Evil Baby Orphanage is a semi-educational game of time travel and abduction!
Title: Evil Baby Orphanage
Year Published: 2011
Designer: Justin Gibbs, Mack Martin
Publisher: Wyrd Miniatures
Players: 3-6
Game Time: 15 Mins
Set-up Time: >5 Mins
Ages: 10+
Theme: Evil Babies
Mechanic: Card Game
How to win: Get 8 mischief
Game Description
Evil Baby Orphanage is a communal deck party card game for three or more players. Each player takes on the role of a Time Nanny using advanced time out technology to rid the time stream of the world’s worst villains and “prehabilitate” them to be accountants, or ballerinas, or something.
The game consists of two decks; the baby deck and the nanny deck. During your turn play nanny cards from your hand to “adopt” babies from your friends, keep your babies in check, and make your opponent’s babies go nuts. Then each of your babies takes its “unsupervised actions” unless you can calm them down with toys or nap time. Finally, adopt an evil baby from the time stream (three face up babies from the baby deck), draw more nanny cards, and end your turn.
Start your turn with ten mischief and win the game, but be careful, containing the world’s most mischievous babies isn’t easy! Keep your babies from burning down your orphanage as you try to keep the Unabomber away from the arts and crafts table, Kim Jong Il away from the toy rocket ship, and Caligula away from everyone…
Evil Baby Orphanage Set Up
Each player is dealt a random Time Nanny which is placed face up in front of the player. The rest are placed back in the tin.
Each player is dealt 4 Nanny cards placed in the centre of the table creating the Nanny deck.
Each player is dealt 1 Evil Baby to get their Orphanage started, this is placed in front of them. The rest are placed in the centre of the table to create the Baby deck. 3 babies are turned face up creating the time stream.
Evil Baby Orphanage Game Play
A player’s turn is taken over 5 phases.
1 – Win
If you have 8 mischiefs at the beginning of your turn, you win.
2 – Activity
Players play the cards in their hands and then follow the instructions on them.
3 – Supervise
From left to right, each player resolves the ‘unsupervised’ effects on their babies. Some babies have their own unique text but most have one or more of the following 5 symbols.
Bully – Choose an opponent then move one of their babies to an orphanage on their left or right
Biter – Choose one of your other babies then move it to an orphanage on your left or right
Grabby – Let’s you steal a toy or time machine from another Nanny
Babbling – Players to your left or right draw a card
Creepy – This baby moves to your left or right.
If you played a good toy into your Orphanage in the Activity page, you can discard it to ‘Supervise’ a baby so it does not perform its unsupervised actions.
4 – Adopt
Take a baby or time machine from the time stream. Put a baby either on the left or right of your Orphanage then refill the time stream.
5 – Draw
Discard any number of cards in your hand and draw back up to 4
End Game
At the start of a player’s turn, if they have 8+ mischief in their Orphanage, they win. There are alternate win conditions on some of the Time Nannies.
Evil Baby Orphanage Round-Up
Erm… ok.
Firstly the theme and art are great and it’s a very unique theme and while playing we have used Wikipedia to learn more about these evil characters from history. I love the art in the game, especially for the cute little toys. (Check out Hannibal’s Elephant!)
The activity cards are good, and cute too. There’s some fun to be had stealing babies from other Orphanages or shuffling them around the table.
There are tactical choices to be made. When to play activity cards, when to supervise babies, which side of your orphanage to put babies in.
But, the game is a little random and one good card draw can win it on turn 2.
Rating
Too slow for a filler, not challenging enough for anything else. But it does come with cuteness and laughs.
I give it 3/10