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Review of Game Over
Blurb from the publisher: 'Each player is a Little Barbarian in search of his lost Princess. He must bravely navigate a dungeon populated by Blorks (monsters), find the key to his beloved's prison and free her!'
What you get: Your EUR 10 or equivalent buys you Game Over, a memory game for 2-4 players ages 5 and up, which can last from one minute to a quarter of an hour. The game includes the rulebook and 33 cards: 4 Little Barbarians, 4 Weapons, and 25 Board Tiles (2 Keys, one Teleportation Door, 4 Imprisoned Princesses, 2 Invincible Blorks and four times four Blorks than can be defeated with a different weapon).
The game is language neutral, with no text on the cards. There are however two versions with a rulebook in either English or French. Rulebooks in English, French, German, Dutch and Spanish can be found on the company’s website.
If the name or the drawings looks familiar to some, it's because for the game is based on the Game Over comic by Midam, the famed Belgian cartoonist. He also created the art for the game's release.
Gameplay: The objective of Game Over is to have explored a path that contains both the key and the princess of your colour within the same round.
Each player takes a Little Barbarian, while the 4 weapons are set aside face-up. A 5 x 5 board is created, face down. Each player starts from a corner of the board. In each turn, he first states which weapon he is choosing and opens a tile. If he encounters a Princess, a Key, the Teleportation Room or a Blork that can be defeated with the selected weapon, he can keep on exploring. A player can change the weapon he chooses after exploring a tile. He then pics up an orthogonally adjacent tile and flips it over. If by discovering a new tile a player flips a monster he cannot defeat, he places his weapon on the side, and flips all the discovered tiles face-down. It is now the next player's turn, who will do exactly the same.
The strong points: Game Over is an extremely simple game that can be set up and explained in seconds. I like how it took the concept of a dungeon crawl and actually turned it into a memory game, with a sort of ‘dungeon’ that has to be explored over and over again, without making mistakes.
Even though it mostly addresses itself to kids does not mean that it cannot be played by adults, and especially the occasional gamers amongst us. It is clearly a memory game with a high amount of randomness added in. In classic Memory a player wold invariably reveal two cards of his choice, and cards would slowly get picked up. In Game Over however the cards are revealed one by one, and only under the condition that the chosen weapon can deal with the monster at hand. No cards will be picked up; they all stay there until somebody manages to save his princess within a single round. A simple breakdown of the cards indicates that 13 out of 25 tiles will allow a player to progress, while 12 out of 25 will stop him. Luck clearly plays an important role on how many tiles a player will reveal in a given round and how much of this progress will benefit him or his opponents.
Following that however, and after having turned back the cards face down due to failure, the player has to remember what is where. Twenty five cards is a fair, balanced number, neither too demanding nor a piece of cake. In that sense, it is definitely easier than Memory (if the latter played with all cards, that is).
The theme is great in that it totally captures the essence of a dungeon crawl as well as a computer game with multiple saves (and infinite lives). There is no dice rolling, no defenses, no nothing. You get to beat the monster as long as you carry the correct weapon with you. Being able to adjust it, tile after tile, means statistically improving your winning probability. The invincible monsters are a nice Gygaxian touch, your kids won’t get the pun though about unbeatable monsters in nonsensical dungeons. They will only realise that sometimes life isn’t fair.
The art is done by an acknowledged, published professional cartoonist. The monsters look silly while the Little Barbarians have, to my eyes at least, a resigned and loser attitude. Kids (and adults) will love it.
The price is as low as it can be. It can make a nice little gift to an aspiring gamer. Game Over addresses itself to players of 5 years, I feel however that this is just a security precaution. Maturer 4-year-olds or even younger kids (provided they have stopped trying to eat everything around them) can play, sometimes with impressive results.
The weak points: Game Over is a small, random game. Statistically speaking the key and your princess can be the first two tiles that you will reveal, taking away the fun from the whole endeavour. Idem for the inverse situation, having the invincible monster as your starting tile (effectively meaning that you are either out of the game, or, through a more relaxed interpretation of the rules, start from an adjacent tile). This works great with kids, but not so well with adults. Seeing how a game can be played within a maximum of ten minutes however, nothing prohibits you from setting up a new one. You can always blame your defeats on lady luck.
Conclusion: A small, silly memory game, Game Over delivers on what it promises for a fair price. The cute card drawings are a bonus.
To find out more about Game Over take a look at http://www.lahauteroche.eu.
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