all the sticks to fall off the tower or the tower to topple.
3. If at least one player's score is 11 points or more at the end of the round, the game is over. Lowest score wins.

Review
Stick Stack is a light dexterity game that can accommodate as many or as few of players as you have. I would best describe it as a cross between Pick up Sticks and Jenga. The components are of good, sturdy quality, and I like that the sticks are not all uniform in color distribution. There are some solid colors, some 50-50 of two colors, and some that are more skewed to 70-30 or so. The game is simple to learn and fun to play, especially with younger kids who are just learning games. It is also a good game to just bring out with your game group to kick off the night or as a game in-between two longer games to help refresh the senses and the mind. It's such a simple design, but very well-executed and I can see this staying in my collection for years to come.

This game was provided to me for free by Wonder Forge in exchange for an honest review.