Print and Play Games

In an effort to learn more about the nature of print and play games, their design, set-up, and requirements, I played three different games. Each of these games has very different mechanics that make for three varied experiences, some bad, some good. Here are the results.

Bad Grandmas, mid-play action

Bad Grandmas is a game featuring some very sassy grandmas who battle it out in, presumably, their bad ass nursing home. They are all equipped with weapons and funny remarks. I was really excited to play this game because I liked the humor involved. Unfortunately, as me and the other players began to play it seemed as though the game is based only around luck. This wouldn't be so bad, but I feel as though the game goes under a more strategic guise. Each grandma has a specific value attached to her. One grandma at the beginning of the round is chosen to set the rule. Our particular grandma's particular rule specified that the person with the lowest total score would win. However, after having been dealt random hands of cards it was clear that no amount of strategy would save a player from their worst cards. We left our grandmas in favor of finding a more suitably strategic game.

A player making bank in the cutthroat restaurant scene.

What we found was Delivery, my personal favorite pick of the lot. The game has a lot going for it--it's a relatively unique concept, it's mostly easy to understand, and the art actually isn't bad. Its mechanic revolves around random rolls of dice, but that is balanced with strategic choices in price of food and investments in either food quality, advertisements, or speedy deliveries. While "Delivery" is, for the most part, balanced, there is one major flaw. If a player chooses to price their meals at $2 they will get +1 added to their roll to see who will get to take the food order. Anyone who prices their meal at $5, however, will have -2 taken from their roll. In this way, at least with only a 6 sided die, it is nearly impossible to win a roll with your prices set at $5. A more balanced option would be to take -1 from the order pick up roll, and -1 from delivery speed. Otherwise a player offering expensive food will never even see the delivery stage.

Playing Pennywise as Sugar, the (obviously) best character to play as.

All hyped up on our restaurant success (or lack thereof), we moved on to Pennywise, a game based around using your wits and your coins to run your opponents out of their money. While this game was simple, its stardom came in its balance. Each character card offers you a different starting combination of coins, allowing for very different gameplay choices. The idea of the game is that each player takes a turn putting down a coin in the center of the table, or the pot, and they may remove any amount of coins that is equal to one less than the coin they put in. So if a player puts in a nickel they can remove 4 pennies. I think this game's strength lies in its ability to be played so many ways, and thinking about the combinations of coins that will add up to one less than yours is a nice mini brain exercise. I'd conclude, though, that even though this game was balanced it didn't hold interest for to terribly long.

I'm surprised at how much I ended up enjoying playing these games. While they didn't hold my interest as well as other non-printable board games have in the past, they could easily fill a boring lull, or a woeful financial situation.