Game Closet: Puzzle Strike

The only serious boardgame with a Pink Box

Beginning in January, Lady Rad and I have instituted Sunday Night Game Nights and I couldn't be happier.  After a savory family dinner on Sunday night and we put the kids to bed, LR and I settle in for what is supposed to be a relaxing and light competition, but it always turns into a no-holds-barred, battle royale of epic proportions.  It generally ends with me weeping in a corner.

By the way, I love, LOVE the fact that Lady Rad can kick my butt in games.

"Puzzle Strike" from Sirlin Games is our first foray into the very-quickly crowded genre of deck-building games, the grandaddy of which is the very respected Dominion.  The Deck-Building style of gameplay generally involves all players starting with the same hand of cards and taking turns playing card or using cards as currency to buy from a communal bank of cards.  After each turn, all cards in-hand are discarded and a new hand is drawn.  With each successive turn, individual decks become larger and customized to each player's style and strategy.

I haven't played Dominion, despite it being the most popular "designer" game next to "Settlers of Catan" for two reasons: 1) the theme holds no interest for either Lady Rad or myself (medieval times, and not even the good kind of medieval times with dragons, more like the boring medieval times with the black plague); and 2) the lack of "take-that" player interaction/opponent screwage.  When I hear that Dominion is a game that "anyone" can play and "it's like multiplayer solitaire," well that doesn't satisfy my or Lady Rad's bloodlust.

"Puzzle Strike's" take on deck-building, however, is nothing but "take-that." The entire goal of the game is to play a strategic series of actions against your opponent so that they are overwhelmed with attack and can't fight back.  The theme is anime style, inspired by a niche 90's videogame...

So it's pretty much the antithesis of "Dominion."

You know, like this... but a boardgame.

Every review thus far begins by likening "Puzzle Strike" to the video game that inspired its theme and mechanic, "Super Puzzle Fighter;" in fact, even the designer/publisher describes "Puzzle Strike" as "a card game played with chips instead of cards that simulates a puzzle game (that doesn't exist) that simulates a fighting game (that also doesn't exist)."

Cute, but I believe that sells "Puzzle Strike" short because this game is much deeper and sophisticated than its digital inspiration; and describing your niche game as being like an even more niche game doesn't go very far to acquiring anything but a extremely niche audience.  Case in point, when I brought it out to Lady Rad for the first time, she said "This is really Japanese, isn't it?"  But it's not, it just looks that way.  And "Puzzle Strike" shouldn't be relegated to only a niche audience, it's much too enjoyable of an experience to not find a wider appeal.

Without uttering the words "Puzzle Fighter" any more in this review, the concept behind "Puzzle Strike" is as follows:

Each opponent has chips in front of them with a particular numeric value that is not a part of their hand, on each turn an additional chip is ante'ed (the Ante phase); if, after playing his hand (the Action phase), the player has a pile of chips with a total value of 10 or more, the player loses.  During their Action phase, Players have the ability to take chips out of their pile, and send them onto their opponent's pile; opponents can play defensive actions which either negate chips, eliminating them from any player's pile, or send chips back over to the original player's pile.  After playing actions, the player then uses currency chips in their hand to purchase new chips from the communal chip bank (the Buy phase); this can mean purchasing new action chips or more currency chips.  During the Cleanup phase, the player takes all chips played or in their hand and discards them, then draws new chips for the next turn.  Play continues until all opponents ("Puzzle Strike" plays up to 4) are eliminated.

(and that may be the most succinct explanation of the rules of this game ever.)

Round, thick cards, or as I like to call them, "chips"

Where the game gains its sophistication is, initially, in it's "character selection." Players choose one of ten different characters, each with their own individual action chips.  This automatically means that each players' nuanced strategy will be different from each other based on the strength of their characters' respective chips.  From there, players will build and customize their individual draw pile to take advantage of their characters' strengths.  The chips available to purchase from the communal bank, are fun to play with in an attempt to mess with your opponent's hand or chip pile.

Though players are ultimately trying to send as many chips over to their opponent's pile, how you do that is entirely up to your strategy and character's strength.  Do you whittle away little by little  drawing out your opponent's defensive capabilities or do you reflect back everything they send to you by being aggressively defensive? Do you constantly foul up their hand by causing them to draw useless chips or do you silently build up a killer string of combos and unleash holy hell on them, making it near-impossible to recover.  If they do manage to recover, do you have the chops to survive another round?

It's this constant back and forth that makes for a quick, fun, and competitive game.  But those who don't like competition would be wise to steer clear, "Puzzle Strike" really lives and dies by whether your opponent lives or dies.

The chip concept is an interesting choice.  Rather than play with a deck of cards that constantly need to be reshuffled and drawn, Sirlin Games went with the idea of having 350 poker-chip styled chips to serve the game instead of cards.  "Reshuffling" involves throwing the chips into a fancy, velvety bag and shaking them around, drawing out the correct number of chips.  I suppose playing with cards would allow for larger text and even some artwork like all of the other deck-building games out there, it also would have brought the price of the game down, as the chips are printed on sturdy chipboard; but I rather enjoy playing with the chips, it gives a personality and a level of "fun" to the game that would be lost if printed on just regular cards.  Managing the chips in-hand may not be as convenient as holding a hand of cards, but I enjoy the feel of the game much more with chips.  Personal preference, I suppose, but I'm glad that Sirlin went with this option in the final production (and gave the nay-sayers the opportunity to pay for .pdfs and print 'n' play chips on cards if they wanted to).  Kudos to Sirlin, as well, for making an insert that efficiently labels and separates where all the chips go to make it easy to set up a game, and for making the insert reach the top of the box so that no chips fall out when storing the game vertically.

My biggest criticism of the game is in the rules which can be confusing for an, otherwise, straight-forward title.  I believe that Sirlin was so tied to trying to draw an analogy between his game and "Puzzle Fighter" that some terms and concepts were made needlessly confusing, or outright absent.  The idea that a player can "crash," aka send, a set of gems to their opponent and the opponent can "counter-crash" and cancel or send chips back is simple once explained, the problem is that its a fairly abstract concept to begin with and not one that's explained very well in the rulebook.

I firmly believe the game could benefit from a player mat that designates a discard area, an area for chips that have an ongoing effect, and how many chips you have in your building-to-ten pile.  There are good solutions made by fans already, but an officially-designed playmat should really be made available along-side of any expansions "Puzzle Strike" may see.

And expand, it should.  "Puzzle Strike" is a highly enjoyable game for 2-4 players (though 2 players may be the max fun limit) who like to turn the screws to their opponents in a quick, and colorful style.

Review copy provided by Sirlin Games