Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20-40 minutes
The Components
Musketeers contains 76 cards in a small tin.
The box is very nice (and well-worth mentioning) because it holds the deck in two stacks that can each easily be lifted out of the box. I have too many card games where the cards go all over or are hard to get back into the box, so I'm very pleased whenever a publisher makes a card box with a lift-off top--even more when it's high quality like this one.
The cards are all medium-heavy weight, printed with a light gloss.
The main cards are the 55 Musketeer cards, each of which show an attractive drawing of one or more musketeers. There's a number at the top (0-10) and a number of iconic swords at the bottom (0-4), which together show the value of the cards.
Besides this, there are also 15 guard cards, 3 prison cards, and 3 gem cards, all of which also feature attractive artwork.
In general, Musketeers has good-quality cards in a great-quality box with good art. The game is quite simple to play, so that's all that's required. It's thus earned a "4" out of "5" for Style: very good.
The Gameplay
The object of Musketeers is to earn the most pay, primarily by collecting gems and not going to prison.
Setup: Each player is dealt 15 musketeer cards. He'll have to choose three of those cards to lay face-down in front of them as his "pay". He'll earn their points at the end of the game if he does well. This is the first decision of the game: do you put high cards toward your pay or save them for card play?
The set of 15 guard cards is then culled down to 12 (with certain cards taken out depending on the number of players. Finally, 3 prison cards and 3 gem cards are placed on the table.
Card Play: A round of play begins with a guard card being revealed. This shows a number from 4-40.
Then each player selects one of their remaining musketeer cards, valued from 0-10, and puts it face-down in front of them. All musketeer cards are revealed simultaneously.
If the total sum of musketeer cards equals or beats the guard card, the players win. Whoever played the highest value card (with more swords on the cards breaking ties) gets to take a gem and places it on one of his pay cards.
If the total sum of musketeer cards is less than value of the guard card, the players lose. Whoever played the lowest value card (with fewer swords on the cards breaking ties) has to take a prison and places it on one of his pay cards.
(Later on, when gems and prisons run out, you instead take one from another player.)
Ending the Game: The game ends when all 12 cards have been played. Each player then reveals his pay cards. A card is worth 0 if it has a prison on it or doubled in value if it has a gem. The player with the highest sum of pay cards wins.
If you prefer a longer game, you can count up points and play to 100.
Relationships to Other Games
Musketeers is a simple press-your-luck blind-bidding game. It's one of two tin-boxed games that Gryphon has produced, with the other being Desperados. They're similarly light filler/family games.
The Game Design
As may be obvious from the synopsis, Musketeers is a pretty random game. Your entire gameplay can succeed or fail based upon what initial cards you're dealt. Likewise, the interactions between yourself and the other players all blindly placing cards down at the same time can be quite chaotic.
I expected all that going in, based on my reading of the rules. What I didn't expect was that it would be pretty exciting too, as you flip the cards, then race your eyes around the table to see who played higher, who player lower, and whether you actually defeated the guards or not. The result was quite fun and made the game as a filler, even with the high chaos factor.
There's also some real strategy, despite the randomness. You have to figure out whether to arrange your pay cards to all be winners or to have one or two that you can afford to put in jail. Then, if you keep bad cards, you have to decide when to ditch then and if you have good cards, you have to figure out when they're likely to win. Randomness can upset this work, but this work can offset randomness too.
Now you could try and make the game even more strategic by playing multiple rounds, but personally I don't think that's the game's strong point. I plan to continue playing it as a one-hand game, good for the start or end of the evening.
I've given Musketeers a high "3" out of "5" for Substance. It's above average.
Conclusion
Musketeers is an enjoyable filler game of blind bidding. Though it's pretty chaotic and there's a luck factor too, Musketeer is also exciting and fun. It's a good game for 15-20 minutes at the start or end of the evening--or for families or more casual players.
