Game: Spree!

Thread: Spree! (Classic Edition)

seawolf — 2007-10-17T18:24:26+00:00

Spree! (Classic Edition)
From: Cheapass Games
Reviewed by: Ron McClung

Spree! (Classic Edition) is a new Board Game from Cheapass Games.

There is nothing like a cool game that costs less than $5. Cheapass specializes in these games. One of those games, Spree!, is a pretty cool little game.

From the front cover :
“It's a little like shopping”

In a small white envelope, in true Cheapass fashion, you are given a rulebook and four cardstock game boards that fit together to make a mall (complete with stores) containing playing card symbols and numbers. You supply the game pieces and two standard playing card decks (which are shuffled together). The concept of the game is you are a group of people robbing a mall. It is a mad race to see who can fill their car first. It is a competition and it can get nasty, so everyone is armed. Everyone has a car outside the mall and a shopping cart or wagon to fill full of stuff. The board when put together is a mall that contains stores. Inside the stores are symbols representing playing cards in individual squares. These represent products in the store that players shop for.

Game setup is fairly simple. Everyone gets a hand of five cards. In randomly determined order, each player places their car somewhere outside the mall in designated parking spaces. There is a certain strategy to where you place your car, based on the card hand you start with. Play starts with the last character to place.

A game turn entails replenishing your cards at the start of your turn and performing three actions in between - Move, Shop, and Shoot. Movement is determined via dice, and you can move any, all, or none of the value. You Shop by playing cards based on how you move your pawn. You gain a card for every card symbol you move through that matches what you have in your hand. Once you pass over the card symbol and play the card, it is considered to be in your shopping cart or wagon.

Shooting is also simple and pretty ingenious. It uses one die, the range to target, and a simple resolution system - if you roll the range or more, you hit and if you do not, you miss. So basically all weapons have range 6. Hit players are incapacitated and the successful attacker gains a turn. If the attacker misses, he is incapacitated. Any incapacitated player can not play cards that turn.

Players can also steal from each other. You do this like shopping by moving through the characters space, but you don't have to match the suit. All you have to do is match the value. This card is discarded and the target cards or cards that match in value go into your cart. This turns the game into a particular nasty one. There are some special cards that effect movement and defend against stealing which really add variety. The Ace has several functions that players would find handy.

The Car is the place you store your items. Once they are in the Car, they are safe from stealing. Once you reach your car, you unload your cart and tally your score, discarding the cards. You will probably do this multiple times until someone reaches the predefined limit. Suggested limits are presented based on number of players.

In conclusion, this is a fun little game with lots of potential. I was already picturing ways to expand this and make it even more fun, like characters with special abilities, etc. It's fast paced and easy to play. Very cool little game.

For more details on Cheapass Games and their new Board Game “Spree! (Classic Edition)” check them out at their website http://www.cheapass.com, and at all of your local game stores.

Spree! (Classic Edition)
From: Cheapass Games
Type of Game: Board Game
Written by: James Ernest
Game Design by: James Ernest
Developed by: James Ernest
Cover and Additonal Art by: Phil Foglio
Number of Pages: 4
Game Components Included: Spree! (Classic Edition) boards and rule book
Game Components Not Included: pawns for the players and their cars, 2 six-sided dice, two standard poker decks of cards with jokers, and a way to keep score
Retail Price: $ 3.50 (US)
Number of Players: 3-8
Play Time: 1 hour
Item Number: CAG 005
Website: www.cheapass,com

Reviewed by: Ron McClung

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TimothyP — 2007-10-01T21:00:16+00:00

Close-up of Spree. Extra large wooden dice not included with game.

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TimothyP — 2007-10-01T20:59:08+00:00

Overview of the game, all set up.

Thread: Speedy Review

Matt Loter — 2007-07-18T17:23:17+00:00

Spree is not a serious game. It can however, be serious fun with the right group. The goal is to steal the most stuff and get it back to your waiting car without getting blasted and robbed yourself by competing players. It's a slight step above a straight roll and move game in terms of how much luck factors into what you do, but in addition to the dice to contend with, you are dealing with a deck of cards as well. Fortunately, you do have some freedom in what to aim for.

The real fun in the game comes from playing with a good sized group of loud jerks and implementing the Honk Kong extra violence supplemental rules (included in current printings). Really, its a game about screwing your friends as much as possible. The fact that most of it is luck makes for a lot of tense rolls and LOTS of yelling.

Being a Cheapass game you don't get a lot with it, but it's got a great theme and can be a lot of fun if you let it. I really enjoy this game as a quick filler and think it's well worth the money.

The vast majority of reviews on the geek are excellent, however they are usually fairly long and in depth, and while this is great overall, sometimes all you want is a few paragraphs laying down if the reviewer thinks it's a good game or not. Hopefully this helps fill that role.

Thanks
Matt Loter

Thread: Not Exactly a Steal...

Gnarlythotep — 2006-06-06T13:16:36+00:00

Ahhh, Spree. Another Cheapass tour-de-force. Except in this case, the force is more "immature" than majure.

What It's About
You and your friends (or family, or classmates, or shantytown) each play a small-time crook in a small-time mall, in a relatively small time. Like many of Cheapass' games, play is quick, simple, and a bit lacking the fourth time through.

The goal of Spree is to steal so many "points" worth of items. The points correspond to the value of playing cards. This can be done either from the "stores" (which is alright) or from the other players (which is where the fun comes in).

What You Do
Setup is pretty simple. You shuffle some card decks together, lay out the board, and scavenge/construct the appropriate tokens/markers for use in the game. You'll also need to scavenge a six-sided die out of that dusty copy of Monopoly your mom bought for that short-lived "Family Games Night" sitting long-ignored on a closet shelf.

Each turn consists of rolling dice to determine how far you can move this turn. However, certain cards allow you to move farther (up to 10 spaces). You move to different locations on the board, and if you are on a spot that matches a card in your hand (value AND suit), you can play this card into your "cart". You haven't scored the points yet - you'll need to return to your "wagon" in order to drop the loot off (scoring points based on the cards values). Pretty simple so far.

Now, if another player is getting all up in your face (and really, when don't they? They're termed "opponents" for a reason.), you can pull out your pistol and pop a cap at them. Basically, if you have a direct line to another player, you can make a die to see if you shoot them. If you succeed, they're knocked over (and possibly back a few spaces), and you immediately get another turn. If not, you're knocked over and your turn is done. In addition, if you're in the same space as another player (standing or not), you can play a card from hand to take any cards of the same value (suit is disregarded in this case) from that opponent's cart and place them in yours.

Basically, the game really changes with more players. With 2-3, it's a matter of trying to get the high-point cards and outrace the opponents, with more it's essentially a "shoot fest", where everyone shoots each other again and again. Consequently, if you're the first one to get a good shooting Spree, then you usually get a huge lead.

In the end, the gameplay is extremely luck-dependant. Depending on which cards you draw and how well the die rolls essentially determines how you do. Not to mention how the opponents draw/roll, and how often they screw you over.

The Bits
Well, it's Cheapass. You get a board, some rules, and...a box. Really. That's it.

The board works. The rules are short, but decent.

Now, the big question is what tokens to use. I heartily recommend the Gangsters taken from Bootleggers. They fit the whole shakedown feel, and besides, they're gangster figures. More games need to deal with Gangsters, and provide us with Gangster-shaped playing pieces. They're like more modern Pirates, and Pirates are cool. Why doesn't the boardgame industry cater more to us lovers of Pirates-in-Pinstripe?

Will I Like It?
This really depends on how much you buy into the Cheapass mentality. On the one hand, Spree is certainly cheap. On the other hand, there's not of control over what happens to you in this game. You're entirely at the mercy of die rolls AND card draws, and if the Fates abandon you, there's very little joy in store.

I'd recommend this for people mainly interested in playing a quick game while waiting for someone else to arrive so you can play a better game. Or to arrive so you can all go and buy a better game, then play it.

Pros
- Extremely cheap (surprised?)
- Easy to learn
- Gives you a good reason to play with plastic Gangster figures, if you a) have them and b) like playing with them
- Repeated plays is a good way to convince other people to bring better games to a Games Night

Cons
- Very repetitive gameplay
- Extremely luck-reliant (dice, cards, not having a better game in your collection)
- Even for a Cheapass game, you get very little. Just a board. And, I suppose, boredom
- Hong Kong rules make gunfights even stronger, which really gives a player a huge advantage if they can pull off a shooting spree

Final Grading

- For "beer-and-popcorn" gamers, 5/10 (not much to learn, encourages smack talk and quotes from Gangster movies).

- For grognards and dedicated Eurogamers, 1/10 (would likely prefer to set themselves on fire, as long as this game goes up in flames with them).

- For young/aspiring gamers, 5/10 (easy to learn, but not much game).

- For people with plastic Gangster figures, +1/10 to the appropriate rating. Because they deserve every opportunity to be used, dang it. In the end, it's all about the Gangsters.

Thread: Re: First Time Spree

turtlerage — 2006-04-19T11:27:06+00:00

Boardgame Geek Girls are SEXY!
Seriously Ladies you are!!!

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broady — 2006-02-22T22:26:34+00:00

Spree! Classic Edition - Now with a splash of colour.

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broady — 2006-02-22T22:18:37+00:00

Spree! The classic edition.

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LoopyWolf — 2006-01-13T09:10:37+00:00

Thread: Re: First Time Spree

kuhrusty — 2005-11-11T18:19:23+00:00

jollypirate wrote:
First of all, it was a historic night in gamedom where the number of ladies outnumbered us men 3 to 2.

All pause and reflect.

!!

Dude. You have to fill in your State & Town/City in your profile.

Thread: First Time Spree

jollypirate — 2005-11-05T15:50:03+00:00

First of all, it was a historic night in gamedom where the number of ladies outnumbered us men 3 to 2.

All pause and reflect.

Secondly, my gaming group aims low. Carcasonne is probably the most complex game we've played. We love the Cheapass and Placebo Press line in general and we also play old board games we find at the Salvation Army. We like to laugh. And drink

That being said...we all had a blast playing spree. My friend Marty had just bought the game and was a little nervous about it sucking. The directions had some of the wit of the Cheapass line, but it sounded (and looked) pretty dull. We pushed on, and it was an absolute joy.

It was the perfect blend of luck and strategy, and cut-throat machiavellian tactics. The variety of options the cards provide (if you are lucky enough to draw them--standard poker decks that you provide--made the game play unpredictable). Someone playing a ten after a good movement roll can zoom clear across the board to shoot you and take your stuff--unless you have a blocker (an Ace).

Okay, I'm not trying to explain how to play, but it was a ton of fun, particularly as the game came to a close and everybody focused on keeping the lead players from winning. The game really could have went four ways up until the last minute (Marty sucked and was out of the running).

Michelle won and only gloated moderately.

Again. A ton of fun. Highly recommended.

Thread: Session Report

keystewy7 — 2004-03-02T12:31:13+00:00

I had never played Spree! before, but I grabbed a copy of the rules eager to learn how. I found the Cheapass line of games entertaining. Albeit the rules seemed a little complex, I studied them carefully. I was ready to play.

There were just three of us: Chealsea, a passive girl with an aggressive side; Justin, nice-- just nice; and I, a ruthless competitor.

We started the game and in the beginning everyone seemed to be just shopping. We'd even pass by each other and keep shopping. This HAD to change. I made a successful shot at Justin, looted him, and moved onto my car. Next, I made my way over to Chealsea, looted her, and kept shopping. FINALLY, they took some cards from me and went their seperate ways. The game continued like this for a while. Eventually, I won.

The game was fun, but next time I think we'll try a variation.

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2002-08-16T11:13:09+00:00

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Octavian — 2002-08-16T11:13:04+00:00