Bacchus is a card game by Alex Zucchini, published by Gryphon Games.
Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 20-30 minutes
The Components
Bacchus comes with 125 cards total, divided into a few different categories.
The Cards: All of the cards are medium-weight, printed on linen-textured cardstock.
80 of the cards feature "nymphs", making up the majority of the cards available. These come in five different colors. Each features some tasteful girlie art against a colored background (blue, pink, green, orange, or yellow). Another 15 cards feature satyrs on them. Both of these card types feature attractive art, but are generally somewhat plain.
There is also a deck of 27 action cards which feature a selection of three numbers, such as "3", "1", "2". Though some work has been done to make these simple cards attractive, they remain pretty utilitarian.
Finally there are 3 Bacchanalia cards, labeled 1, 2, and 3, which feature a nice combination of the art of Bacchus (used on the cover) and the 5 nymphs.
Generally, the cards are all fair, and so I've given Bacchus a "3" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of Bacchus is to take the nymphs worth the most points and/or to increase their values.
Setup: Each player is dealt 1 nymph card, 3 action cards, and 3 (identical) satyr cards. 70 nymph cards are dealt to the table in 5 face-up rows of 14 each.
Card Play: At the start of his turn the active player may optionally move around some of the nymphs on the table: each nymph that is at the top of a "draw" column at the start of the turn, and which has a Bacchus head on it, may be moved to the top of another column.
Then the player may take one of three actions.
- Draw Action Cards
- Play a Satyr Card
- Play an Action Card
Draw Action Cards: The players takes two action cards from the face-down action card deck.
Play a Satyr Card: The player plays one of his three satyr cards. This allows him to either take the topmost two nymph cards of one "draw" column into his hard, or else take one (random) nymph card each from two different opponents.
Play an Action Card: The player plays an action card from his hand. Each card has three different numbers on it (e.g., "3-1-2" or "2-2-3" or "1-2-2"). The player selects one "draw" column and puts the first, second, and third nymph from that column under the appropriate Bacchanalia cards (which are numbered "1", "2", and "3"). The player may choose to take one of the nymphs into his hand rather than playing it to the appropriate Bacchanalia.
Ending the Game: The game ends when there is only one column of nymphs left. Now each player scores all the nymphs in his hand.
You calculate the value of each color of nymph by summing up points for all of that nymph in the Bacchanalia: 1 pt for a nymph in Bacchanalia #1, 2 pts for #2, and 3 pts for #3. Multiply that sum by the number of nymphs of that color in your hand. The player with the most points wins.
Relationships to Other Games
Though the theming is totally different, Bacchus is a stock game with a few twists. As is traditional for the genre, you always have the option to either increase the value of a stock (nymph) or take more of the stock (nymph).
The Game Design
Bacchus strikes me as an exceedingly chaotic game. It's almost impossible to keep track of the valuations because they get so large so quickly and thus taking cards into your hand largely becomes a crap shoot. This chaos is intensified by the satyr cards which allow you to steal from other players. Losing cards is potentially such a large detriment that the best strategy is really just to lay low, and hope you don't get involved in the satyr-generated wars.
One of our players suggested that the game was largely tactical, rather than strategic, and I think that's correct. But it's still a pretty chaotic sort of tactical, because of the difficulty of assessing what a good move really is (unless, I suppose you dramatically slow the game down by counting up the valuations every turn ... but even then, things will have changed so much by the end of the game, that it's likely not to matter).
If Bacchus were just a light and quick game, this would probably be fine. Unfortunately those chaotic mechanics are married to an annoying setup (as you layout 70 cards on the table) and a pretty complex scoring phase (as you multiply and add numbers that will total 100+ by the end; I needed a pen and paper to sum it out).
As is, I think that Bacchus just doesn't gel. It's a pity, because the mechanisms are interesting. I like the puzzle-like possibility of moving cards around before you peel a couple off the top, and similarly the puzzle of finding a triplet that'll increase your preferred nymphs while simultaneously getting a high-point nymph into your hand. Unfortunately, the chaos really undercuts these potentially interesting mechanisms and thus your moves feel like they don't matter in the long run.
I've given Bacchus a "2" out of "5" for Substance as a result.
Conclusion
Bacchus has some interesting ideas, but it ultimately ends up too chaotic to allow for very nuanced play and it's got a setup and a scoring that are a bit too burdensome to really support the light play that's implicit in the game.
Review Summary