Review of Bedpans + Broomsticks

Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 1 hour+

Summary of the Components

Bedpans + Broomsticks comes with huge piles of cardboard, including cardboard room-tiles, cardboard figures, and other cardboard chits. There's also a full-color rulebook.

Quality: The cardboard is all thick and linen-textured. 5 out of 5.

Beauty: The room-tiles, which are the core of the game, are nicely colorful and good looking. The rest of the components feature plain graphic design with fair to good art. 3+ out of 5.

Usability: Unfortunately, the game has some real troubles with usability, many of them focusing on the rulebook. The formatting, with its heavy focus on special rules, just doesn't do a good job of teaching the game (though part of the problem may be the extensive special rules!)

The various "stuff" that players can acquire during the game were also a constant problem. Though there's extensive text on the chits that players acquire, it was often just enough information to give a misleading impression of how it worked; the extended rules in the rulebook sometimes gave a very different explanation of how stuff works. There were also problems with the subtle coloring of stuff, which identified who could use what; an icon or something else much more obvious would have worked much better.

These issues, unfortunately, caused frequent problems in play. However, they'd probably largely disappear after a few games. 2 out of 5.

Theming: Most of my players find the theme of elders trying to escape from a retirement home to be distasteful. Yet, I've seen people online who find it hilarious. So, Your Mileage May Vary. With that said, the components do a good job of capturing this theme of retirement home hi-jinks. 3+ out of 5.

On the whole, Bedpans + Broomsticks has some notable problems with usability, some great components, and is otherwise average stylistically. I've given it a "3" out of "5" for Style.

Summary of the Gameplay

Bedpans + Broomsticks is an adversarial game where one player plays the staff and tries to keep the other player-elders from escaping. The staff-player wins if he captures enough elders and an elder-player wins if he gets out of the retirement home.

The Decoy: The heart of the game is the "decoy". Each elder player has two identical-looking tokens, one of which is his real elder and one of which is a decoy. He'll move them both each turn, but the staff-player never knows which one he has to worry about.

Start of the Elder Turn: An elder starts his turn with the opportunity to bring his two pieces back together, to confuse things. There's then a round of "stuff" playing, where each player (in order) has the opportunity to play "stuff" that he's collected, which could have various upsetting effects.

Movement in the Elder Turn: The elder player then chooses his two tokens, one at a time, and moves each based on a die roll. If his elder can see off the edge of a tile, the staff-player gets to place a new tile there. Some of these new tiles will have staff-tokens on them. Later in the game, these tiles will also have elevators, and even later they'll have exits. The elder-player must stop at staff tokens while moving (and in fact his decoy will disappear if it hits a staff-token).

Though the main goal is for an elder to get his real token to an exit, he may detour to pick up stuff along the way.

End of the Elder Turn: At the end of an elder turn, everyone (in order) gets the opportunity to play "stuff" again.

The Staff Turn: Each staff turn similarly starts and end with stuff play. In between the staff-player throws dice three times and gets to move a different staff-token each time. He might pick up stuff too, but his main goal is to leap on elders: he can dismiss a decoy with any one token or he can send an elder back to his bed with either one doctor or two nurses.

Ending the Game: Eventually an elder escapes or a few elders are sent back to their beds, and the game ends.

Relationships to Other Games

Bedpans + Broomsticks is Moyersoen's second escape game published by Mayfair, following Nuns on the Run (2010). The big difference is in how the games manage their hidden movement. Nuns on the Run used a very traditional system of writing down movement, while Bedpans + Broomsticks has a much more innovative mechanic with its decoy movement.

Moyersoen has also created a few other games with group dynamics, including Saboteur (2004), Van Helsing (2010), and Whitewater (2012).

The Game Design

First, I should talk about the good parts of Bedpans + Broomsticks. As is the case with all the Fréderic Moyersoen games I've played, this one contains innovative design that works well. The decoy system is a nice alternative to paper movement, and though I don't mind writing down my moves, I know some players do. The system for laying out the map is also very nice, with elevators appearing after a certain number of rooms, then entrances appearing (on the ground floor) after more rooms appear. Random map layouts can be too random, and this system nicely offsets that.

Unfortunately, I feel like the game as a whole doesn't work for serious players. A strong staff-player can lay out the tiles such that there singular paths to get out of the hospital, and those can be easily blocked with staff. The game includes mechanisms to help get out of this situation, including a movable door and "stuff" that has far-reaching effects, but it's still very possible for the players to get into a stalemate where no one is willing (or able) to make a move.

I usually try to assess how a game might work for its intended audience, which is clearly more casual players. However, I find that harder to do when a game has the chance to break down in the face of more serious play, like this one does. The best I can say is that casual players might not face these problems, due to less ideal placing of the tiles or do to a willingness to engage in bad tactics (such as a suicidal charge at the staff, which might free up a passageway for the next player).

Less seriously, I found the "stuff" playing extremely annoying. You end every turn with a round around the table so that people can play stuff, then you start the next round with more of the same. It's repetitive, it's redundant, and it becomes an annoying nuisance very quickly. A freeform system for play would have worked much better.

Unfortunately, I have to give Bedpans + Broomsticks a "2" out of "5" for Substance, because it falters in the face of serious play. A casual group, especially one that enjoys the theming, might have a very different experience.

Conclusion

Bedpans + Broomsticks didn't work for us as a serious play group because the very restrictive movement can lead a strong staff player to dominate the game. More casual players might not have the same issues, but the problems were sufficient that I can't fully assess how it would work for them.