If you want a standard, light deck-building game with good mechanics and a bit of humour, Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil could be for you.
Title: Penny Arcade The Game: Gamers vs Evil
Year Published: 2011
Designer: Mike Donais, Paul Sottosanti
Publisher: Cryptozoic
Players: 2-4
Game Time: 30+ Mins
Set-up Time: >5 Mins
Ages: 16+
Theme: The Penny Arcade World
Mechanic: Deck Building
How to win: Score the most Victory Points
Game Description
Welcome to the world of Penny Arcade, the top web comic for all things gaming, so it’s only fitting that Penny Arcade gets its own deck-building game. Players will select cards from a communal pool. You’ve followed the way of the warrior, the story of the Cardboard Tube Samurai. You too wept with Charles over the lack of Halo on the Macintosh. Now rally them together to build your perfect deck.
Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Set-Up
Set up is very easy and only takes a couple of minutes.
Firstly you pick one random Red boss and one random Green boss. Shuffle the boss cards and put 4 face-down under the Level 1 card, 4 face-down under the Level 2 card and place the Level 3 card face up at the bottom.
Merch (Green) and Fleshreaper (Red) are in every game and the Red-backed cards are used to randomise the other 12 piles. There may not always be an even number of Red and Green piles to choose from.
The ‘Deleted Cards’ and Pax Pox stack are placed near the board. All the other cards are lined up, usually by colour and in order of their cost.
Next, deal out two Character cards to each player so they can choose one to use for the game.
Now, we personally prefer to deal out character cards first before setting up the game to make it more interesting. This means you pick a character and then adjust your play to how the board is set up. But, as long as everyone has the same advantage/disadvantage I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Whichever way you choose to do it, you will have a starting deck containing the number of Tokens or Cardboard Tubes stated on your character card. You may also start with another card in your deck, depending on the character.
Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Game Play
Again, VERY straightforward.
You shuffle your deck and draw 6 cards add up the number of Tokens or Power you produce and buy up to as many cards as you can afford.
The purchased cards and the cards you played go into your discard pile, you discard unused cards and draw up back up for your next turn. On your third turn, you are generally out of cards in your deck so you shuffle your discard pile to create a new deck and draw 6, hopefully drawing those juicy new cards you purchased.
For anyone even slightly familiar with how deck-building games work this will all be very familiar.
End Game
When 6 stacks of cards (including the Pax Pox Stack) have been depleted, or either level 3 boss had been bought, the game ends at the end of that turn.
Most victory points win.
Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Round-Up
It is VERY basic but a lot of fun. More filler than a real game but you can play 5-6 games in a couple of hours. If you know the Penny Arcade characters and like the Penny Arcade humour then this is definitely one for you.
Taking the Green Strategy over the Red is quite balanced. Standard Green cards don’t get you any points but the Boss loots are worth more. With Red, each card is worth at least 1 point but the Boss loots are worth fewer points.
Green tends to favour card drawing, card deleting and defence from attacks with Boss loots favouring luck (Roll of a die)
Red favours attacks and pure power with Boss loots having a strong but definite ability.
So either way, the game plays pretty much the same. PVP attack cards make the game somewhat interactive but generally, this is a solitaire game.
It’s very quick, turns are fast and it’s often over just as you get your deck engine running. Speaking of which, you can build a pretty decent engine. Cards that allow you to delete stuff allow you to keep a deck of around 6-8 cards. Card drawing can help you draw your 12-14 card deck EVERY turn if you do it right.
But, as I said, the game will usually end just as you get this going.
Also, as 6 piles emptying ends the game there is room for a player who believes they won’t win to just start buying up multiple copies of cheaper cards to get the game finished.
Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Rating
Trying not to take into account the many, MANY times I’ve played this and the fact there is an iPhone app (Update: No longer supported :() which is really good. It has worn out on me a bit though.
I give this 5/10
Fave 5 Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Cards
A deck builder is full of cards and some are better than others, here are my fav 5!
5 -Giant Cupcake
Taken from this comic, The Giant Cupcake costs 2 power and the next turn you draw it you can delete it to gain a red card cost 4 or less.
So it slows you down short term but eventually, you get a nice little bonus. I quite enjoy being able to buy 2 of these on the first turn or even 3 on the first cycle of the deck with the right character.
Being able to get a couple of Div’s or a pair of Scrotuum’s (Ha!) earlier than should be allowed sets up the rest of the game nicely.
4 -TouchWieners
Card drawing is important in most card games, even if it means letting your opponent draw one too.
Costing 4 Tokens and giving you 2 isn’t too bad. But the card drawing, and asking “Would anyone like to Touch Weiners?” A very Penny Arcade thing to do.
3 -Sorcelator
1 Token, 1 Power, Draw a card… Awesome
Read the mini-series starting here
2 -Werewolf with a Top Hat
3 Tokens and 3 Power with one card. Still a good card to buy even if you’re not going for both Tokens and Power.
No pic 🙁
1 – Faerie Candymancer
Card drawing has always been a big thing in card games, pretty much the most important thing. The more cards you have, the more options. But deck-building games mean the smaller your deck, the better chance you have of drawing a good hand. Being able to delete cards, especially the starting cards, is a great thing.
Faerie Candymancer allows you to delete a card from your hand every time you play it, thinning your deck each time. That ability on its own would be good but add in the 2 Tokens AND the bonus from deleting a Pax Pox… My Fave card.
Fave 5 Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil Characters
Each group will have its own way of choosing which character to use. We deal out 2 randomly to each player and you choose BEFORE the game cards piles are chosen.
We find this means you can’t just pick the character to suit the board. Too many games were won with Rex Ready thanks to Bat Milk AND Fairy Candymancer being out.
So when picking there are usually some I’d rather pick than others, here are my Fave 5.
5 – Mr Period
The reason I like Mr Period is that no matter the board set up, you can benefit.
I pretty much go either ALL Green or ALL Red depending on which side takes my fancy. It’s not a perfect situation but it’s nice to have a challenge.
A lot of the time that +1 is the difference between buying a boss, and not.
4 – Kreazie
Again, the board set-up can really help this card.
If there are a few low-cost cards of both colours you can start getting a bonus right from the off. Also, it doesn’t matter too much what you buy as long as you get that extra card. Good mindless fun.
3 – Rex Ready
License to Kill is awesome, especially early on when you’re deleting Cardboard Tubes.
Back before we house-ruled the almost official errata to BatMilk (Reveal one card instead of 2) this was my number 1 pick. As mentioned in the intro, if Batmilk and Fairy Candymancer are out you could delete anything Red from your deck and Green it all the way to almost a Boss a turn.
Now we changed the rule I still like it, delete is a powerful thing in deck-building games but it’s not an automatic pick for me.
2 – Annarchy
Bat’leth is strong right through the game.
You’re hoping for a slightly Red heavy board set up. If not you still get a nice early jump on buying a hefty Red card on turn one or two.
1 – Catsby
Twisp is amazing right from turn one and gets better as the game goes on.
Being able to copy ANY card you play is a great ability. It gives you +1 of whatever you need the first time you play it and later on allows you to copy bosses.
It’s my fave character from Penny Arcade: Gamers vs Evil. That doesn’t mean I pick it every time I get it, but usually, I won’t pass on it.
Jesta ThaRogue