the luck factor. There is a lot of
skill involved in not only choosing the right cards for yourself but in choosing
which cards to deny your opponents. The
double edged strategies get you thinking and the accompanying decisions are hard
but fun. FAIRY TALE (Yuhodo, Inc., 2-5 players, ages 8 and up. about 30-60 minutes; about $25)
Fairy
Tale is a card game by Satoshi Nakamura that is for 2 to 5 players
said to last up to an hour but will typically take less than a half-hour to play.
The principal mechanic is identical to "Booster Draft" used in
many Magic: The Gathering tournaments and
explained later in our review.
For several years, the opening round of the US Nationals Magic
Championships has been booster draft, probably because the procedure minimizes
the luck factor. There is a lot of
skill involved in not only choosing the right cards for yourself but in choosing
which cards to deny your opponents. The
double edged strategies get you thinking and the accompanying decisions are hard
but fun.
The deck
consists of four suits, Shadow, Holy Empire, Dragonvale and Fairywood.
The "basic" deck is 80 cards and another 20 are added for the
expert rules. Our first game was
played with just the basic deck to get an idea of what the game was all about
and then we added the 20 expert cards, but most players would probably be able
to wade right in at the expert level.
The Shadow suit
has only 16 cards and tends to have effects to screw those who play cards in the
other suits. The other three suits
each have 28 cards and although the cards in the suits are unique, the powers
and effects of the cards are identical for each suit.
At the end of
the game, each player will have 12 cards played, hopefully all face up but
possibly, a few face down. Only the
face up cards will score. Most of
the cards have numbers in the upper left hand corner and your score for the game
will be the numbers on your face up cards plus your score for any
"conditional" cards you have. Many
of the conditional cards are marked with an asterisk.
For example, Children of the Dragon,
Homesteaders and Mischievous Fairy
score X number of points for each of that particular card a player has in play.
Thus, if you have 5 Homesteaders and 3 Children of the Dragon face up at
the end of the game, the Homesteaders will score 25 (5x5) and the Children of
the Dragon will score 9 (3x3). Other
conditional cards include those with a number on a Star background and you score
them only if a certain condition is met. For
instance, "Fairy Tale - Chapter 4" will score a very hefty 9 points
ONLY if you have the "Fairy Queen" in play face up at the end of the
game. Remember,
face down cards will not score!
So, how does
one accumulate cards? The answer is the
booster draft mechanic cited previously. The deck is shuffled and
each player is dealt five cards. The
players look at their cards, choose one to keep and pass the others to the left.
This process is repeated until each player receives 5 cards.
Then, one at a time are placed face down to the center of the table and
simultaneously turned up.
There are
certain effects that may occur when cards are placed face up, beginning in priority
with "Hunt." Certain
cards can "Hunt" others that are placed in the center.
If a card is successfully hunted when it is revealed, its owner must turn
it face down immediately.
The second
effect is "Open" and the effect typically turns one of your previously
placed face down cards to a face up state. This is good, since face up means you can score the card!
The third
effect is "Close" and typically turns one of your previously played
face up cards to a face down state. This
is bad, since face down means zero points!
So, why would you ever play a Close card?
Most of the Close cards have a 1 value and can open something that has a
great scoring number or a card you might need to score a valuable card
combination.
At the end of
the first draft and play round, each player will have three cards in front of
him. The other two are discarded
out of the game. The entire
procedure is then repeated four times. In
the first draft, cards are passed to the left, in the second draft they are
passed to the right, the third to the left again and the fourth and final time,
cards are passed to the right again.
Since you only
get to play 3 of every 5 cards that you draft, you can affect others and screw
with their plans since you have the possibility of taking two cards that you
know someone may need.
Other pluses
are very neat Japanese artwork as the accompanying pictures show and the cards have
iconic information that makes the game easier to play and understand, such as
how many of each particular card are in the deck. The sole drawback is that although each suit is colored, the
inset icons of the suits are black-and-white and that can be confusing.
Once you know the symbols, it's not a problem, but since the cards are
multi-color anyway, it would have made sense to make the icons colored as well.
If there is a
problem with the game, it might be in the novice player having some problems
remembering or identifying what certain cards do, what combinations are needed
to score, and scanning the table to see what can hurt or help the opponents.
The only remedy is to play again and again, until one is familiar with
the deck. There is a player aid that can be photocopied but even then,
the lack of color makes it an effort to play at a fast pace for the first few
games.
The game has quickly become a favorite for
our group since we can play as many as three games in an hour.
This, of course, gives each player a better chance of winning rather than
if we had played only once. All
told, Fairy Tale is a game that should stand the
test of time and provide many hours of fun.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Al Newman
