PLAYED FOR YOU

Shinobi Wat-Aah!

Power Struggles and Ninjas

The Empire of the Moon is threatened - shadow creatures pass through the rift and the followers of the Old Emperor try to grab power and appeal to Ninjas. Two game modes offer a simple, introductory game in the Grasshopper mode or three intense game rounds and a final confrontation in the Grand Master Mode.

In the Grasshopper mode you play turns, each consisting of three phases - draw cards from the pile - with or without penalty cards for the corruption stack; play cards to lay out a clan or expand a clan and thereby trigger and implement clan abilities and, finally, discard a card. If you lay out your fourth clan, you end the game - values of clans laid out are added and corruption points are deducted.

The Master Mode is basically played the same way, but a Big Boss and three Decoys come into play as secret cards and you place, at the end of a round, Ninjas in relation to the points scored in this round. Placement of those Ninjas happens in two rounds, first you place any number at one location at the first go and, in a second placement round, the remaining ones at this or another location, for additional cards, pints or information on the Big Boss for the final scoring. After three rounds positions of Ninjas on the board are scored in relation to the identity of the Big Boss.

A naughty, cute game which permanently forces you into difficult decisions - more cards, but corruption penalty? Expand the clan und use its power? Wait another round to place the forth clan to force the end of the round? Marvelous fun to play, with dense flair and basically simple rules. Shall we play again? And again another round?

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 45+

Designer: Théo Rivière

Artist: Naïade

Price: ca. 27 Euro

Publisher: Iello 2014

Web: www.iello.info

Genre: Set collecting

Users: With friends

Version: fr

Rules: en fr

In-game text: no

Comments:

Very nice components

Simple, good rules

Dense, intensive game with a high replay value

Compares to:

Set collecting games with multiple scoring criteria

Other editions:

English edition

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0