Players: 2-4 (but best with four, played as partners)
Playing Time: 30 minutes

The Components

Desperados is a card game that's packaged in a tin.

There are 60 cards, all printed on sturdy, linen-textured cardstock. Each one has slightly cartoonish art by Charlie Binkele and Pixel Productions. There are a variety of different cards and they vary in their complexity. The chests, boxes, and pails which denote individual points are pretty simple, but there's increased detail on the various mines, while the twelve desperados are entirely delightful.

To increase the usability of the cards, each has icons and/or numbers at the top corners which tell you what the card does--and are easy to see when the cards are fanned.

The tin has spaces for two stacks of cards. I love card game boxes with lids, because they're more usable and attractive than simpler tuck boxes. A tin just adds durability to that list of attributes (and given the reasonable price of this game, it didn't increase the cost too much).

Overall, Desperados has cute, well-produced cards and the overall package is nicely done: I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

Desperados is a 2-4 player game which plays best with two teams of partners. The object is to mine copper, silver, and gold.

Setup: Each player is dealt a hand of 6 cards.

Gameplay: On his turn a player can take one of three actions: draw a card; pass a card; or play a card.

Draw a Card. You take a card from the draw pile and add it to your hand.

Pass a Card. You pass a card to your partner.

Play a Card. You play a card from your hand to the play area of any player. There are four different kinds of card that can be played, as noted below.

Playing a Card: You can open a mine, work a mine, close a mine, or fight over a mine.

Open a Mine. You play a copper, silver, or gold mine.

Work a Mine. You play a copper, silver, or gold card upon a mine of the same sort.

Close a Mine. You play a closed mine card atop an open mine.

Fight over a Mine. You play a desperado to an opponent's mine. Each other player may then play a desperado on their turn, or else take a normal action. On your next turn you add up the values of the opposing sets of desperados (which are each valued 1-12) and whichever partnership has the highest sum of desperados wins the mine, taking it into their play area.

Alternatively, someone can close a mine in the middle of the fight. This ends the fight without ownership changing, but the last card played to the mine is lost.

Ending a Round: A round ends after the last card is drawn. Each partnership then gets points from their closed mines. Each copper is worth 1 point, each silver 2, and each gold 3. There are double copper, silver, and gold cards which are worth twice the normal values--unless they are played as the first card in a mine in which case everything in the mine is worth double.

Ending the Game: The game ends after a team scores 100 points.

Relationships to Other Games

Desperados was one of Reiner Knizia's earliest games, and was originally published as Digging. It's a relatively rare partnership card game in the German field.

The Game Design

I generally found Desperados to be a fair game. The interplay of the various sorts of cards is interesting. Further, you have to decide when to take chances--such as whether it's safe to open a potentially lucrative mine when you don't really have the desperados to protect it.

I quite like the card-passing action, as it gives you an opportunity to signal your partner--by suggesting your strength in desperados or in certain metals, for example.

However, Desperados is also a game that's somewhat dependent upon a random draw and which has limited depth.

Nonetheless, I think it works well as a 30-minute filler, and I've given it a high "3" out of "5" for Substance, slightly above average.

Conclusion

Desperados is a fun little filler card game which offers some relatively rare partnership play in that category. It doesn't have a huge amount of depth, but it doesn't necessarily need it for its timeframe.

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.