Spooks Review

Now for a simple review for a simple game: Spooks.

Spooks is a card game in which each player is attempting to get rid of their entire hand. This consists of being able to play something on top of whatever card was played last. If the last card played was a red card, then you had to play a card of the same number or suit. If the card was a blue card, then you played a card that was numerically one number higher. If the card was a green "goblin" card, there are special rules, etc.

The biggest pro of Spooks is that it is appropriate for all ages. If you are looking for a game that you can play with your kids and not have to worry about whether it is too complex, this would be a valid candidate. Also, though Spooks is about "monsters", the art is cartoonish enough that it would not be scary for children.

The next pro for Spooks is that it is a very quick game that is easy to carry. (Yes, you can read this as "Spooks is a filler game.") It shouldn't take more than about 10 minutes to play, and so it can easily be played while sitting around at an airport, coffee shop, or waiting on friends to arrive at a local board game store.

There are, however, two major cons for Spooks. First, the instructions (though very short) seemed to be poorly laid out and confusing. It was difficult upon first looking at them to figure out what was actually part of the basic game and what was related to a game variant.

The next con for Spooks is it has the depth level of the card game War. (The people I played with disagreed with me on this - they claimed that it was closer to Old Maid or something in that vein.) Either way, this is not on my top list of games to play, as I'm not sure that it would entertain me more at an airport than staring out the window would.

Overall, I give Spooks a 5.0/10. It is the epitome of that grade for me - the game is fully functional, but I am not really interested in playing it again because I did not think it was fun.

Zombie Dice Review

Next up: Zombie Dice.

In Zombie Dice the players take turns rolling dice, three at a time, attempting to get brains and not shotgun blasts until they decide to pass their turn. There are 13 dice total - 6 green (with 3 brains, 2 footsteps (a re-roll), and 1 shotgun blast), 4 yellow (2 brains, 2 footsteps, 2 shotgun blasts) and 3 red (1 brain, 2 footsteps, 3 shotgun blasts). If a player gets 3 shotgun blasts on his turn, he gets no points. Otherwise, he gets a number of points equal to the number of brains he has rolled when he ends his turn. Whoever scores 13 brains first wins (yes, I did essentially describe Farkle if you were wondering).

How do I write a pros and cons section for a game with this level of deep strategy? I have no idea, so the next bit of this review will probably look very much like rambling (yes, it may even be rambling). In fact, I'm thinking about describing things like TV shows I watched or things you should buy on Amazon just to fill this review out and make it look lengthier (and as a side note, if you want to buy a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii or anything else on Amazon through my links, it'd be appreciated. You don't even have to buy stuff that I link to, you can click on the links and then if you realize something else that you want to buy while you're on Amazon, that works too.)

Anyway, now to actually evaluate the game. Zombie Dice is really simple, in case you hadn't noticed this yet. It has some level of fun, but if it were me, I'd just assume play Farkle. After all, Farkle even has more depth than Zombie Dice does. That's about all I can say about Zombie Dice before running out of material.

Overall, I give Zombie Dice a 6.5/10. This was honestly one of the hardest ratings for me to come up with. I try to keep in mind the purpose of a game when giving it a rating, and that is why this number is so high. If it were on a scale of depth or strategy, obviously this number would be significantly lower. However, Zombie Dice was created as a simple way of throwing dice and having a Zombie theme. Do you like throwing dice? Do you like games at least loosely based on Zombies? Do you like to kill 5 minutes occasionally while shaking a really noisy tube? Then you'll like Zombie Dice. Do you not like these things? Then you'd probably be ok not playing it.