What do you think would happen if you gave a chicken a beehive launcher? Or how about a rabbit armed with a wagon wheel shield? These are just some of the crazy combinations you’ll find in “Barn Brawl”, a game that’ll be seeking funding on Kickstarter in April, 2024. It supports 2-6 players and is appropriate for ages 14+. Games typically take around an hour. Before we slap on our “horsuriken” (you’ll see) and dive into the game, I’m required by FTC regulations to disclose that I was paid to cover this game. As always, any and all opinions are my own.
—
Components
My prototype copy came with a bunch of cards separated into six types:
Brawler Cards – These are the animals that will both brawl and earn points for the players.
Item Cards – Items may be attached to brawlers to buff them or give them some kind of ability. Max one item per brawler.
Perk Cards – These act like action or event cards that do something for an effect. They are typically discarded thereafter.
Negate Cards – These act like interrupt cards that stop someone from doing something.
Point / Trophy Cards – These come in bronze, silver, and gold. They are given to players at round end in order to award points.
Turn Cards – Track the four turns in a round.
—
Setup & Gameplay
The trophy cards are separated by point value and placed off to the side. The turn cards are given to the first player. The rest of the cards are shuffled into one big pile with each player getting 6 cards.
The game is played for as many rounds as needed until one player reaches the designated point threshold, which changes depending on player count. In a 2-4 player game, for example, the winner is the first player to get 10 points.
A round has 2 phases: DRAW & PLACE and BRAWL.
DRAW & PLACE
This phase consists of 4 turns. During a turn, all players take one individual turn in clockwise order starting with the start player. The turn cards are used to track complete revolutions. If everyone has had 4 complete turns, players stop and move onto the next phase.
On an individual player’s turn, they may play a maximum of 1 brawler, 1 item, and 1 perk card to their BARN, or the tableau in front of themselves. Negate cards can be played any time. Some brawler and item cards can have an effect immediately while others can only have an effect during the Brawl Phase.
BRAWL
First, players put their hands aside. Next, they’ll scoop up all the cards played to their BARN, being sure to keep items attached to their respective brawler owners. Mentally, players decide which ones they want to include in this brawl and on a 3 count, play them back to their BARN at the same time. Reveal them for all to see.
Starting in turn order, players will be able to use BRAWL abilities located on the cards in their BARN. Once everyone has had a chance to use these abilities one time each, players count the total power in their BARN area (Brawler cards have a power value).
The first place trophy (3 points) goes to the player with the highest power level. Second place (2 points) for the second highest, and third place (1 point) for the third highest. Players also draw cards from the main deck as consolation prizes, depending on their awarded place.
—
If a player has reached the agreed upon victory point score, the game ends and they win! Otherwise, continue to a new round starting with the DRAW & PLACE Phase.
The above doesn’t cover all of the rules found in the rulebook, but should give you a general idea as to how the game is played.
—
—
Impressions
This game is silly, but in a good way. It takes familiar concepts like action cards & interrupt cards and gives them their own unique spin. The art is teen/adult casual, I could tell the artist had fun allowing their creative juices to flow. I do appreciate that each card was color coded to fit their type, though I couldn’t help to think that the cards could be gussied up in some way. It’s probably unfair to compare, but Wingspan’s cards are full of pop with different fonts, box colors, and etc. I think the card backs are fine, however. I have to stress that prototypes do not represent the finished product, so this may not be an issue down the line.
From a gameplay standpoint, there’s a heavy “take-that” element at play here which some will enjoy and others will hate. Some cards will allow you to “slaughter” or “steal” cards from other players (Lil’ Bucker and Feral Fox, for example). As a parent, I have to caution other parents to keep an eye on things should things get heated. Players are free to gang up on one player too so that could be a problem depending on the players themselves. That said, this game is fairly casual and light, so as long as players go into this game with a similar mindset (losing is OKAY!) then there should be no problems.
I liked that some cards give you a phase specific bonus. Some cards have an ability that can be activated during the DRAW & PLACE Phase while others during the BRAWL Phase. There’s a bit of strategy and most importantly, timing that goes on here. I found myself playing the game of “Chicken” quite often. That is, there was a card I wanted to play but did NOT anyone to snipe away from me at the last second like some sort of awful eBay auction. As stated earlier, you’re going to get hit by SOMETHING at some point so I eventually just did what the kids do nowadays and YOLO. Did I use that right?
Speaking of cards, I love that there are so many and that their abilities are so varied. It can be true chaos at times. There are some crazy combinations out there that you’ll be able to play. Have a Luckfoot or Juggernox (power level 4, the highest in the game) but scared to play it during an aggressive/questionably close round? Equip them with Great Gram’s Hat, which allows you to return the brawler back to your hand at the end of the Brawl phase. Want to surprise your opponents by doubling the base power of your seemingly weak brawler? Try equipping them with some Hayroids. Unlike some other games, you’ll just never know who is going to win until the round is over.
As always, a Preview is not a Review. That said, I can really appreciate the flexibility of the player count and the quickness at which rounds can be played. It would be cool to see some kind of solo variant that has an AI playing random cards to be used against you. A game like this, in theory, would make it a good travel game assuming the final production box isn’t too big. My prototype copy box was both flashy and sturdy, but larger than the typical card game you’d find on a Walmart rack. With my prototype copy containing 209 cards, that’s completely understandable.
From what I’m told, “there will be exclusive cards and an exclusive game box specifically for the Kickstarter.” I wasn’t provided with a Kickstarter link yet, but in the meantime you can join their mailing list by heading on over to their official website (link below) and signing up to receive regular updates on their campaign.
And just to circle back around to the opening paragraph, a “horsuriken” is an item that, once per turn, can force your opponent to discard a card a card of their choice. While you can equip items to any brawler, I found it thematically best to give that to the Nin-Jackal, because of course you should.
Box Quote: A silly, light-hearted beat-em-up that features wacky animals and crazy attack combinations.
Epic Portal Games: https://www.epicportalgames.com/
—