Recently I was given the opportunity to check out an upcoming new game that is currently available to back on Gamefound. I received a prototype copy of the game. These are my thoughts and opinions on the presented materials. Enjoy!
Mindbug: Battlefruit Kingdom is a game by Christian Kudahl, Marvin Hegen, Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias, published by Nerdlab Games. It is a standalone game for 2 players but can also be mixed with any of the other Mindbug sets. In this game, players will be summoning wild hybrid fruit creatures to battle against their opponent’s creatures. Of course they will have to be careful when summoning a creature too powerful or their opponent might use the power of their Mindbug to take control of it, turning it against them. Players will have to be very strategic on when and what creatures they summon. The player that can overcome their opponent in this tactical duel will be declared the winner.
To begin, each player is given 2 matching Mindbugs which are placed face up in front of themself. The 48 creature cards are shuffled together. Each player is then dealt 10 random cards face down to create their draw pile. Each player will then draw 5 cards from their own draw pile to create their starting hand. Players will then take 3 cards from the unused stack of cards and place them face down in front of themself to represent their 3 life points. It is recommended to turn these sideways so as not get them confused with the draw pile. The starting player is chosen by each player drawing a card from the unused stack, highest card becomes the starting player. Play now begins.
The game is played with players alternating taking turns. Each turn a player must take 1 of 2 actions or lose the game. Those actions are to play a card or to attack with a single creature. To play a card, the player simply chooses one of the cards in their hand and places it face up on the table. The player then draws a card from their draw pile to bring their hand back to 5. The opponent will then choose whether to spend a Mindbug or refuse. If they choose to refuse or if they don’t have any Mindbugs left to use, then the original player will move the creature card into their play area and resolve it’s play effects, if there are any to resolve. The player then ends their turn and the opponent takes a turn. However if the opponent chose to spend a Mindbug, then they will immediately get to play that card instead, losing one of their Mindbugs. The Mindbug should be turned facedown to show it has been used. The opponent will then move the creature card into their play area, resolving any play effects that it has. The original player’s turn is now over and the opponent immediately gets another turn to either play a card or attack with a creature.
The other action a player can take is to attack with a creature. The attacking player will choose a single creature in their play area to attack with. The opponent will then choose a creature to block the attack with. If they choose not to block or they don’t have any creatures to block with, then they will lose 1 life point. Discarding one of their life point cards. If they chose to block, then the creature with the lower power is defeated and sent to that player’s discard pile. If both creatures have the same power, then both creatures are defeated and sent to their respective player’s discard piles.
The game continues until one of the player’s life points is reduced to zero or they are unable to perform one of the 2 actions. Once this happens, the game is over and the other player is the winner.
One last thing of note, creature cards will usually have keywords or triggers and abilities. These provide special abilities that can trigger when the creature comes into play, when it attacks or even when it’s defeated. Certain keywords allow the creature to attack twice, exhaust instead of being defeated or even become unblockable by any creature except those with the same keyword. This game provides a new keyword and new trigger. The Fast keyword allows the creature to attack or activate it’s action effect as soon as it comes into play. The Harvest trigger introduces a substance called “octonite” that when the trigger it activated it removes 1 of these substances. Once the last “octonite” is removed the Harvest effect is immediately activated.
COMPONENTS
What I received in the mail for this game was a prototype copy of the game and an add on pack for the 4 player mode of the game with 3 sneak peek cards in it. The cards are really vibrant and full of color. The finish is really nice on the cards and they are easy to shuffle. I really enjoy the artwork and find the somewhat humorous fruit hybrid creature to be lots of fun. The text on the cards is very easy to read and is just the right size, even for these old eyes. The game also comes with a couple of reference cards with all the abilities and keywords so I didn’t have to keep looking back at the rules sheet. After a couple of times playing the game, you start to learn what each keyword means. There are also some round tokens with little orange gems on them, which are the octonoite tokens. These are nice and are very visible once you place them on the cards. I’ve seen that the production copies will be coming with life trackers, player aid cards and octonite tokens. I think that will add a lot of production value to the game. Just based on what I got in the package and what’s here, I think everything is well designed and looks really good. If this is a preview of how good the actual game is going to look then I’m positive that players will really enjoy the finished product.
8 out of 10
RULEBOOK
There was no rulebook included with the prototype. I had to go online and download the rules from the website, along with the new rules for the Battlefruit Kingdom set. Since these were not included I will not rate them. I’ll simply say that the rules that I read weren’t difficult to understand and they only took a few minutes to read over. I was able to jump into playing the game pretty quickly which was pretty nice. Still would have been nice to have had something in the package, even if it had only been a printed sheet of paper.
7 out of 10
GAMEPLAY
This is a fairly simple and fun game to play, but it has a ton of strategy to it. You start with trying to figure out which card to play that helps you out but doesn’t make it where you’re opponent wants to steal it with their Mindbug. However sometimes that’s exactly what you want. You want them to use those Mindbugs so that you can play those more powerful creatures later….or do you? You see it’s these questions that you’ll find yourself thinking about every turn. On top of that, you have to figure out when the best time to use your Mindbugs is. Do you let them play this mediocre creature in hopes of stealing a bigger more power creature, or do you go for the smaller and faster creatures they play? As you can see, there’s a lot to think about and a whole bunch of strategy to this game. So much so that you might experience a bit of analysis paralysis. Hopefully not though, because nobody enjoys that. Still, there’s so much depth to this game and it’s really just a simple, quick playing card game. This is very easy to learn and it’s a lot of fun. In my opinion if a player can play UNO, then they can easily learn to play this game. It can be played in about the same amount of time too. The only issues that I see are learning the keywords and triggers and the fact that this can only be played with 2 players. That said, this can be combined with one of the other Mindbug sets, like Battlefruit Galaxy, to be able to play with 4 players. Honestly I enjoyed playing this one. I think players that enjoy dueling card games like Magic the Gathering, Yu-gi-oh or any of those other CCGs out there, will really enjoy this one. I think players that enjoy those old Garbage Pail Kids trading cards and other cards with that odd kind of humor, will also enjoy the look and feel of the game. Overall this is a game that I would recommend. It’s family friendly and a fun fast card game that is easy to play. I really like it.
9 out of 10
OVERALL
Mindbug: Battlefruit Kingdom is a quick and simple card game with a funky, fruity and fun theme. The game doesn’t take very long. Most game sessions last around 15-30 minutes. The cards are really great. I especially like the artwork and designs for these. There was no rulebook included with this prototype but what I found online looked really good and easy to understand. The game itself is fast and a lot of fun. It’s family friendly and can go from a 2 player game to a 2 vs 2 player game if you add another set like the Battlefruit Galaxy set. I the game is simple enough that new players can jump in fairly easily without having a ton of stuff to learn. It’s a game that I think fans of fast playing card games should enjoy, especially if they like dueling games like Magic the Gathering or any of those other CCGs out there. This is one that I would recommend and I think it will appeal to a very broad audience. I really enjoyed it and look forward to seeing what the final game looks like.
8 out of 10
For more information about this and other games, please check out Nerdlab Games at their site.
You can also check out the Gamefound campaign for this game and back your own copy by clicking the link below.
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/marvin-hegen/mindbug-battlefruits?ref=homepage-featured_3
You can also WIN your own prototype copy with the 3 card sneak peek pack for 4 player mode, because I’m giving away a set just like the one I have to 1 lucky person! Simply click on the link above and send me your name and address to be entered in the drawing! That’s it! Contest will run until May 3rd. Good Luck!
GAMING BITS 