Mimmoths, constructs, heroes & villains (and one card that's both?), pests and clanks, and racing submarines. What more could one want?
"What's In the Box?"
Girl Genius comes in a double-wide box, which contains 108 regular cards, 4 "lose a turn" cards, the oddly-sized rules, and shrinkwrap. Everything but the rules and the shrinkwrap is done in cartoon-style full-color art, which suits the game perfectly. Think In Nomine art, not Werewolf art.
If you hate shrinkwrap, you'll be glad to know that it has those little plastic tear-strips that make it easy to open (you know, like on a pack of Magic, or a pack of cigarettes, or most other addictive pack substances). More people should use that.
The cards are standard playing-card size. The rules are 4.25" by 17".
"Pretty. Very pretty. Er.... does it work?"
Girl Genius is not a typical card game. It does not involve the use of carefully-timed effects to decimate your opponent's creatures and other possessions. It does not involve pre-game deck creation. Honestly, the whole thing is closer to a regenerating, hallucinogenic game of checkers (hey, when was the last time your checkers were full-color?).
The game starts off by arranging cards to create the board. These cards are upside-down. Everyone's turn includes flipping a card right-side-up, turning a card 180°, and checking to see if any of the cards "pop" out of the game and into your score pile. Most cards have a special effect when they pop, sometimes creating a massive card cascade in which many cards pop simultaneously. Then you replace the cards you popped, count your points, draw your hand back up to 5 cards, and pass play onto the next person.
A few examples of card special effects: popping all cards of one type, forcing you to skip a turn, drawing cards, spinning a card 180°, spinning every card on the board 90°, letting you draw from the board, and in the case of the wonderful Mimmoths, letting you take all the Mimmoths in everyone else's score pile and put them in yours.
The object of the game is to accumulate 100 points in your score pile. Alternatively, you may pull off one of the dirigible/submarine victory combos (there's a sentence you don't see very often).
"Can you repeat that?"
Of course, one of the most important factors in every game is replayability. If you can only have fun with it once, why bother paying the fifteen bucks for it?
Well, it is a strategy game. You could just throw down cards at random and have it be a coin-flip type of game... but you could do that with chess, too. If you can manage to put down a powerful card in a useful spot, and keep your opponent from capitalizing on it, you're doing well. Try to force your opponent to pop cards he or she doesn't want to pop, especially ones that make him or her skip a turn. The best chance you'll have for winning is when your opponent has to skip a turn, because then you get to set yourself up for a big payoff without having to worry about your opponent capitalizing on it.
In short, there is enough strategy involved to make the game worth playing many times, and not just with people who haven't played it before.
"In the final analysis, Professor...."
I may be biased, because I have a thing for beautiful girl geniuses. However, I did have a lot of fun playing this game. It will probably go on the shelf next to other good card games like Illuminati! and Chez Geek, to be played when we don't get enough people to run an RPG. For style, this definitely gets a 5. There are no misprints that I can see, and the art is uniformly good (if you like cartoonish stuff). For Substance, it also ranks a 5, having a good replay value and clear, unique rules.
There is, of course, a website for this game. It's at http://www.studiofoglio.com/merchandise/games/works.html, and there seem to be a few other things here as well. Here's hoping it sells well enough for an expansion pack.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)