This Game is so... Unfair?
- Jake
- Sep 2, 2017
- 3 min read
Number of Players: 2-5
Play Time: 50-125 Min
Age: 14+
Complexity Rating (Lower = Easier): 2/5
Website: www.unfair-game.com
Type: Card Game
Publish Year: 2017
Designer: Joel Finch
Artist: Nicole Castles, Lina Cossette,
David Forest and Philippe Poirier
Publisher: CMON Limited, Good Games Publishing
Description
Build the city’s greatest theme park, whatever it takes!
Mix your favourite themes, from Pirate, Robot, Vampire, Jungle, Ninja, and Gangster. Build attractions and upgrade them to match blueprints, stack up towering rides, or simply make the most cash.
But watch out - your competitors may pay off the safety inspectors to close your rides or hire hooligans to vandalise your park! How will you get revenge?
Whatever happens, it’s bound to be Unfair.
Over the course of 8 rounds, you play Event cards to help yourself and hinder your opponents, build Attractions and Upgrades using Park cards, and match your park to Blueprints.
Your goal is to build the highest-scoring park at game end, using three main ways to score:
Building your park to match Blueprints
Building impressively tall Attractions with lots of Upgrades
Buying your way to victory with good old fashioned cash
You might hire staff to help you, or build a Super Attraction with a unique ability. Bribing officials and blackmailing politicians is also possible, but entirely optional.
The Review - Unfair
As of writing this right now I am only a few games in, about 4 but I know that there will be more to come. This game is an attention grabbing addiction almost to the point where it is Unfair for you. It is a gorgeous game with almost a whimsical artwork style to it but that is not what I will be focusing on with this. The main question I will be answering is, why do I love this game? And that is actually a simple question:
Replay Value:
A lot of games I have played throughout the years have been like chewing gum. A lot of impact in the beginning but the joy fades quickly and it just becomes a pain in the mouth but Unfair lasts. You are trying to build an amazing amusement park while trying to also keep your fellow competitors from doing the same thing. Building rides, stalls and hiring staff to keep your guests entertained and keeping the Review Board out of your hair and ensuring nothing is breaking. The game comes to you in two major segments, the Fair half (Turns 1-4) and the unfair half (Turns 5-8). In the first half you are focusing trying to build up a theme or trying to fulfill some requirements for blue prints. Sometimes this could be trying to build large attractions like different roller-coaster or hotels, or you can focus on building a lot of smaller cheaper rides (Small and expensive or large and cheap). The beauty of this is that you cannot go into the game with an expected game play. No two games are the same.
So in the first four rounds you are building up everything and hopefully by the end of the fourth you have something looking like a good park because that is when everything flips on its head. Between the rounds 5-8, or the Unfair rounds, you have to start playing against the board a little bit. The City Event cards turn and start giving everyone negatives which is where the real fun starts. At times it could feel like you are playing catch up, most of all when a City Event card comes crashing down on you, but most of the time with a little planning and a backup plan, nothing is too bad. It does have the “Take That” mechanic to it where you can send some kids to vandalize your neighbors’ park or blackmail a politician to ruin them and it can be fun to hit the person who is in apparent lead back down to ground level, but it is when everything is coming after you and you still come out on top that you know your park is great.
Unfair is a quick pace game that pits you against your fellow amusement park owners and the board, and like any other roller-coaster ride it has its ups and down but in the end, you want to jump back on to it.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Replay Value
Fun artwork
Quick paced in small groups
Cons:
Reliant on good first few turns
Cards can be a little too Unfair
Can have a little higher than normal learning curve
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