Gift Craft

• Designer: N2
• Publisher:  Arclight Games
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 6+
• Time:  10-20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Gift Craft is a quick and fun drafting game that is easy to jump into, but takes skill and forward thinking if you want to win.

• Don’t let their cute appearance fool you, these Plushie Pals long to be #1 and expect you to be the one to craft them with the precision necessary to be crowned victorious.
• Quick and Decisive Gameplay – Each game will feature 6 of the 50 total Plushie Pals that you and your opponents must choose from to be your champion.
• All 50 of the Plushie Pals have unique appearances and effects, offering a depth of variation in gameplay and replayability
• Compact Drafting Mechanic – Each game has 6 rounds of card drafting to build up your stock of resources.
• The fact that there are no turns, and everyone is drafting simultaneously keeps things intense and lets you finish a game in around 10 minutes.
• Just Once is Never Enough! – The combination of near-endless game variety and short playtime makes Gift Craft a game you and your friends will want to play over and over with reckless abandon!

To set up the game, each player gets a pair of player cards and all the cubes in the matching color.  Place one cube at the 0 space of all the tracks, you’ll have one cube leftover that is your Craft Cube.  The Plushie Pal cards are shuffled, and 6 are placed randomly on the table in a row (the rest are not used in this game).  The Resource card deck is shuffled and each player is dealt a hand of 7 cards.

The entire game is played in three distinct phases: The Resource Phase followed by the Crafting Phase and then finally the Victory Point Phase.

In the Resource Phase, players draft cards.  Looking at their current hand, players each choose one card to use in the round.  When everyone has chosen, players then place that card on the table.  If it is face up, they get the resources printed on the card.  If it is face down, they take the default Decoration and Heart Schematics shown on the back of every card.  Keep track of all of your resources by sliding the cube forward on the appropriate tracks – found on your player cards.   Your drafted cards will be laid out in a line above your player cards.  The remainder of the hand is then passed to the left, and the process is repeated six times.   In the sixth and final round, you will choose from a hand of 2 cards, and the unchosen card is simply discarded.

In the Crafting phase, players examine the row of Plushie Pals on the table and secretly decide which one they want to Craft.  When all players have chosen, players take their Crafting Cube (set aside in setup) and players simultaneously place their cube on their desired Plushie Pal.   Pay the resources needed to craft your Pal (move your cubes down on the tracks).  You can only craft one Plushie Pal, and it’s OK if multiple players make the same type. Check to see if your Plushie Pal has a special action triggered in this Phase, and if so, execute that action now.

Finally, in the Victory Point phase, score the game.  There are 7 different things to consider:

• Plushie Pal points – score VP as shown on your chosen Pal
• Craft Royal Crowns – choose one material type of Cotton/Cloth/Decoration.  You can convery up to 5 of them into Royal Crowns at 1:1.  Move on your tracks accordingly
• Rank Royal Crowns – 3VP for player with most Royal Crowns, 1VP for second place
• Plushie Pal Powers – now, if your Plushie Pal has a scoring power, enact it now.  (Essentially, be sure to read your Plushie Pal card closely and do its thing at the appropriate time)
• Schematics: Score the product of your Heart Schematics multiplied by your Star Schematics
• Rats: Compare your Rats with your right hand opponent. If you have more Rats than your RHO, score 3VP.
• Leftover Materials – Count up all your leftover Cotton/Cloth/Decorations/Lint Balls.  You can subtract one from the total for each Garbage Bin you have.  THen take a penalty of -1/-3/-6/-10/-15 VP for 1/2/3/4/5+ things left over.

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most combined Rats, Star Schematics and Heart Schematics,

My thoughts on the game

This game is lightning fast.  You set the game up, and there is a bit of a turn zero where you have to check out the six Plushie Pals in play this round and try to come up with a strategy for how you want to go.  Each has its own combination of VP value and special ability, and you can see right from the start what resources you’ll need to get there.  I’d also keep an eye out on a backup plan, just in case you’re unable to draft the right resources, you’ll still want to be able to craft something – as something is better than nothing.

Once you have the goal in place (from turn zero), then you essentially play turn one, which happens to be the only turn.  Draft the right things – though it’s not as easy as you think.  You’re trying to get the right combination of resources to build a plushie, and maybe have enough left over in another type to make Crowns.  But otherwise, don’t grab too many other things because you’ll be penalized for them.  And don’t forget about the ratrace; the 3VP from rats can be a nice bonus, especially when winning scores are around 20.

Once the resources have been collected, you make your Plushie, activate the powers and see what the final scores are.  It certainly took me longer to write this review than it takes to play it, and for some of you, the time to read this far might also be about the same time it’ll take to play Gift Craft.

Each game will have the same structure, but the different combinations of the Plushie Pals and their powers will force you to come up with a new plan each game. And as the games only take ten minutes, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to try and try again.  Gift Craft is a tight one round game that is an ideal filler – enough to think about while you’re playing it, and the whole thing is set up, played and cleaned up in 15 minutes.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…