Ruse: A game of murder, intrigue and hypodermic needle rifles

Ruse is a great card game. I got to play test it a few weeks ago at a local convention. It's a steam-punk themed murder mystery game.  The game play revolves around the holy trinity of murder, Method, Motive, and Opportunity. There's only one looser, the person that committed the murder, and everyone else wins. Another facet of the game I appreciated is that it is constructed from a standard 52 card deck so you can use it to play your favorite standard card games.

The cards are split into 2 general types, alibis and accusations. A player loses when they have three accusations a Motive, Method, and Opportunity in front of them and can't remove any of them with an alibi. There is a one use option everyone has to remove an accusation from in front of them. The game play is fast and solid. The longest game I played was about 30 minutes and the shortest was about 8. The turns are simple, play 1 draw 1 and the mechanics of playing cards are very simple to pick up.

Ruse is a wonderful short game. It will make a great gateway game to introduce people to more complicated card games, and I would keep it in my library as a side game to give to RPG groups while I'm taking a player to the side. The art on the cards was very well done and quite enjoyable, my favorite was the Hypodermic needle rifle. Bonsai Entertainment did a great job putting this together and I'm looking forward to getting a copy of it. It should be on kick starter within the month and I wish them the best of luck with it.

Just Another Game Convention

I had the pleasure of visiting JAGC in Corvallis, OR this past Saturday and it was a wonderful experience. The convention ran for from 10 am Saturday to to 10 pm Sunday evening, unfortunately I had to work Sunday so I could only stay through Saturday. The venue was an Elk lodge which was awesome, There were three large rooms we had access to. One for the Return to Ravinca draft. One for demos, table top gaming, and a few vendor tables. The last room had about five consoles setup in it.

I got to playtest some local board games that are still in production. Both games I got to playtest, Ruse and Mass Victory, where excellent. Ruse is a steampunk murder mystery card game and Mass Victory is a Sci-fi race for resources. I'll write a larger post on both games later this week. Ruse is being made by Bonsai Games and Mass Victory is being made by the same guy who makes Sunstone games. Ruse will be on Kickstarter in the next two months. I don't recall the exact time frame for Mass Victory, I believe it is going to be kickstarted in the next two months as well.

Other than playtesting I got to connect with the Warmachine guys from the friendly neighborhood local game store, which was nice because I'm looking forward to getting back into Warmachine and Hordes. I haven't played since before MKII came out so I need to get used to the changes. I have a small Retribution army and a larger Circle army. I'm still in the process of getting my armies painted, I'm about 25% of the way through the Ret army and about 90% through the Circle army.

I also go to hang out and play some Cards Against Humanity and a few other games. I hadn't gotten to visit the local game shop since moving here so it was great to meet people and make some connections. It was a great convention, I was thrilled to be able to go and I'm looking forward to next years convention.