The back of the box cracks me up right away. “Who’s the Private Dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Who is the man who would risk his neck for his brother man? Copyrights won’t let us say, but he may be in…” Now admittedly, if you’re on the far side of the politically correct fence, you’ll want to burn the owners of the game for it has a big nod of homage to all those old Blaxplotation films of the 70’s and if you’re sense of humor makes you ashamed of such entertainment, this game isn’t for you right off the bat.
For me, I quickly broke open the pack. I don’t know what it is with these dual deck holders that are designed for the owners to split their deck in half. I mean, was there a huge discount at Wall Mart or something and no one could use the standard deck where you just pick up the card and put them in the case? That’s petty bitching though.
The card game is meant for 2-6 players. The cards are broken up into six types. We have characters. These are the stars of your movie. Each one has a defensive strength rating. It’s what you use to… yes, defend yourself against attacks. Locations are where the movie takes place. Props are items, weapons, vehicles and other items like say, Pimp Hats, that you arm your characters with. Creatures are the things you use to take down other player’s characters. They have an attack strength. Special effects are things that make each game different and work as ‘action’ cards of a sort. For example, Wooden Performance “Look. Out. Be-hind. You. He. Has. Got. A. Gun. Man.” This card reduces one character’s DS to 0. Pretty slick no? The last type of card is the Roll the Credits card. This ends the game. The game also ends by running out of cards.
Before you start the game off, you have to get the title for the movie. You do this by taking the top 6 cards from the deck and looking at the words on the bottom of each card and creating a name out of those words. For a quick example, I’ve got a few words where I add a few pronouns and other assortments to get, “Gang Shaft of the Army Badass on the Urban Subway.” Come on, that’s an instant classic.
Players start off with six cards and their first round is an establishing round where they can’t attack other players. The cool thing is that if you don't have any characters in your hand, you show it to the other players and get a new hand. This lets you set up characters, props, locations and use a card’s abilities. For the old Roll the Credits card, you can only play that after at least 2 rounds have gone by. This prevents someone from putting down some characters and then going out of the game.
To score your movie, you add the total defensive strength of all the cards in your Movie to get your base score. If you have any card that has one of the words from the title of the movie, you get an extra five points per each word. The player with the highest total wins. One option is to play to a Final Score, so if you’re doing that, you add your new score to your previous score and continue until someone reaches the Final Score.
In many ways, the game plays like others of it’s type but with an attitude. For example, since players earn points for defensive strength, you want to take out their characters. Lets say it’s your turn and you’ve got the Killer Pimp with the quote, “You got to realize that not every black man is yo brutha.” Who has the traits Psycho Killer and Soul and may use ‘Weapons’ to boost AS and always succeeds in the location, :House of Ill Repute.” Now this card has an attack strength (AS) of 7. If I’m attacking Private Dick “Who’s the sex machine to all the chicks?” whose got a ds of 4 and that player I’m attacking doesn’t have anything else to add, I win.
Or do I? See, like other games, other players can add their two cents to things. Say Jeff doesn’t want me to take out the old Private Dick. He can play Solid, a special effects card, “Thanks, brother, I owe you one.”, that stops one character from being killed for any reason. However, let’s say that Tom wants me to get this guy out of the way so he plays the special effects Superimposed Background, “Get me wardrope. He can’t be wearing a blue jacket for a bluescreen effect.” This card stops one special effect card as it’s played.
There are some important things to keep in mind as you play. For example, while a character can have an unlimited number of props, he can only get one new prop per turn. Characters can give other characters you control their props but that still counts as a new prop.
Another important thing to remember is the traits of your character. For example, a Cool character is immune to all special effects cards that kill characters. Important to keep in mind as both the attacker and defender.
The instructions are on a half-sheet of paper folded but it’s easy to understand and the game includes an example card with a full explanation of what’s on that card. The cards themselves have the name of the game on one side and the name of the card on the other with words on the bottom, a quote, special notes, and a color coding system on the left hand side. Special effects for example, are yellow, characters are blue, creatures are red, etc…
The game is fast paced and should be a breeze to pick up for anyone whose played other card games where they have to compete against their fellow players like in Torches, Pitchforks and Monsters or Greed Quest.
Personally, I found the whole set amusing. The wording captures not only the Blaxplotation films of the era, but most films of that time frame. Take Unnecessary Love Scene. “Nothing get’s me hornier than having my whole family killed and being on the rum from the mob.” Yeah, like that stopped happening to films of that era eh? Anyone who saw the movie, the Return of the King, would appreciate Surprise Ending, “That was just the intermission; the movie’s only half over.”
Now something that’s interesting, but I can’t verify, is that the game mentions that you can play it with other cards from the publisher. That in and of itself is always a selling point as it allows you to get more use out of your deck. Sure, after hundreds of games, you may get tired of the same jokes in cards, but only in that context. Add aliens and kung fu fighting, and well, you’ve got the next great crossover.
Bell-Bottomed Badasses scores in the humor department and the quick to read, understand, and play departments. It’s got a pulse on the funny and is a quick way to introduce the joys of being not politically correct to all your friends and family.
