Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 60-75 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

This game was apparently developed by Sophisticated Games in Britain, mostly known for the fact that they have the Lord of the Rings strategy license.

The Components

Shakespeare comes with a huge pile of components, including:

• 1 gameboard 2 dice
• 5 player markers
• 5 acclaim markers
• cardboard tiles:
  • 40 scripts
  • 48 actors
  • 40 props
  • 10 patrons
  • 110 coins
• cards:
  • 72 fate cards
  • 70 speech cards
  • 130 question cards
• 1 rulebook

Gameboard:The board is a four-panel, heavy, linen textured board that abstractly displays15 locations in Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England. The board is overall very appealing, printed in vivid colors, with well-drawn illustrations for each of the 15 locations, all laid over a sepia-toned map of London.

I do have one minor issue with the board. Almost every space on the board allows some special action; unfortunately, only the theatres have their special info labelled. Having a simple icon on each of the other buildings to show its purpose could have increased the usability of the game.

Along the bottom of the board is a fairly plain grid of acclaim points, labelled 1-99 (no "0" or "100", mysteriously).

Dice: Two medium sized wooden dice, each printed with an "f" (for fate) and a 2-6. The characters are indented and printed in black, so they'll hold up to wear.

I wish there had been a few more dice as you sometimes have to roll as many as five at a time and often roll three.

Player Markers: Each player gets a wooden pawn for use on the map and a wooden cube for use on the acclaim chart. They're of good quality, and painted in the five player colors (green, blue, orange, yellow, purple).

Cardboard Tiles: There are a huge number of cardboard tiles included with this game. Every one of these is printed on sturdy, linen-textured cardboard in full-color. The various tiles include: large, square script tiles; medium, square actor tiles; circular prop tiles; hexagonal patron tiles; and circular coins, in three different sizes and denominations (1, 5, 10). Each tile has also been well-color coded so it's easy to tell everything apart at a glance (the actors are red for example, and the scripts slate blue).

The scripts and the actors really show the full potential of this game because they're rich in the theme of the game. The scripts, for example, each represent one of Shakespeare's plays, with its name listed, its value, and also info on how many props, actors, and patrons you need to carry it off. For example you could draw one of his lesser plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is a value 6 (and pretty easy to carry off, with the need for just 1 prop and 2 actors); or you could draw Othello, value 12 (with a need for 4 props, 4 actors, and 2 patrons). Likewise, each of the actor tiles includes the name of a specific Elizabethan actor. I was lucky enough to have good 'ole Bill himself in my troupe for my last game.

Sadly, the props and the patrons don't have this same specificity, which was a disappointment, especially for the props. It would have been kind of neat to have Queen Elizabeth herself as one of my patrons, and some fun humor could have been added to the game if the props had each been unique ("I perform Rome & Juliet, which requires three props, with this knife, this poison, and this secret twin sister.").

In any case, the tiles that did include specificity were cool, and all of the tiles which included in-game information were easy to use.

Cards: The cards come in two sizes, the regular sized Speech and Question cards and the half-sized Fate cards. They're printed on medium-sturdy cardstock with rounded corners. Each card is full of text, all printed black and white. The speech cards each have a speech to read; the fate cards each list a a special event; and the question cards each list three questions each on the front and back (with answers bolded).

The cards are all perfectly easy to use, and have some nice period borders to keep them from being entirely plain.

Rulebook: A 12-page full-color rulebook that's easy to follow and very easy to use for reference. Half of the rules consist of a summary of Shakespeare's plays, drawn from Everyman's Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations.

Box & Tray: The box is a sturdy square box. There's an elaborate tray with lots of different slots, though it's slightly mysterious, as it looks like it was designed for another game. With some figuring you can work out a way to package everything inside fairly conveniently.

Overall the game has high-quality components and great theming. You also get a ton of pieces for your money. However, many of the components are also a bit plain, and some opportunities were missed for usability and theming improvements. On the whole, the Style of the game is still above average: "4" out of "5".

The Gameplay

The object of Shakespeare is to gain acclaim by putting on Shakespeare's great works.

Setup: Each player begins the game with: 1 script and 40 shillings. They start their markers at the Globe Theatre.

In addition, a ton of other pieces (patrons, props, actors, scripts, and coins) must be laid out. The rules suggest putting them around the board; I suggest putting them on the board at the appropriate places, so that you can see the actors are found at inns, for examples. It's a little cluttered but makes the game that much more obvious to play.

Order of Play: Each turn a player has three things to do:

1. Roll Movement & Accept Fate
2. Move
3. Take an Action

Roll Movement & Accept Fate: A player rolls the two movement dice, which are lettered "f" on one side, then numbered "2-6" on the others. One or more "f" results requires the player to take a "fate" card. These are colorful cards which have various effects, some good, some bad. For example, one card says you spy on a rival's rehearsal in disguise and gain a turn, while another says that Marlowe disputes the authorship of one of your plays, and you must lose your most valuable script tile. These are all very thematic, if random, and add a lot to the color of the game.

There's also a special rule: if you rolled doubles you can take a second turn (but only one additional turn) after your first turn ends. (Except in the case of doubled-"f"s, which end your turn.)

Move: You can now move up to the sum of the numbers shown on the dice, ending your movement in a building or on a space with another player if you wish.

Unless you're in a theatre, you must move each turn; you can't end up back on the same building at the end of your turn.

Take an Action: Finally, you get to take an action. If you're in a space with another player you trade; brawl; or flirt. If you're in a space with a building, you can take an action appropriate for the building. Otherwise, you can busk.

Player Actions: You have three options if you end in a space with another player: trading, brawling, or flirting.

Trading. You can exchange money, scripts, actors, or props with the other player.

Brawling. You and your opponent each roll two dice. If one of you rolls high enough (8+) and higher than your opponent you can take 10 shillings or a tile from your opponent. Honor is served.

Flirting. You give your opponent a card or tile; they give you a card or tile. How sweet.

Location Events: Each of the different locations on the board offers a specific action (or in the case of the theatres two). The board includes a number of theatres, a number of inns, two great houses, and one each of the other locations.

Theatre Events. The first thing you can do in a theatre is display your knowledge. You request an easy, medium, or difficult trivia question, and you earn 10, 15, or 20 shillings if you answer it correctly.

The second thing you can do is put on a play. To do this you must have a script and all the appropriate things to fulfill that script (props, actors, and sometimes patrons). You must also pay a fee to the theatre. Then, you roll a number of dice for the theatre (from 2-5, depending on how expensive the theatre was), add in the value of your script, the value of your actors, and another die for each required patron. You sum up the total, and that's your acclaim for the play, which you add to your score.

Afterward, you discard props and patrons which both get used up, and place the script next to the theatre where you performed. You keep your actors.

Inn Events. You can purchase one (random) actor tile at an inn for 5 shillings. Actors have varied values and so it's luck how well you do.

Shakespeare's Rooms. You request a play from Shakespeare, and a new script tile is flipped up. You can choose to pay the cost (6-12 shillings) or leave the script for the next player.

Leadenhall Market. You can buy up to 8 props at the Market for 5 shillings each.

Great House. You get a patron by visiting a Great House. Then, you try and answer an Easy question, and if you succeed you either get a second patron (to a maximum of two at any time) or else 10 shillings.

Gallows Hill. A location that allows no action.

St. Paul's Cathedral. A location that gives you an extra turn if you move through it.

Clink. A location where you may be forced to move to by a fate card. Not good.

Busking: If you don't end your turn on a space with a location or another player you can choose to busk. You get 5 shillings, but must draw a fate card.

Winning the Game: The game goes for a set amount of time (with 60 or 75 minutes suggested based on numbers of players), and then everyone gets a last turn. In the end the player with the most acclaim (who has put on the most & best plays with the best actors) wins.

Relationships to Other Games

Shakespeare: the Bard Game is a trivia game; however, it expands the core genre by adding some simple resource management elements that do make a real difference in gameplay.

Much to my surprise, Shakespeare: The Bard Game (2004) is one of the very few Shakespearian games out there. personally, I'd think it would be a very rich genre for use, but the only other games I'm aware of are the small press Hamlet (2002) by Interactivities Ink, an older and sillier King Hamlet (1978), which apparently involves spelling out the name of the game to win, Playing Shakespeare (1990), a game of quotes and mimes, and a trick-taking game called Romeo and Julia (2000).

I'm sure there are a couple of others, but almost nothing mass market, and no particularly well known games.

The Game Design

Shakespeare is a fair trivia game. Here's what I liked:

Superb Theming: The whole game felt entirely Shakespearian. The trivia questions are great, but so are all the actors, the fate cards, the board, and just about everything else in the box.

Good Attempts to Balance Trivia: It was nice to see some serious attempts to balance the game against players who know a lot of trivia. Being able to choose a level of trivia, or alternatively just act out a scene, or alternatively busk, is a big plus. I think the Shakespearian scholars still have a real advantage, but these mechanisms helped prevent frustration.

Some Strategy: It was nice to have some strategy beyond the simple answering of trivia questions. The simple resource allocation systems related to putting on plays aren't that big of a deal, but you do sometimes have to make tough decisions.

Here's what I didn't like:

Much of the Board is Useless: Unfortunately the way the game is setup you always what to put on your play at the best theatre possible, as you're going to lose scant resources of props and scripts no matter what. This means that the top half of the board, which has the lower value theatres as well as some repetitive inns and the useless Gallows Hill, is pretty much unused in the game. (This could have been corrected in many different ways, including: in some way encouraging good plays to be put on at good theatres, and vice versa; or limiting how often plays can be put on at individual theatres.)

Board Topography Uninteresting: Beyond that, no attempt was made to make the board topography interesting. In the game you pretty much decided where you were going to go, and went in that direction if you could make it there or not. A more interesting board topography would have had more variations between path lengths so that players might go to a "less desirable" space if they hadn't rolled high enough.

Trivia Balancing Uneven: The balance of trivia questions as easy, medium, and hard is at least a little uneven. I've seen relatively easy questions in the hard section and very hard questions in the easy section. The fact that most questions just had three answers, and some just had two (true/false) also upset the balance a bit because it made guessing too easy: in particularly, getting a "hard" question that was true/false also seemed a bit unfair.

Beyond that all, I'll say that the game is pretty random. You can do a lot better or worse in the game depending on: what scripts you draw (including a few non-scripts in the pile); what fate you draw; what rolls you make; and what actors you draw. I thinkt he level of randomness fits well with the party atmosphere of the game, but it still should be noted.

Overall, as a trivia game, I found the gameplay of Shakespeare fairly average, but I did like the expansions to the typical trivia game formula, including: the trivia alternatives; the simple resource management; and the well integrated theming. On whole I give Shakespeare a high "3" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Shakespeare: The Bard Game is a relatively average trivia game, with some fun additional systems that do add something to the game. If you're looking for another party game, this isn't a bad choice.

However, where this release really shines is as a Shakespeare-themed game. The theming is great, well-integrated, and colorful. Fans of Shakespeare and his plays will probably really enjoy the game, despite the average gameplay. (My wife definitely does.)