During this year’s Portalcon, the Portal publishing house announced not only the upcoming premieres, but also surprised the players with a novelty that could be bought and taken home during this event. We are talking about the game Mindbug , for which as many as four developers are responsible, including the author of Magic: The Gathering .
Strength in simplicity
Pre-game setup takes less than 10 seconds. Everyone gets two Mindbug cards and the corresponding counter on which we set 3 life points. Then deal out 10 cards from the remaining 48 shuffled cards to form the players’ decks. We draw 5 of them per hand and we can start.
On our turn, we can perform one of the two available actions – play a card from our hand or attack with a character already laid out in front of us. That’s basically all, because everything else is based on the characteristics and skills of our creatures, and of course their strength (the number in the upper left corner). The game ends when one of the players loses all life points or is unable to perform any action.
Kangarex into Tigress
The whole fun is in the skillful use of creatures. Some are permanent, while others have actions that must be performed when played, attacked, or after being defeated by an opponent. Thanks to them, we can increase your starting strength, summon back one of your discarded cards, or block your opponent from using their minions’ abilities when you play them.
At the same time, monsters can have one of five traits, which also tell us about their additional actions. A poisonous monster with less strength defeats a stronger opponent, a hunter chooses his own opponent, and an angry monster can attack a second time in a row if it survives the first encounter. Trying to get the best combination of skills and traits is pure fun, requiring you to think through a surprising number of scenarios for only 20 cards that are involved in the game.
The biggest blow during the game is the use of Mindbug. Each player has two of these cards and can use them when an opponent places a creature. The titular monster causes a new card to go to our play area, i.e. we just steal it. In this case, the opponent takes his turn again. And why is it so terrible? Imagine the perfect creature for the current situation on the table, which would end the game and give you the victory. Instead, not only will it not increase the minion pool, but its strengths will turn against you. A real tragedy.
The graphics are quite interesting. Creatures are often strange hybrids of familiar animals. The drawings are specific, but they fit this card game. A good job was also done in translating the names of the individual monsters.
Mindbug is the perfect dueling game for travel, quick warm-up games, and as an introduction to card games with minimal rules. I am impressed with how much interdependence, strategic decisions and thinking have been crammed into this small deck of cards. If you haven’t had a chance to read this title yet, I highly recommend it.
