Review Roundup - Good Cop Bad Cop, Vektorace Formula 8, Doodle Rush, Krowdfunder and Doomsday Bots

Sometimes there’s just not enough to write about a game. Maybe it’s very light, maybe it feels too much like another game or maybe it’s just bloody awful.  In those cases we present the Review Roundup, a selection of short form board game reviews that make sure you’re informed without wasting time on regurgitating rulebooks or trying to find some hidden depth.

Good Cop Bad Cop

Good Cop Bad Cop is like a mashup between The Resistance and Cash and Guns. Each player is dealt a number of secret role cards from one of two factions, and its up to the players to determine which player is on each side and then shoot the opposition. The twist is that each player is given 3 role cards and so its the majority of card types that determine faction, unless players have been dealt the super baddy or super goody, which overrides the other two cards.

Gameplay involves slowly looking at other players’ cards to get some idea of what the hell is going on and then pointing your gun at who you think is on the opposite team and which point everyone starts getting rather angsty.

Good Cop Bad Cop has been sitting on my review shelf for quite some time, every time I take the game off the shelf and think “I really should review this” and I play it and suddenly remember why it has stayed on the shelf. It’s not a bad game per se, its more a game that is done so much better elsewhere; the multiple faction cards work better in Redacted and the bluffing is so much more fun in the Resistance. It's more mechanical compared to other games of this nature which slows the game down.

Vektorace Formula 8

Vektorace Formula 8 may be the cutest little racing game I have ever seen. Lay the course on your playing surface of choice and take control of some tiny stock car racing vehicles as you boost your nitro, burn through your tires and shunt and draft round the course.

If you’ve played anything like X-Wing, you’ll get the gist pretty easily; choose the template for you chosen gear and place your car at the end of the template. You can go faster by using a nitro, burn a tire token to take tighter turns or drop a gear in an emergency. The clever thing^TM is that you select your gear at the end of your turn, meaning that there is a bit of pre-planning required and other players can get an idea about what you are doing.

I feel guilty for not giving Vektorace Formula 8 a full form review because its a really fun racing game and making your own course means it can be as simple or as complicated a game as you want. My only real criticisms are that you have to assemble and glue the little cars yourself, which can be fiddly, and the game is really designed for four players and works much better at the higher player counts. Other than that its a fun, light racing game, that also looks really cool.

Doodle Rush

Doodle Rush is a simple game about drawing fast. Make drawings of your words as quickly as possible and then attempt to guess what your opponents have drawn. It’s not a particularly original game; Pictomnania does more or less the same thing but better.

Doodle Rush’s problem is that the whole concept of the game, that you’re trying to draw and guess as quickly as, means that the guessing round turns into a shouting match as every talks over each other yelling their guesses across the table in mess of chaotic cacophony.

Krowdfunder

Krowdfunder is a card game were you have to fund your very own Kickstarter project. You get dealt a random project and have to collect a full set of add-ons, videos, stretch goals, buzz and pledges in order to complete your project and launch.  The first person to launch gets to pick a backer, and then the coins on your cards are multiplied by the number of happy faces to calculate your total funding. That’s it.

Not all the cards are good, so simply collecting all 5 cards as quickly as possible doesn’t guarantee success, but the decisions in Krowdfunder simply aren’t interesting. At no point did I feel engaged with the game or that my choices effected progress or anyone else at the table.  It’s like playing Exploding Kittens, but someone has removed all the exploding kitten cards from the game.

Krowdfunder is just bland and even getting angry and ranting about how bad it is, stirs far too many emotions than Krowdfunder deserves.

Doomsday Bots

Doomsday Bots is an interesting attempt to capture the idea that mad inventors duel it out using robotic minions. Send your upgraded robot into the stronghold of a mad inventor to steal his prized invention and get out with your CPU intact. Of course, other robots have the same idea so there’s a race to get there first. It’s a nice idea, in theory.

Problem is, Doomsday Bots falls on its metal face for a number of reasons. It suffers Betrayal at House on the Hill Syndrome: move into a new room, roll a die and see if you pass or fail. Failure means losing an upgrade (and making your future rolls less likely to pass). Also, some rooms change state when you fail, adjusting the challenge. Sadly, the rulebook isn’t clear on if the challenge is replaced or complemented by this adjustment. One assumes the former, or you’re even worse off against the single die roll (SDR).

Get to the top to steal the kit and you have not one, but three SDRs to tackle. Now, you can also attack your opponents, but there’s little point as it’s an expensive and uncertain exercise, so you’re best just running for the top. Which means there’s little to draw me to the game at all.

Bundle for the top, roll dice with no thought, then see if you survive. Or, don’t bother in the first place, it’s a much more favourable outcome.

These reviews are based on copies provided by the publisher.