played for you

The Vampire, the Elf & the Cthulhu

Cooperative novel writing

Players are writers who want to complete a novel together, but are rivalling to have their own plot, their own settings and their own characters in the novel. At the start, you draw a target card. A turn comprises two phases – marking of two cards in the Ideas zone or in your own display, open or face-down, and then resolving of the marked actions. Novel cards come in six color-coded categories – main character, secondary character, location, event, item and encounter - and carry markings for genre, for instance Adventure or Love Story and either Vampire, Elf of Cthulhu type. With Ink Drops you can steal cards and steal them back, in a kind of open auction mechanism. Option for phase II are Compare, Research, Insert, Reactivate and Retrieve Ink drops, as stated by the respective symbol in the top left-hand corner. For each action, you must determine the strength of the card: You count how often the type and the genre markers are present in total on cards in your display and multiply the two numbers. The action Insert is used to introduce a card into the novel, you need to have at least four colors in your own display; you name the card, determine its strength and, if an opponent is countering, you compare card strengths. The winner adds his card to the Novel. When four cards have been placed in the novel, you score for color matches on objective and novel cards and ink trop tokens in the novel.

This game offers a fascinating contrast between theme-heavy title and abstract components, played with a mix of auction and resources management for ink and used cards. Unusual and interesting!

Players: 2-4

Age: 14+

Time: 40+

Designer: Luca Ricci

Artist: Thalia Brückner

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Giochix 2016

Web: www.giochix.it

Genre: Card management

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: en it

In-game text: no

Comments:

Abstract game contrary to topic

Not a narrative game

Auction mechanism as unusual as the mechanism for activating and reactivating cards

Compares to:

Games using bidding for card management

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0