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Engage in tactical combat and survival environment with stunning artwork by award winner illustrator Oscar Martin, in a dystopian world of anthropomorphic animals.
Cannibal World is an expandable dueling card game where you fight as one of four factions in a post-apocaliptic world. You will be able to customize your faction's deck as you see fit.
The gameplay revolves around strategic deck management, resource allocation, and tactical combat. Players alternate turns, drawing cards from their Main or Reinforcement Decks, and use meat counters to perform various actions, such as summoning creatures, initiating combat, or activating abilities.
Combat is central to gameplay, where players use creatures to attack their opponent’s creatures or attempt to ransack their opponent's habitat. Combat is resolved through damage mechanics, with both melee and ranged attacks.
The gameplay's focus on tactical decisions, resource management, and faction-specific abilities creates a highly strategic and engaging experience.
Victory is achieved through two main conditions: eliminating all of the opponent’s creatures (from play, hand, and deck), or ransacking their habitat three times.
—description from the publisher
- Amazing artwork
- Good components (plastic tokens, large format cards)
- Functional box organization with dividers
- Variety in factions
- Potential for deck customization
- Interactive gameplay on opponent's turn
- Striking visual design
- Visual tracking of damage/hit points
- Derivative gameplay in a crowded market
- Somewhat repetitive and tactically okay
- Clunky and intricate rules with confusing iconography
- Math-heavy and potentially tedious deck building
- Small, difficult-to-read player aid
- Poorly organized rulebook
- Unnecessarily messy win condition when opponent runs out of cards
- Gameplay can be hard to retain due to icons
- Animals as combatants in a post-apocalyptic world where they eat each other
- post-apocalyptic
- Radlands
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card abilities — Cards have various abilities that can be activated during a turn or during combat. These are indicated by symbols and colors (light tan for activated, blue for triggered).
- Combat — Players attack each other's units and habitats. Units can attack multiple times per turn if they are not exhausted. Damage is permanent.
- Deck construction — Players can build their own decks within a point limit (15-25 cards, 160 points or less), with each card having a point value.
- Faction Asymmetry — Four distinct factions are included, each with unique abilities and playstyles.
- player interaction — Players can spend resources to cancel opponent's actions or abilities during their turn.
- Resource Management — Players spend 'meat' tokens to deploy units and activate abilities. 'Meat' replenishes to four at the start of a turn.
- Zone of Control — The game features a front row for direct combat and a back row for support units. Units in the front row must be dealt with before attacking the habitat.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This game to me feels very derivative and tactically the gameplay of it is fine. It's somewhat repetitive.
- Deck building in this game is insane.
- There's all these little pnicity things, you know. Rules wise, there's a lot of pnicity things.
- I like the game. I enjoy it. I don't know how often I'd go back to it. And because of that, I'm at a six and a half.
- It slides right out of the mind.
References (from this video)
- A little bit complicated the icons
- Was fine
- Almost there
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Battler — Cannibal World is kind of a battler
- Deck Building — and it's a deck builder.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- a silly little game, way overproduced, but fun like hot potato style game.
- unfortunately a two-player back and forth just a little too much going on in a small game.
- So, that's pretty much it.
- This says contemporary on it.
- Tom, what would be your advice to aspiring game designers?
- most of the advice given to me over the years has been along the lines of don't do it.
References (from this video)
- intriguing premise
- unclear depth from unboxing
- survival and conflict
- cannibal-themed card game
- darkly humorous
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card-driven confrontation — competitive interaction with resource themes
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is the most boring unboxing on the planet Earth.
- That's a cute little game.
- I'm curious about this one.
- World order is a sequel to hegemony.
- I remember when this was on Kickstarter.