Game: Bankruptcy: The Card Game

Thread: Multiround rules?

Cinnibar — 2008-09-22T22:34:28+00:00

At GenCon, I played in a tournament of Bankruptcy hosted by one of the designers. We played four rounds, calculating a score from left-over cards held by players, with the lowest score winning overall.

Does anyone know the rules/values for the cards in the multi-round version, please?

Thread: Re: [Review] Bankruptcy: the Card Game

Sarge77 — 2008-04-28T23:07:42+00:00

Saved me some cash. Thanks Tom.

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

CovertDad — 2008-04-25T16:43:50+00:00

Aldaron wrote:
I look forward to the day when the self appointed shill police realize just how little we're interested and give up on posts like this.

Let people rate how they want to rate.

This! A thousand times This!

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ckissee — 2008-04-25T16:42:14+00:00

A game of Bankruptcy: The Card Game

Thread: Re: [Review] Bankruptcy: the Card Game

ckissee — 2008-04-25T16:33:52+00:00

Tom,

Thank you for a very thorough review. I appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to provide your feedback for our game. I would like to point out what I feel are the most important pieces in your review that someone who is interested in our game should note:

TomVasel wrote:
Bankruptcy is simply an "Uno" style game, in which players are simply trying to get rid of all the cards in their hand.

The comparisons to Uno are inevitable, due to the fact that the object of both it and our game are the same. If our game has success even close to that realized by Uno, we will be ecstatic.

TomVasel wrote:
I've had piles of kids play through it and have a laughing time, but it's entirely too light for adults.

While I certainly understand that for most of the adults that I play games with, you are 100% correct that it is too light for them. However, these adults are primarily not casual gamers, who are our target audience. The intent of Bankruptcy: The Card Game is to be a fun game that kids can play with each other or with their parents and only take about 15 minutes on average to play.

That being said, all of the casual gaming adults that I have played it with enjoyed it just as much as the kids did, sometimes even more.

TomVasel wrote:
...I will acknowledge the speed, humor, and ease of the game.

Thank you, those are the three things that we tried very hard to accomplish.

TomVasel wrote:
The cards are fine quality, although they used the "cut the deck in half and slide it in a box" annoying format.

This is our first card game product, and we went with what was easily available. What, in your opinion, is a better format? We have more games that we intend to produce, and one of the things that we do take seriously is customer feedback.

TomVasel wrote:
The game could look better - this, I think, will be a big drawback for the game.

I am very happy with our artwork. That being said, could the game look better? Yes. I have no misconceptions that it could not. Art is a huge factor in the game industry and we are still learning what we can and cannot do to help ourselves in that regard.

TomVasel wrote:
Rules: The rules are two pages of very clear rules, explaining exactly how to play the game, with a complete example of play! This may be unnecessary; but it's helpful to new players, and I can't complain about too much explanation! The game takes about two minutes to teach, and even younger children will pick up on it!

I cannot stress enough how important this particular aspect of the product was to me. I've played many, many games where the rules are unintentionally vague or even misleading, and I wanted to make sure that would not be the case with our rules sheet. Thank you for realizing this.

TomVasel wrote:
Strategy: Oddly enough, there are some interesting decisions in the game - mostly with the Bear cards.

This is one of the things that I think really sets us off from the Uno concept - the symbiotic relationship between Bear Market cards and Stock Share cards.

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Once again, thank you Tom, we truly appreciate your feedback, and we'd love to hear from more people as well. Please tell us what you think of our game, and most importantly, tell us why. We want to make our products the best that they can be, and you can help us do that.

Coy Kissee
Tangent Games (http://www.tangent-games.com)

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

wwscrispin — 2008-04-25T16:26:55+00:00

By definition you can not be a shill for your own product unless you are impersonating someone else.

With regard to BGG, designer and producers of games should be able to rate their games as they see fit without calling down the wrath of some vocal subset of the membership.

There is one person who slaps a one on every wargame that the designer rates. I do not know what his issue is. Aldie approves so what is the problem?

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

abrannan — 2008-04-25T16:23:15+00:00

Re-tune your shill radar, Doc. Or rather, perhaps we, as a community, should re-define what "shill" means. A designer favorably rating his or her own game? Not a shill. A designer creating numerous fake accounts so that they can falsely increase the number of positive ratings? Shill. Besides, it's not like people pay attention to the overall rating/ranking of anything outside the top 50-100 games anyway.

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

Aldaron — 2008-04-25T16:09:31+00:00

I look forward to the day when the self appointed shill police realize just how little we're interested and give up on posts like this.

Let people rate how they want to rate.

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

ckissee — 2008-04-25T16:04:26+00:00

Hi, I am one of the designers of Bankruptcy: The Card Game. In response to coolpapa, I have added a personal comment in with my rating to reflect that I am one of the designers along with some additional information. Thank you Matt, for pointing that out.

Thread: Re: [Review] Bankruptcy: the Card Game

Stephanie7364 — 2008-02-19T17:14:07+00:00

Thanks for the good review(s). I always look at your reviews first before buying a game. Now I can knock my want list down by one more.

Thread: [Review] Bankruptcy: the Card Game

TomVasel — 2008-02-19T14:48:58+00:00

The concept in Bankruptcy (Tangent Games, 2007 - Geoff Habiger & Jim Gower) is that players are attempting to declare bankruptcy by liquidating their stock in the "SuperMegaBig Company". While the concept is funny, it's nothing new; as I was laughing at the same "get poor" idea in Go For Broke as a child. Still, stock games tend to suck me in; and so I was interested in giving this one a chance, especially with the reverse theming.

Well, the deal is this: Bankruptcy is simply an "Uno" style game, in which players are simply trying to get rid of all the cards in their hand. This is accomplished by playing a few different types of cards, to help yourself and hurt other players. There is a huge amount of luck, which is slightly countered by the very short playing time. I've had piles of kids play through it and have a laughing time, but it's entirely too light for adults. This, combined with a poor graphic design makes me give it a negative vote, although I will acknowledge the speed, humor, and ease of the game.

A deck of 110 cards is shuffled, and seven are dealt to each player. The rest are placed in a draw pile, and one player is chosen to go first. Fifty cards in the deck are share cards - and denote 1 to ten shares in the company. These cards cannot be played by themselves. Instead, a player may play one of the following types of cards:
- Bear: A good market, hooray! These cards cause good fortune for another player or your choice, causing them to draw two to four cards from the deck. Likely they will give you a glare in exchange for their shares doing well.
- Bull: These cards are numbered from "4" to "20". The cause "misfortune", allowing a player to discard up to that many shares from the company, may be multiple cards. A player may not play a Bull card if they have no shares.
Special Card: These cards allow a variety of things, such as causing everyone to draw a card, or switch hands with another player, or give half of your cards to someone else.

If a player cannot play a card, they must draw one and end their turn. Play passes to the next player, and the game continues until one player is out of cards. They then can declare Bankruptcy and win the game!

Some comments on the game...

1.) Components: The cards are fine quality, although they used the "cut the deck in half and slide it in a box" annoying format. My main problem is with the design of the cards. There is one piece of artwork used in the game - it's on the box cover and back of the cards. This same picture is cut up and stretched out on the Bull and Bear cards, which looks slightly odd. (Were they going for haunted looking faces?) However, the special cards are made to look like a newspaper, with the actual directions of the cards mixed in with a ton of non-necessary text. I like flavor and theme, but the quotes are often boring and don't match the text on the cards. The game could look better - this, I think, will be a big drawback for the game.

2.) Rules: The rules are two pages of very clear rules, explaining exactly how to play the game, with a complete example of play! This may be unnecessary; but it's helpful to new players, and I can't complain about too much explanation! The game takes about two minutes to teach, and even younger children will pick up on it!

3.) Theme: Does the game teach one about the stock market? Well, perhaps, if you read the random quotes on the cards, but likely not. Sure, I was able to explain to some students what a "Bear" and "Bull" market meant, but that's about it. Other than that, they will learn about playing bad cards on other players and good cards on themselves.

4.) Strategy: Oddly enough, there are some interesting decisions in the game - mostly with the Bear cards. The Bull cards are simple - play them on the player with the fewest cards, or on yourself if you desperately need a card. The Bear cards are trickier. If you have several of them in your hand, it's not a wise idea to use one to get rid of a pile of share cards, because you'll need at least one for each Bear Card. There are a lot of Bear cards in the deck, so players can expect to get piles of them each game. But don't expect anything else; players will usually just play the cards they have. And even if you have strategy planned, it's likely someone will exchange their hand for yours or give you four cards.

5.) Time and Fun Factor: If this game was five minutes longer, I would hate it. But since it takes around five to ten minutes to play (unlike Uno marathons), I can stand it. Kids especially will have a lot of fun chucking cards. But even with them, it's merely something to play while waiting for the "really" fun game.

The problem with Bankruptcy: the Card Game is that it just doesn't offer anything unique or different from other games - from a lackluster presentation to rather derivative mechanics. It's not the next Uno (a game it will likely often be compared to), but it won't completely disappoint. So I would tell folks who already own the game - play it, you might enjoy it! But if you haven't heard of the game before, then pass it by - there are both better card games and better stock games. This will amuse you for twenty minutes, but it's quite forgettable.

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
www.thedicetower.com

Thread: Re: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

coolpapa — 2008-02-19T00:25:54+00:00

In their defense, there is no attempt to hide the fact that they are the designers of the game. Their usernames are their real names, so it's clear what's going on. Now, would I appreciate it if they noted in a comment with their ratings that they are the designers of the game? Yes.

Thread: Ok, my shill radar has gone off.

docreason — 2008-02-18T23:10:25+00:00

Two ratings of 9.0 for this game? The game has two designers for it?

I am detecting shill here! Has any more neutral people actually tried this game, which is described as having Uno-like play mechanics?

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paleogeoff — 2007-08-30T15:46:05+00:00

Bankruptcy Cover