Troublebot

• Designer: Shun Taguchi, Aya Taguchi
• Publisher: Loosey Goosey
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 15 minutes 
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Cause trouble – ’cause causing trouble is fun!

Troublebot is a lean, mean card game of many small but meaningful decisions. Whenever it is your turn, you get to pick up a new shroombot. Then you play one of the two shroombots in your hand and perform its action.

While most effects help you take care of your seedlings, some will cause the other players trouble. If you have the most valuable seedlings in the end, you win.

The game is made up of an 18 card Shroombot deck as well as a 36 victory point tokens (called seedlings).  The Seedlings are shuffled face down on the table.  The Shroombots are shuffled and each player is dealt 2 cards, and each chooses one to keep and the other is randomized back into the deck.  This new deck is placed on the table and a 4 card display of Shroombots is then made.

Each turn consists of three steps:

1] Choose one of the four Shroombots from the display to add to your hand

2] Play a Shroombot from your hand. Announce the character that you are playing (as some Shroombots attack other players and some cards can defend against the attacks) and then discard it.  Then resolve its card effect as much as possible (written at the bottom of the card); each card has its own ability:

• Draw Seedlings as rewards (generally kept secret/face down)
• Gain cards from the discard pile
• Take rewards from other players
• etc

3] Refill the display to four cards

The game continues until someone reaches the specified victory point barrier (16pts for a 4p game) or the Seedling patch is depleted; at which point the player with most points at that time wins.

My thoughts on the game

So when I heard about this game in the Essen Preview, it sounded like something that I’d like.  It took me a bit to realize that I’d played the game before… and heck, I even still owned it!  Shun and Aya have made a number of small games that I adore (Little Town, Sheep and Garden), and they have also made Dinky Dungeon – the game which was reskinned to make Troublebot. 

The premise here is simple – from your hand of 2 cards, try to figure out how to get the best Seedling tokens.  All of the Shroombots have actions that can be powerful at the right time, so it’s all about timing here.  Figuring out which card is right given the state of the game is the key to success.

You’ll need to keep an eye out on what other people are doing, what cards have been played and discarded, etc.  Many of the cards manipulate the discard pile, so it’s good to know what is there and what those cards do.

The game plays out super quick. An individual turn rarely takes more than a minute, and those Seedling points add up quickly – so it’s not long before someone is in striking distance of the VP target. In my games so far, we have always had a winner on the VP criteria; though there are a few Shroombots that could definitely cause the game to make it all the way through the Seedling Grove.

The game is quite simple as you choose your Shroombot for the turn and then do it.  Once we got the hang of it – this is a ten to fifteen minute deck diving experience.  Given the small physical size of the game, it packs a pretty good density of gaming fun.  And, if you have some German friends around, they can have a set of cards to try to play the game themselves!  (Or, I have used the German cards as a way to practice my German skills).

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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