Main Catalogue |  Board Games & Card Games |  Ragnar Brothers |  Where There's A Will

Where There's A Will Price: £14.99 For 2-6 players, aeges 9 to adult, playing time approx 60 minutes. The Duke is writing his last Will & Testament...and everything is up for grabs. Charm, lies, cunning and blackmail - use all of these to inherit what you deserve. Leave your good manners and fine breeding behind... +++++++++++++++++++++ Counter Magazine review. +++++++++++++++++++++ 2-6 players, 30-45 minutes reviewed by Ben Baldanza Interesting folks, these Ragnars. Addressing topics as grandiose as the History of the World and as quaint as a hike in the English countryside, this team has created a niche for interesting, often well researched, and nicely if humbly produced games. But card games have not been their style, until now that is. These two games follow the Ragnar\'s Kings and Castles which was a bit of a fringe hit, and the card games are more casual and family-oriented than most of their other output. Blooming Gardens is the better of the two, and the game is a simple set collecting exercise. Players try to plant different types of flowers in order to have the most of individual plant types and to be sure that their garden blooms in every month of the season. There are twelve different types of flowers represented on cards, with two of each blooming in each of six months from April through September. Each flower type carries a value from one to three, and within the same month the two flower types always have different values. Beginning with a set of cards, players can plant as many of a single flower type as they like into a bed, then refill their hand from among five face-up cards. At game end, each player scores the value of the flower cards planted, and the player with the most of each flower type doubles their score. Then, players lose 15 points for any month in which no flowers were planted. Of course it\'s a bit more complicated than this, but not much. In addition to the Flower cards, there are two other card types: Fertilizer and Pests. Fertilizer cards work like the Investment cards in Lost Cities: they are laid only at the start of a bed, and they double the value of flowers planted in that bed. Pest cards attack flowers in your opponent\'s gardens. Each Pest card played removes one flower card from the player of your choice, and multiple Pests can attack different flower types and/or different players. On a single turn, though, one can only Plant Flowers, Lay Fertilizer, or Attack with Pests and not combine these actions. An additional nice feature is that some of the Flower cards show a small flower pot on them. These can be used as normal Flower cards for planting purposes, but at the end of the game cards with flower pots in your hand can all be planted in your garden before the scoring. This adds some strategy and surprise to the end game, since normally plantings can affect only one flower type but at the end multiple plantings could be made. Blooming Gardens feels a bit like multi-player Lost Cities, as the decisions per turn are similar and the pace of the game is dictated by how fast the cards are used. Balancing the size of each bed with getting enough beds to avoid a penalty is important, and typically playing multiple cards per turn is preferred. Defensive play in the form of Pests has a high opportunity cost. The game is highly luck dependent as the choice of cards will determine exactly what you can do, and unlike Lost Cities you don\'t get a big hand of cards to choose from and in a multi-player game a lot can happen before your next turn. It works fine but won\'t overly excite and it\'s hard to believe that gamers will play this more than once or twice. However, if given the choice of these two card games, get this one first. That\'s because the second game, Where There\'s a Will, is truly curious. Players attend the reading of a Will, and their goal is to collect the most valuable set of assets from the estate. This is done through the use of two types of Cards - Guests and Damage. Each round, three items from the estate are up for grabs, and the three players with the most valuable single guest cards get awarded the goods. Damage cards are used to improve your own set of Guests or hopefully hurt another player\'s. Each player starts with three Guest cards, 10 pounds worth of coins (value, not weight for the non-UK crew), and three Damage cards. The money can then be used to buy up to three more Damage cards, and since these cards are the engine of the game it is likely that everyone will buy at least one extra. Play then commences as players play one Damage card per turn until everyone passes. Then, the Guest Cards are revealed and the Will is disbursed. The Damage cards rule the day, so understanding some of them will give a better idea of what the game is about. Most are simple: tell another player to discard one Guest Card, draw another Guest Card for yourself, take money from another player, have everyone discard a certain type of Guest, etc. Some Damage Cards say ``Block\'\' on them; as you\'d expect, these can be played out of turn to block another player\'s Damage Card effect on you. Some change the value of other cards, for example ``Sons\'\' and ``Heirs\'\' Guest Cards are typically worth 11 points each, virtually ensuring some of the loot. One Damage Card reduces their value to one from 11, an excellent play if you get the card and don\'t have any applicable Guests. The result is a random free for all, where the only real strategy is to get the right Damage Cards and hopefully draw some good Guests to start out. The items from the Will vary from cheap one-value goods like the Chamberpot up to the Stately Home worth eight points on its own. Since three items are available at any time, the order of these is important, as sometimes being second or third place is almost as good as being first, whereas other times this is far from the case. Beyond this, the game is best as a family game where everyone can have some fun but not take anything too seriously. Yet, the theme of a Will reading is certainly odd stuff for a family game, and the Damage Cards promote behavior that most parents wouldn\'t want to instill in youngsters. This leaves the game in kind of a no-man\'s land market-wise. It\'s not that Where There\'s a Will doesn\'t work - the relevant question is ``why bother?\'\' Both games are produced with good quality card stock and clear rule sheets, but oddly Where There\'s a Will comes with three separate booklets, one for a Short Game, one for the Full game, and a Sample Game. Each is only a single sheet folded over, so this is not really excessive, but for the type of game it still seems like overkill. It seems as if Blooming Gardens was the primary game for publication, since it uses more color in the cards and the rules, and clearly requires more thought. I applaud the Ragnars for trying the card game route, but their talents are clearly better when applied to more weighty stuff. More ...

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