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“Sheriff of Nottingham” is a great game for providing some action and laughs at a smaller get-together, which is to be expected from an easy game that revolves around light roleplay, random banter, and lying and bribing your way to victory. While not necessarily a roleplaying game, sometimes players can’t help but change their voice when taking on the role of the sheriff and threatening the merchants. The same principle works the other way around – merchants tend to come up with witty excuses when trying to bribe the sheriff or pass their stock as legitimate. All of this can lead to some hilarious and memorable moments. See More
The game will not fit every group due to the social nature of it. It's a whole different game when played with children, adults, or more introverted people. The personalities of people greatly influence the banter, the roleplay, the bribery, and the negotiation parts, which are core aspects of "Sheriff of Nottingham". Moreover, if players choose not to engage in the more cutthroat side of the gameplay (bribery, lying, etc.), the game gets boring very fast. "Sheriff of Nottingham" is all about bluffing, and if you take that part of the game out entirely then it just becomes a card game where people race for the most points. See More
"Sheriff of Nottingham" makes for a great gateway game because of how easy the rules are. Even children can understand the main gist quite easily. The game revolves around managing your hand, collecting sets, and lying straight to the sheriff's face. Every turn the players discard and redraw cards from discard piles and the deck and maintain 6 cards in-hand. The players then choose 1-5 cards, place them in a burlap sack, and declare them to the player taking the role of the sheriff by saying how many cards of one type are in the sack, but the only thing that must be truthful is the number of goods - the actual contents can be contraband or different types of goods. For example, a player says that their sack contains 3 chickens, whereas it actually contains 2 chickens and a crossbow. It is up to the sheriff to decide who is inspected and who is let in. If the sheriff catches a merchant trying to bring in contraband or different goods than he declared, then that merchant must pay the sheriff the penalty price written on the cards. If the sheriff inspects the bag of a truthful merchant, then the sheriff must compensate the penalty to the player and let the goods go to the merchant stand. The game is won by the player who has accumulated the most wealth after every player has been the sheriff two times (three times if playing with three players). See More
The game manages to keep the players excited for the first few plays, but it easily loses its charm after you play it more than ten times or so. It starts to feel samey even when played a few times in a row. The variations of the game don't really impact the replayability either - they only add a little bit of difficulty, for example, you can add a time limit, make players have 7 cards in-hand, remove some cards from the deck, or play with "royal goods", which are basically cards that are counted as contraband but add to your legal good count at the end of the game. See More
The components are all well-made and should hold up to regular wear and tear and even an accidental drop now and then. The game consists of gold coins, merchant stand boards, and a Sheriff marker made from thick cardboard, cards made of durable cardstock, merchant bags made of dense fabric, and a useful foamcore card insert for holding the cards during the gameplay. See More
Arcane Wonders have made a free mobile companion app for “Sheriff of Nottingham” that helps with keeping the time of inspections if you’re playing with a time limit, keeping score of your finances and who is in the lead, and providing an atmosphere with ambient sounds and voice-acted audio comments. If you just want to make the game funnier, you can pay 3$ for the “Merchant Fun Pack” to get a clickable soundboard and unlock over 70 more audio comments to spam throughout the game, featuring such highlights as “COUGH Contraband COUGH COUGH” or “Crossbows are illegal, right?”. See More
The game can be played by both young and old due to the simple nature of the rules, the quick play time, and the family-friendly theme. The basics of the game and point scoring can be explained to a new player very quickly – once you tell the person how to get points and when to forward the cards, they’ll get it. There are 8 types of cards and they are all simple to understand – each type of card has a different point value and a specific mechanic. For example, the Tempura card is worth nothing by itself, but two of them give you 5 points. Information about values is conveniently put on the bottom of the card as a small reminder. A full game consisting of 3 rounds can be played in approximately 15 minutes or even less. The gameplay is fast-paced, and all the players are playing at once, so there’s constant engagement. The game has a quirky and comedic sushi theme, which fits the style of the gameplay quite well. The design isn’t childish either, it has a fun aesthetic to it. See More
On top of casual banter, you’ll be actively talking with the other players throughout the whole game. You'll want to gang up in earlier rounds to defeat monsters, but tensions are bound to rise nearing the end of the game. At the start players are too weak to take on most monsters so it’s best to band together, but, obviously, not everyone wants to help you for free. You will haggle for the price of assistance – a share of the treasure, an equipment item from the player, or anything else. It’s up to you, you can even, say, make a player complete a dare you just made up. The end of the game can get loud -- even the game’s box states that it revolves around backstabbing your friends. Some comments are bound to fly around as players announce what cards they’re using to flip the round in the monsters’ favor and take away that sweet victory that was just about to be achieved. See More
Munchkin is not really a game you can quickly play out before doing something else. A normal match takes anywhere between one and two hours, but some people have reported playing for up to 5 hours. This is mostly due to the social factor – almost every action in the game is impacted by whether the other players choose to help you or undermine you. This is especially true for the end-game where each player is looking for the lucky draw to win and everyone else is trying to deny the win by enhancing the monsters. See More
The game offers a lot of variety because of the big card count, which ensures that every game will be different. There are 168 cards in total, which include monsters, player classes and races, equipment items, special cards, spells, and much more. Furthermore, Munchkin has a lot of expansions. Each of these offers even more cards with all kinds of different mechanics. See More
The game is a parody of fantasy role-playing board games in its purest form, and the art on the cards reflects that. The game is filled with all kinds of funny characters and references that parody the board gaming culture. For example, there’s a card called “Whine at the GM” which makes you go up a level. Also, every expansion comes with a brand-new theme filled with more humorous content to bring to the table - the wild west, holiday-themed stuff, and yes, even hipsters. All the cards are illustrated by the popular cartoonist John Kovalic. See More
Munchkin isn’t something that people would call a great gateway game. The basics are not too difficult, and the mechanics of the cards are purposely simple, but there is simply too much to take in for a complete beginner. If the player happens to be playing with more experienced players, then he’s at a huge disadvantage. There’s quite a lot to explain – levelling up, equipment, combat, and, most importantly, cooperation to defeat monsters. There are many variables to everything. For example, almost every equipment piece has some conditions and exceptions tied to it. The beginner is probably unsure of the value of the cards in his hand either, which is very crucial in a game where every card matters. There’s a lot of reading to be done to find out what each card does, and this gets worse if you’re playing with expansions. See More
Though the deluxe version comes with a handy gameboard and character figures, the regular game really lacks a universal and convenient way of following progression. The game can get intense at times, which can make some players mistake their level and miscalculate attacks. Most players end up using a piece of paper to mark the levels, others use coins or poker chips. There’s an official mobile app that resolves this problem and, on top of that, helps track attack values, but it comes for an extra $5.00. See More
Qwixx is a rather simple game that revolves around rolling colored dice, and then using the values of the dice to cross off numbers on a scorecard. It's similar to Bingo where a number is determined by random chance and then you cross it off your card. Any number crossed off on any given row takes the numbers to the left of it out of play for the duration of the game. You get points for each number you cross off. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins. These rules are very basic and can be understood by everyone easily, including non-gamers. See More
There's no way to directly outplay your opponent since most of what happens during the game is the result of a simple dice roll. While you can lock your opponents out of certain colored rows by crossing off a certain amount of numbers, it really comes down to chance and nothing you have much control over. Due to this, there's not much direct interaction or counterplay among opponents. See More
Due to the dice rolling nature of the game, it moves along at a quick pace with very little downtime between turns. The thrill in every random roll and hoping for your perfect numbers to come up ensures the game stays exciting for its limited duration. Even if you get a bad roll with dice values that you can't or don't want to use, there is always the hope and anticipation that the next roll a mere few seconds later will be better. See More
While this is mostly a game of dice rolling and chance, there are a few small opportunities for some strategy and choices to come into play. Every time you mark a number off your scorecard, all the numbers to the left of that number on the same row are taken out of play. This mean you won't want to mark off numbers every roll since marking a 12, for example, would take out your whole row. Therefore, on any given roll, you are allowed to "pass" and not mark off any numbers. This incurs a small point penalty and you are only allowed four passes per game, but it allows for a little strategy when you use your passes wisely as it helps keeps your options open on the scorecard. Additionally, when it's your turn to be the active roller, you have the choice to use the sum of any white die with any colored dice. For example, if you rolled a 1 on a white dice, and a 5 on a red dice and 6 on a blue dice, you could choose whether you want to mark off a 6 red or 7 blue. This gives you a bunch of flexibilty when it's your turn to roll, as you can choose the numbers that would benefit you the best. See More