Brawl - designer: James Earnest
- publisher: Cheapa** (yes, that's their name - sigh)
- date: 1999
- BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 1141/6.37
- position on my top 100 in 2005: did not appear
- age: 10+
- # of players: 2-4
- print status: out of print
- cost: $2.47 per deck (paizo.com)
Yes, it's overproduced - the original price for the game was $5/deck... and each player needed their own deck. But if you want a real-time game that rewards repeated play & actually paying attention to the composition of each deck, this is your game.
And it's QUICK. A best of 3 match (three fights) can usually be played in no more that 15 minutes. In fact, it can sometimes take longer to sort the cards when you're finished than it did to play them to the table.
A quick overview... players shuffle their deck & play cards simultaneously - as fast as they can onto 3 "base" cards in the middle of the table. When one player finishes his deck, the fight is over.
There are rules for playing with multiple players, but the game really shines one-on-one. (The confusion level with multiple players gets pretty intense unless everyone knows the game really well.)
And, if you can't get enough of real-time battle games, you can always move up to
Fightball, another game my son & I really enjoy. Games are longer (20-30 min.) with 4 "quarters" of play & a lot more places to play cards.
Note: I am sure that the fact that I paid approx. $1/deck on clearance for my 12 decks has NO effect whatsoever on my opinion of this game... not. :-)
Brawl 
2 comments:
I don't understand the "overproduced" line. It's not like there are hundred of plastic minis in the box or anything. Each player needs a deck to play, and the components are exactly that: a deck for a player to play. Now, the net cost for a two-player game, $14 originally, might be higher than one's enjoyment of the game, but that's about right for those cards, I thought.
I know you're factually correct, Hunter - but $14 for 80 or so cards in cardboard boxes AND for a game that last five minutes still seems "overproduced" to me.
That said, I've played it twice in the last week, so I'm getting my money out of it. :-)
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