So that brings us round nicely to Madcala, which borrows the main mechanics of traditional Mancala and changes it into a simpler two player battler. Oh, but don’t worry how you got here. Everything is OK, after all its just a simple tea party where everyone is going to spend their time bashing each other over the head until they get bored or pass out. You’re here through choice, or something else, but isn’t it all just the best kind of wonderful. Just sit down and take some weight off those feet of yours, you must be tired after all. Have some cake. Just a little. I’ll pour the tea. Paint the roses red. painttherosesred. Or something to that affection. Affliction. I have no idea. Wonderful.
Guests at a Mad Hatter’s tea party, following Druid City’s ongoing Alice in Wonderland theme which seems to be offering all kinds of reasons to take these well know establish characters and see where we can add them next, and you’ve got to admire Druid City Games because as far as I can tell, this head strong dive into classic literature seems to have sparked some proper gaming creations from their stables. I have honestly always pinned them as a company who were very much style over substance, why use production when there are a couple of extra spoonfuls of over production that you can add to cover over the gaps in gameplay. Which is part and parcel of the crowdfunding dream. So bite on this side of the mushroom instead.
Madcala, where you pick a character from Alice, The Red Queen or The White Rabbit, plus several other desirables and you place chunky tokens on cups in front of you on a lovely neoprene mat, and then lay out your four guest cards including you ‘plus ones’ or power cards. Each character has their own additional powers that they bring to the table, and this all centres around how you interact with the tokens placed around the board on illustrated saucers, each saucer triggering an effect as you land on them with your last token. I apologise, I am getting ahead of myself, goodness, where are my manners. So terrible if you don’t know how Mancala plays.
Each of the spaces represents a saucer, and on your turn you’ll choose a saucer on your side, and pick up the tokens and then start to travel clockwise, leaving a token on each space you visit until you have no tokens left. On the last space you left a token, you’ll take that action. Unless you picked up one of the bigger tokens, known as the doubler, where you can take an action twice. The game board space saucers are in a circle, so you’ll often end up in your opponents side of the track, and this will generally happen a lot more as the game progresses and more tokens are added to the board. I kind of like it. Mostly because sometimes you’ll be picking up tokens to make sure you pick a certain action, like attack, or heal or take a commoner card. Or other times you’ll be fuelling up other spaces for future turns, so you can hit the actions you want to hit in future goals.
Most of the time, you’ll be trying to remove health from your opponent, to strip them of their 25 points and confine them to the tea leave bin of ultimate loserville. Which is an actual thing. I checked, you don’t have to check. Don’t check. Even though the 25 points seems like a reservoir of points to get through, in all fairness Madcala does that special job of being a two player fighty fight that doesn’t easily fall into a war of attrition. There’s ways to get your health back after a particularly punishing session but its more of a temporary fix than a sticking plaster and there’s no real way for either of you to gain back a raft of health, which to be honest, thank goodness. There’s too many games out there that chat battle but more often than not it’s about trading blows until someone gets bored and throws the game.
Then we have the asymmetrical character cards, the guests with their plus ones, who change how you approach the game, but not enough that you can guarantee a win straight off the bat. There’s the mix and match challenge where some character might have advantages depending on the match up. I think more often than not this is going to be how you play the Madcala board, where you are picking up your tokens and making sure to use the doubler at the right time. It’s one of those games that probably deserves a full afternoon of plays to get completely under its skin. It would fit in well either before or after a game of Unmatched or even Wildlands if that is your kind of thing.
Presentation wise, its a Druid City Joint, so expect top level components and artistry and you’ll be glad you turned up for the tea party. There’s not lavish over production. Things like the solid chits are welcome and weighty. The play mat fits a purpose instead of merely being a marketing brag and keeps those all important tokens in place. The card art maintains the theme first started in Wonderlands War. It’s the right balance of tea, milk and sugar. Overall you’ve got a decent battler here with some potential long term legs. I’m wondering if Druid City can keep this momentum going. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat..
Designer Aaron Hein, Manny Trembley
Artist Manny Trembley
