Players: 2-6
Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
The Components
Igor manages to stuff a couple of different components into a small tuck box, including:
- 108 game cards
- 1 Igor die
- 9 completed tokens
- 1 rulebook
Game Cards: The 108 game cards are each square, printed on uncoated medium-weight card stock. They're full color on the front and gray scale on the back. They together form one deck, with three distinct types of cards: blueprints, parts, and bwahahas.
The 21 blueprints depict the various inventions you can create in the game. They're very nicely laid out, with cartoony full-color artwork. Each also lists an invention name, a power description, a number of parts required, and victory points earned (though the latter two numbers are small enough that they're hard to read from across even a small table). Overall, these cards look cool.
The 60 parts cards, conversely, are very plain. They list a cute part name in the middle of the card (e.g., "brain in a jar", "user muffler", or "two hundred paperclips"). On between 1 and 4 sides of the card you'll find connectors: yellow screws, red wingnuts, blue cords, or green gears. The cards are simple enough to use once they hit the table, though I found it relatively hard to plan ahead by attempting to match up 5 or 6 cards in my hand (and in my head), which made the game lose some of its strategic play.
The 27 bwahaha cards each describe some special out-of-turn action--typically foiling the hijinks of some other player. They mainly consist of a long block of text, which makes them a bit hard to use because you have to read every card whenever it comes in your hand (and remember what they do, for that matter). Some simple use of icons to depict these card powers could have improved usability quite a bit.
Igor Die: This specially printed hard plastic die depicts six things Igor can do through more cartoony artwork. The artwork isn't entirely intuitive, and we were looking up some of the cartoons at least halfway into the game to remember what they did (and if we play again, I expect we'll have to lookup again for the start of the game), but beyond that they were cute and attractive.
Tokens: Essentially: small, white, plastic poker chips. They're placed on blueprints when the invention is completed.
Rulebook: A four-page rulesheet that's greatly folded to fit it into the box. It's printed black and white and has a couple of examples to help you along.It's fairly easy to follow and also is funny (as is the box text).
Overall, Igor's components are a mix of good and bad. The quality of all the components is fine and in particular the blueprints are great. On the other hand the parts are a bit boring, and not entirely easy to figure out in your head, while the bwahahas and the dice each have usability issues. On top of all of that is the fact that mad scientist theme of this game just shines through all the components and really encourages you to play it out. On sum, I'd gave Igor a Style rating of a high "3" out of "5"; it would have been a "4" if the Igor die and the bwahaha cards were easier to use during play.
The Gameplay
In Igor your goal is to create mad inventions faster than your fellow mad scientists.
Setup: Each player starts with a hand of seven cards. Five cards then form an initial discard pile ("junkyard"). The rest of the cards form the draw deck.
The Cards: The whole goal of Igor is to construct 10 or more Victory Points worth of machines. This is done by laying out blueprint cards, which name a device, list a special power, and list a number of parts required to complete the device; and then laying out parts cards by matching edges of each parts card to the edge of another parts card with the same connector. Once a sufficient number of parts are connected, the device is automatically created.
There are also bwahaha cards which allow special actions, usually out of turn; most of them protect against Igor's thefts.
Order of Play: Each player takes the following actions, in turn:
- Use Devices
- Command Igor
- Play or Draw
Use Machines: Some completed machines allow special actions, which are taken at the start of your turn.
Command Igor: The player rolls the Igor die, which has one of six results:
- Igor steals a part from a device under construction by a player of your choice. (Only "edge" parts may be stolen, not parts connected to two or more other parts.)
- Igor steals a random card from another player's hand.
- Igor steals the top card from the draw deck.
- Igor helps in lab, allowing you to play two parts as your action.
- Igor steals the top card of the junkyard.
- Igor actually listens to what you say; choose any one Igor result.
Play or Draw: A player may now take one of three actions: draw a card; play a blueprint; or play a part.
Draw a Card. One card is drawn from the draw pile. Igor is roundly cursed for not bringing back better parts.
Play a Blueprint. The player plays one of his blueprints from his hand to the table. If the player has an incomplete blueprint on the table, the new one replaces it. If the player has an incomplete device on the table, one part is removed from the device.
Play a Part. A part is played to a device by matching all edges of adjacent parts with the appropriate connectors.
More Fun with Machines: The following actions can occur at any time: complete a device; or scrap parts or blueprints.
Complete a Device. As soon as a device, associated with your blueprint, is complete, you discard all the parts and put a completed token on the device. It's now fully functioning which will give you a special power (e.g., "mind control goggles: lets you choose which card Igor steals from you"; "robot Igor: lets you roll the Igor die a second time if you don't like the first result"; "scroungbot: at the start of your turn, draw the top card"; etc.).
This usually happens when you play a part, but could also happen when you play a blueprint.
Scrap a Part of Blueprint. You can discard your blueprint or one or more of your parts at any time. (Why you'd want to discard a blueprint, I'm not entirely sure, but you might want to discard parts because they're making your device hard to add to, based on what you have in your hand.)
Winning the Game: Each device is worth a number of victory points, from 2-5 or so. Once you have 10 victory points of devices completed, you win.
Relationships to Other Games
Igor fits pretty solidly into the category of "beer & pretzels games". These games tend to be: American produced; very thematic; often funny; and built with socialization that centers on "screw your neighbor" or "take that!" gameplay.
I haven't reviewed too many beer & pretzels games because, in all honesty, I don't like them that much. They seem to be very popular at Steve Jackson games, who has released Chez Geek, Illuminati, Muchkin, and many others. I've previously reviewed the Portable Adventures by Third World Games, a recent beer & pretzels game which was designed quite well for the genre.
The Game Design
Igor's gameplay is generally simple and easy to understand. Individual turns go quickly. Here's the biggest strength of the game:
Strongly Thematic: The game really shines as a thematic piece. It has the feel of a mad scientist movie, and there's a lot of roleplaying possibility implicit in the game, which can make it more enjoyable for a heavily roleplaying (or intoxicated) group.
Unfortunately, the game also suffers from many of the problems common with beer & pretzels games:
High Random Factor: Like many b&p card games, it's pretty random. If you don't draw blueprints, you can be totally out of the game, and that's an entirely possible outcome.
Hard to Win: The "take that" nature of the game is sufficiently large that it can make it really hard to finish the game; in fact, like many b&p games, the ultimate winner is somewhat randomized as everyone tries to knock down the first couple of people who go for the ribbon.
Too Long: Finally, 10 points is just a few too many for the complexity of the game. As a result, it runs too long and the last couple of rounds feel a bit repetitive.
Overall, I feel like Igor suffers the same flaws as most of its genre. It's not nearly as bad as some, because it's a bit shorter, it's a bit less random, and there's a bit more self-determination that in some beer & pretzels games, but I'd still only give it a "3" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Igor is definitely a beer and pretzels game, and if you like that genre of game, this is a fair amount different from much of what's on that market. It also does a cool job of embodying the mad scientist genre, but beyond that I can only give the game a fairly average recommendation.
