Hello Everyone!
Today, I will be reviewing a card game from the creators of Exploding Kittens, the first game I reviewed here (if you have not had a chance to see the review and would like to know more about the game, click here).
Just like Exploding Kittens, this game is a bit off-beat, with a wacky sense of aesthetics and a bizarre premise. A prime example of this would be the box the game comes in.
Also similar to Exploding Kittens, the name of the game is misleading.
At first glance, one would think, "Bears vs Babies?! That's horrible! How could you subject innocent babies to vicious bears?!"
In reality, this line of thinking would be justified and correct. However, in the context of the actual game, it couldn't be further from the truth!
In this game, your goal is to build an army of monsters in order to fight the armies of babies (and eat them). That being said, the "babies" in question are wicked little devils that are more abomination than human. Many of them are more vicious than the monsters you are creating, thus (sort of) justifying the whole thing. Whoever is able to eat the most babies by the end of the game wins!
While Bears vs Babies is predominantly a card game, it does include a playmat that more or less serves as a game board. This can be seen below:
After laying out this mat, make sure to pull out the Bear Heads from the deck. There should be 5 of them total. Shuffle the rest of the cards well. Then each player gets one (1) Bear Head. If there are any left, they get shuffled into the deck as well. Finally, each player is dealt an additional 4 cards, giving them 5 cards in total.
Once all the players have 5 cards in there hand, including the Bear Head, the remaining deck is split into 3 approximately equal piles and placed on the 3 draw pile sections of the playmat.
From here, all of the players must look at their hands and play any Baby cards face down on the playmat. They should be placed on the locations that correspond to the color of the Baby cards.
For example, a green Baby would be placed face down on the Land Baby Army slot, a blue Baby would be placed face down on the Sea Baby Army slot, and a red Baby would be placed face down on the Sky Baby Army slot.
Some of the different Babies are shown below. As you can see, they are easily identified as Land, Sea, or Sky babies. In addition, you can see the numbers on each card. These will add together to dictate how strong each baby army is. For example, if you have 3 land Babies face down on the playmat with values of 3, 1, and 1, when you fight that army, it will have a strength of 5 (3 + 1 + 1 = 5).
Once all the Babies have been played out of the players' hands, they draw to replace the cards. This process repeats until there are 5 non-Baby cards in each player's hand.
Now it is finally time to begin the game!
When taking a turn, the number of players actually affects what you can do. This is because the total number of "Actions Per Turn" is directly affected by how many players there are. For example:
- 2 Players: 4 Actions Per Turn
- 3 Players: 3 Actions Per Turn
- 4+ Players: 2 Actions Per Turn
An action consists of either drawing a card from one of the draw piles or playing a card down to begin building your monster armies. However, be careful. If you choose to draw, but accidentally get a Baby card, not only do you have to add it face down to the corresponding baby army, but that also counts as one of your "actions" for the turn. If you get unlucky and draw 2 Babies (or more if you are playing with less than 4 people), then basically your turn is wasted and the baby armies become more powerful.
You can also choose to Dumpster Dive. When you do this, you are not allowed to take any actions (so no drawing or playing cards down), however, in return you can choose a card of your choice from the discard pile and place it in your hand. This option can make a huge difference in the game when used correctly, as it can provide you with whatever card you need, so long as that card is in the discard pile.
The final choice you can take on your turn, other than Taking Actions or Dumpster Diving, is to Provoke a baby army. If you choose this option, you are not allowed to take any actions or to use Dumpster Dive. More on this in a bit.
When building your monster armies, you must always start with a "head" card. You can add a body, then arms and legs afterward, but you MUST start with a head. Fortunately, these are incredibly obvious, so this should not be an issue, unless you just don't draw any.
From there, you can attach a body to the head. The bodies will vary in that some of them allow for arms and legs, some only allow for arms, and some don't allow for either. You just need to look at the body to see if there are any "stitches" on the sides or the bottom. If you see them, that means the corresponding body part can be attached. If you do not see them, then it cannot be.
Below is an example of a couple of monsters. One of them has a body that cannot have any arms or legs attached to it (the Pomeranian), while the other has a body that can have both arms and legs attached (the (Handsome) Salmon).
If you look closely where the cards are lined up with one another, you can see the "stitches" I mentioned earlier. This is an easy way to tell if you can or cannot attach cards. Just look for the stitches and remember that there are 3 between the head and the body, 2 between the arms and the body, and 4 between the legs and the body. When we first played, there were a couple mistakes where someone tried to line up legs with a head, or arms with a body that cannot have arms. The stitches will show you the way!
Also note that the monsters have a color designating their army and a numerical value as well. For example, A Pomeranian of Light and Wonder is a land monster with a power of 2, which can be seen in that it has the green land marker and a 2 at the top of the card. Likewise, A (Handsome) Salmon is a sea monster with a power of 2.
When determining the total power of your monster army:
- First look at whether they are a land, sea, or sky monster. Since these are separate armies, they cannot be added together. However, monsters of the same type can be added together (i.e. 2 land monsters).
- Add up the total values on the monster. If your monster has a value of 2 for the head, 1 for the body, 2 for the legs, and 1 for each arm, the total power is 6 (2 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 6).
NOTE: The Bear Head cards are the most powerful, with a value of 3 each. They will count toward all three armies, making them extremely versatile, but it also means you have to be more careful when playing them. More on this shortly.
There are also some other cards that perform certain actions. For example, there are various "hats" that will double the strength of a monster they are attached to. There is also a card that will allow you to swap any 2 monster heads on the table. This could be used offensively or defensively.
In addition, there are also various "Tools" that will provide you with extra actions per turn. The only downside to these is that they subtract 1 from your monster's power. Just remember that these can only be attached when the Tool Icons match up. See below for an example:
FINALLY WE CAN GET TO THE FIGHTING!!!
When you decide your army is sufficiently strong and want to battle the babies, you yell, "PROVOKE!" You then choose which army you want to fight, land, sea, or sky. Remember that your monster armies will fight the corresponding baby armies.
Now this is where things get interesting...
While it is true that you are trying to eat the babies to earn points, and in order to do this, your army has to beat their army, your true enemies are actually the other players.
When an army is Provoked, the corresponding army for each player competes against that army.
For example, if I were to provoke the land army, then players B, C, and D (everyone other than me) would also have to fight that army. Among the 4 of us, whoever has the most powerful army will be the one to keep the Baby cards. However, if none of us is strong enough to defeat the Baby Army, then nobody will get the cards.
At the end of the turn, all armies, both Baby and Monster alike, that participated in the battle, get discarded to the discard pile. This opens up the "Provoke" action to many strategic possibilities. Obviously you need to defeat baby armies to earn points and to win. However, you can also provoke weak baby armies just to force your opponents to discard their strong monster armies so that you don't have to compete against them later.
In addition, you can "Provoke" a baby army whether or not you have a monster army of that type. For instance, let's say I do not have a sea army at all. On the playmat, there is a weak sea army. My opponents have massive sea armies and are just waiting for more sea babies to be added before they go in for the kill. I can yell "PROVOKE!" and provoke the sea army, even though I do not have one myself.
This will force my opponents to discard their powerful armies while getting little in return. However, this is also the reason you must be careful when using your Bear Head card, as it will count as any army and will be lost in this case.
The game is over once all the cards in the draw piles are gone. After someone draws the last card, everyone gets one more turn (including the person that drew the last card). When the last turn has been taken, everyone adds up the values of the baby cards they "ate" during the game. Whoever has the highest score wins!
All in all, this is a pretty fun game, though not without it's issues. There are 107 cards in the deck, which seems like a lot, but when you consider a significant portion of them are babies, some are special cards with various effects, and most of the rest are body parts, it leaves very few monsters that can actually be made.
If you are unfortunate enough to not draw any "heads," you may end up getting stuck with a fist full of worthless cards. Likewise, you may have several "heads," but no "bodies." This would also severely limit your options. You can certainly use the Dumpster Dive action to acquire new monster cards from the discard pile, but this replaces the rest of your actions, so it should not be used on a regular basis.
Playing with less than 4 people may help these issues, as you would have more actions and there would be less competition for the same cards.
I believe this game would benefit greatly from an expansion pack, especially if it focuses on the monster cards (more heads and bodies especially).
Overall, this is still a fun game and worth playing. There is a fair bit of strategy involved in it, which adds to the excitement and makes it a bit more skill based than the last 2 games I have reviewed (this isn't to say that luck isn't still a large part of it though).
Based on my experience with it, I would give it a 6.5 / 10. However, since we forgot about Dumpster Dive when we played it, which certainly could have helped to resolve some of the issues, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and round up to 7 / 10. If an expansion comes out for this game, providing more monsters, I could easily see my rating going up to an 8.
Summary:
Genre: Card Game
Number of Players: 2-5
Difficulty: Medium
Score: 7 / 10
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Congratulations! This exceptional post has been featured in Episode 2 of The STEEM Engine Express Podcast. Click the link to hear what I had to say, and keep up the good work!
Such a nice game review @tj5553
Thank you!
Oh my goodness this looks like a fun game lol... Our boys love playing Exploding Kittens and this looks like an ideal game to add to the stash as the older they become the more they appreciate the strategy of playing. Hopefully as you mention they'll come out with an expansion pack as they did with Exploding Kittens. Looking forward to the next post as we're always on the lookout for new games for our 5 kids!
Thank you for reading! It is pretty fun. The only issues I had with it are the ones I listed above. But yeah, it definitely requires some strategy and critical thinking, which is a nice change of pace from many of today's games. If you do get it, I hope your boys enjoy it and I would love to hear back on your thoughts!
This company sure seem to make quite unique and original games
Thanks for reading! They most certainly do. I'm always excited, yet nervous to see what they are coming out with next.
I loved k forward to future posts and rev
My crew might enjoy this game as we play a lot of board games in the evenings, may have to get this one and give it a shot. Thanks for pointing out the details like the "stitching", that could definitely save some arguments for new learners.
It is my pleasure! The artwork and concept of the game are a bit out there, but the actual gameplay itself is quite fun. It's nice to to hear of more people who still enjoy playing board games on a regular basis.
We prefer board games over video games because you can look each other in the eye and interact, plus you control speed of the game not a machine. It just works better us in the long run for family time games.
I feel the same way. While I'm all for any games that will bring friends and family together (and I know there are certainly video games out there that do), video games in general just aren't as intimate as board games, nor do they provide the same level of personal interaction with one another.
This is hilarious! I grew up in a family that loves board games. We segued into video family games but still use board games too. Thank you for sharing this game, it looks super fun. From your fellow STEEMengineer, Casandra. xx
Thank you for reading Casandra! What I love about board games is the company :) You have the chance to get together and hang out while you play. I'm all for family video games as well, as long as you are all playing together and interacting, I think it's great! Hopefully you get a chance to try this one out at some point. Like you said, it's hilarious, but very strange...
I agree. Thank you again for the review. Itโs always fun to know the new games that come out.
haha this game look really funny, you can get it by the title. also i really like the ''twisted'' version of baby monsters that needs to be killed :P
the only drawback i see on card games is that with technology advancing an online version of it i think would be more beneficial both to the developers and the people playing it!
It would certainly make it easier to access and play with others. However, I still prefer the hard copy. There's just something great about gathering a group of people around a table to play a game.
yes nothing can beat bringing your friends over and have a blast but as you grow, with family job etc etc it's getting harder and harder to achieve it! except if you say every sunday it will be the board game day :P
Haha, very true. We still manage to play a fair number of games as a family, but getting friends together to play is a real chore for sure. Life has a knack for getting in the way sometimes.
Exploding Kittens is a fun game. Gotta love The Oatmeal twisted humor. I'll give this a try, thank you for sharing!
Indeed it is! Glad to be of service. I hope you enjoy the game!
Another fun review! Glad to see this series continue.
I have never heard of this game before, but I'm always up for learning about a new game. I can see why you wish there are more cards. When you're building things, you'd expect there to be many options. Hopefully they will release an expansion pack for the game and it will make it more fun.
It just seems like a very odd game, but I'm sure it would be fun to learn the nuances and strategies for. Thank you so much for sharing. This post is very well done.
I like your pink and green divider graphics. Those add a nice touch to the post.
Thank you very much! It is an odd game for sure, but that's part of the novelty and fun of it. I like how you have to find a balance in going after the babies, while still sabotaging or defending against the other players. It really makes you think before you take action.
And thank you for the compliments on the divider graphics. I'm still trying to get better at the formatting and implementing visual aids, but I think I'm slowly getting there one step at a time.
Specifically when it comes to format and balance (or anything else), if you have any recommendations or criticisms, please let me know.
Of course. I wrote a blog about style a while back, but it looks like you are following most of those guidelines pretty well already. Your paragraphs are broken up nicely so that it's easy to read, so I say keep up the good work. I'll let you know if I have any other thoughts.
Otherwise, I've enjoyed your take on games. I might write a review or two of my own since I got some new games over the Christmas holiday!
Well I certainly look forward to reading them!
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