Our new card game, Gutsy, received its first review this week, on Episode 432 of the Dice Tower, a podcast about board and card games that has a audience of about 25,000. We’ve been delighted by the game, currently for sale within the shop associated with our new exhibit The Secret World Inside You but, well, we made it – of course we’d be happy with it! But how would the mainstream gaming world feel when they first played it? Would it meet their expectations for a good game? This was our first chance to find out.
You can listen to the 3-minute review below, which I excerpted from the full episode.
For those looking for the soundbites, here we go:
“It’s very light, almost Flux-light sometimes, because you are changing hands sometimes. So any planning you might have had going on can get thrown out the window if these events come up.”
Translation for non-gamers: Gutsy discourages long-term strategizing because it includes random elements that can undermine your plans. So it might not be for serious gamers.
“Even though its goal is to teach you something, and it is being sold to the general public in the gift shop at the American Museum of Natural history, it’s actually an interesting game.”
Translation: Gutsy defies expectations. No one expects a game including educational goals to be any good. And no one expects any game, of any type, developed for sale in a Museum gift shop, to be of interest to hardcore gamers.
“A light game for sure, a chaotic game, but a game with decisions, and novel mechanisms, and one I have to appreciate.”
Translation: A game design succeeds because it offers players interesting and meaningful decisions, and enables players to make them in a unique way. Gutsy does both.
“So I liked Gutsy, I don’t think it’s one I would play all the time, but I have to appreciate it. It’s a gutsy move to have gone in this direction with a card game being sold in a museum gift shop.”
Translation: AMNH raised the bar for what gamers can expect from a Museum-produced game. At least… that’s how I hear it, and I’m sticking with my story.
Thank you Dice Tower for taking the time to review our game.
Download your own print-and-play version, for free, and let me know what YOU think.
