Revenge of the B-Move (RotBM) is a fast, light card playing came for 3-6 players. It plays in about 15-30 mins. Players take on the role of directors trying to come up with ideas for great B-Movies which they can then sell to movie studios. The player who manages to earn a set amount of money first will win.
What Do I Get?
For your money you get:
63 Cards - The cards share a common back and have different colours on their front side to indicate their function. The colours are nice and bright and the text is clear and legible. The artwork is simple but appropriate for the theme.
1 Rules Sheet - A small, double-sided sheet of paper contains all the rules you will need to play.
1 Box
You will need to provide your own d6 and something to record scores.
How Do I Play It?
The game play will play over a series of rounds. At the beginning of each round, each player is dealt 5 cards. Cards come in 5 flavours: introductions (e.g. "Revenge of The"); monsters/makeup (e.g. "Bunny/Fluffy"); special fx (e.g. "Radioactive"); finales (e.g. "From Mars"); and connections (e.g. "Vs."). Some cards fall into two classes and can be used as either according to the players needs. Each player will take it in turn to play a card either into his own film, or a film owned by one of his opponents (not all cards are beneficial). The round will end once all players have played or discarded all of their 5 cards.
There are a few rules on what can and can't be played into a film: you can add any number of monster cards (with extra ones acting as makeup cards instead), any number of special fx cards, a single introduction (unless you have a connection), a single connection (unless you have an introduction) and a single finale (although "The Musical" can be added to any film, even one which already has a finale). In general, if you find something makes the film name sound weird it probably isn't allowed. You may have up to two film ideas on the go at the same time. Also, players may rearrange the cards in any one of their own movies during their turn.
After playing or discarding a card a player can then choose to "wrap" a completed film in front of him. A film is complete if it contains at least one monster or at least two monsters if it also contains a connection. Again, this is usually obvious from how the film name sounds. Wrapping involves turning the last card in the film 90 degrees to show it is wrapped. No more cards can be added to a wrapped film by any player and the film can now be sold at the end of the round (see below). A film is also automatically wrapped when it reaches 7 cards. The round ends when the players have no more cards left to play.
Each card has a cult value which will either be positive (e.g. "Radioactive" is +1) or negative (e.g. "Tiny" is -1). The cult value of a film is the total of the cult value of the cards which make up its title. Some cards have what are called "edits" which will either increase their value or change them from negative value to positive value when they are played in combination with a certain other card. For example, the card "Beautiful" has a value of -1. However, if the film title also contains "Women" or "Cheerleaders" then the "Beautiful" card changes from -1 to +1.
At the end of each round, the players can choose to try and sell any wrapped films they have. To do this they simply count up the cult value of the film and then roll a d6. If they roll over the cult value then no one is willing to produce that film at the moment and they can choose either to bin it (discarding all the cards) or carry it into the next round (where it will still occupy one of their two slots for making films). However, if they manage to roll equal to or less than the cult value, then some studio decides to pick-up the movie and pays the player some amount of money for the film. Films with 5 or fewer cards are worth $1,000,000 per point of cult value, films with 6 cards are worth $2,000,000 per point and films with 7 cards are worth $3,000,000 per point. Players track the amount of money they have and the first to reach a set amount ($20m, $15m or $10m for 3, 4 or 5+ players, respectively) wins.
So What's It Like?
This game lives or dies by its theme. There is no deep strategy at play here - you play good cards into your own movies and bad ones into your opponents, your hand will not change over the turn and you will get to play all of your cards. There is a small amount of strategy around whether or not to wrap your film, but it is generally a clear cut choice. Anyone looking for a serious "game" here will be a little disappointed. On the flipside, the lack of serious decision making ensures the game plays fast which is just what you need for filler like this. The rules are simple and it takes minutes to explain. The fact that many of the rules can be intuited from whether or not the resulting movie title would sound correct also helps players pick it up quickly.
The real fun lies in the crazy film names which are produced over the course of the game. "Beautiful Women Meet The Radioactive Biker Bunnys From Toyland" being an example of one from our first game which was enough to get me to pony up for my own copy. Other highlights include the ever exciting, "Day of The Woman From Down The Road", and the comic book-esque, "Radioactive Man Meets The Nazi Priests". This will rely the on your players to get into the spirit of things ("I like the sound of your Chainsaw-Weilding Spiders, but think it would be awesome if they were Tiny") but if you do, there will be plenty of laughter and enjoyment to go around.
There are a few minor niggles around the production quality of RotBM (although I guess that might be fitting given the theme
): the cardstock is not the most sturdy (sleeving is probably mandatory); of the three boxes I purchased, one came apart within a day of purchase; and the colour tone of the colouring on the backs of the cards can vary quite dramatically. I appreciate that this is a small, first run and the game is reasonably cheap (around 9 GBP) but I would have paid more for better production quality. It should be noted, however, that I purchased my copies from the first run of the game and that the designer is aware of and resolving these issues. Future copies are likely to be better quality all round.As a final niggle, it might have been nice to have some artwork on the cards to help people get into the spirit. The cards are very nice and colourful, with a fitting typeface and clear fonts but it could have been great to have either pictures or use different typefaces (for example "Radioactive" could be written in a glowing green font) to add more character to the cards. As it is, it's all left up to the players imaginations, although it doesn't detract from the gameplay in anyway.
Conclusion
RotBM is a super-fun, super-light filler game which, with the right players, will provide plenty of entertainment and laughter. The duration is just right for this sort of game. The intitial production quality does leave something to be desired, but this doesn't have any real impact on how the game plays or feels and should improve with further printings of the game.
Last edited on 2008-06-02 17:00:48 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Mon Jun 2, 2008 5:23 pm
