YORKTON - Be forewarned you might just go quackers over this week’s game.
As you might have guessed from the futile effort at humour there, this week’s game has something to do with ducks.
And, yes it does with about as bizarre a theme as you can imagine.
In Abducktion players are basically aliens collecting ducks – no explanation is given as to why you want the ducks – and I suppose even if one were given it would be a highly improbable one. It matters not because wrapped up in the weird theme is a very fun game.
We’ll get back to that fun element in a moment.
Instead a compliment on the overall component quality in this Evan Katz, and Josh Roberts designed game.
The cards in the game are good quality, and the duck art by Alina Lytvynova nicely blends humour and whimsy.
The little duckling 40- in four colours are cute, and the spaceship that holds the ducks is just plain cool. A cloth bag would have easily sufficed but publisher, Very Special Games Company went that extra mile and it really catches attention.
So, as noted you are collecting ducks which go on your game board. For the ducks to be useful they must be collected in specific formations, in order to claim mission cards worth game end points.
While ducks come out of the aforementioned spaceship randomly and go on to your board that way, the cards in the game allow you to manipulate your ducks, force trades with other players and other twists to achieve missions – getting matching patterns in specific duck colours to do it.
It all sounds just a bit goofy, and it is based on the theme alone, but there’s pattern recognition here and some card play skill, and generally a fun game experience.
That said The Meeple Guild tried it two player, and depending on what mission cards are out it can drag – it sure did for us, to the point our initial response of Abducktion was rather cool.
A couple of sessions later we played with three and Abducktion became a slick and quick offering that charmed with its excellent components and even its silly theme.
Check it out at www.veryspecialgames.com
