Shadows: Amsterdam is a real-time party game

Title: Shadows: Amsterdam

Year Published: 2018

Designer: Mathieu Aubert

Publisher: Libellud

Players: 2-8

Game Time: ~20 mins

Set-up Time: ~5 mins

Ages: 10+

Theme: Modern Day Antromorphisised Amsterdam

Mechanisms: Real Time, Modular Board, Point to Point Movement

How to win: Score 2 points by gathering evidence and returning it to the client.

Game Description

Amsterdam, present day. A crime has been committed, but the police investigation is going nowhere. An anonymous client has called your detective agency to investigate. However, your rivals are on the case as well, so there’s no time to waste.

Set Up, Game Play & Game End

Shadows: Amsterdam Round-Up

Theme

There is a theme but it’s not important. It’s a race against time party game. No time for flavour text, fluff or roleplay… time is ticking!

Setup & Rulebook

The setup is OK. It’s a little bit fiddly with all the tiles etc. The middle bit is easy, but adding the large tiles around the outside is difficult.

They aren’t quite centred and how they should be. You’re just making a circle but because they’re uneven it feels wrong while you’re doing it.

The rulebook is solid. It makes sense and has good examples.

Components & Artwork

The components are OK. The bits are OK, and the cards are thin but it’s fine. The map holds together well during play

The art has to be good and it is. BUT, details are VERY difficult to see at the speed the game unfolds.

Everything is good enough to keep this down to a compact cheap game.

Ease of teaching & Accessibility

VERY simple. There isn’t much to it at all. As with all real-time games though you don’t have time to teach once the game begins. So, stick new players as a Detective and let them follow the other players until they’re ready. Even if they a very new and don’t get the bigger picture they should be able to make suggestions on the current movement choice.

We actually had a couple of players drop in during the game as it was in progress. We said, “OK, Look at that card, which of these 6 spaces do you think it is”. They have now just learned 2 of the 3 phases of the game.

It’s very accessible and easy to understand. Some people might not be able to keep up with the pace and if you have an Alpha gamer, well, make them the Intelligence Officer out of the way 🙂

Shadows: Amsterdam Summary

I like Mysterium and I like the ‘idea’ of Codenames. The issue I have with both of these games is the exceptionally slow pace. Especially if players have played a lot before and want to play perfect turn after perfect turn. Yawn.

Shadows: Amsterdam kinda combines both games and puts on the pressure removing the slow gameplay. Either against the other team or against the clock is lower player counts.

It’s really cool that you can play against the clock with 2-4 players and in teams with 4+ players. Some good flexibility there. As games are quick and accessible it’s one that will fit into ANY game day.

The Dixit/Mysterium style card play is a mechanism I really like and it’s great to see it in a faster game.

But, the faster pace of the game does prevent the Intelligence Officer from spotting detail on cards, but it’s whoever can do that best will win.

Rating I give it 6/10