Welcome to The Prodigals Club! You and your fellows are proper Victorian gentlemen who have realized that the lower classes have more fun. Now you are in a friendly competition to see which of you can destroy his own social standing most thoroughly.
In The Prodigals Club, you compete in three separate competitions: trying to lose an election, trying to get rid of all your possessions, or trying to offend the most influential people in high society. You can play any two competitions in combination or play all three simultaneously. Each competition interacts with the other two. To win, you need to balance your strategy and play all the competitions well.
The Prodigals Club is thematically related to Vladimír Suchý's Last Will. You do not need Last Will to play as Prodigals stands alone; that said, the rulebook also explains how to combine the two games together should you desire to do so.
Images
- Unique theme and tone
- Flexible scoring through multiple sections
- Humor/morality theme may not appeal to all players
- Competition to lose money and social standing
- Gilded-age social satire about wealth and decline
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Compound Scoring — Players try to minimize their score by losing assets and status
- lose-to-score mechanic — Players try to minimize their score by losing assets and status
- multi-path engine — Three sections with different play styles and combinations
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's the heaviest of the Shem Phillips SJ McDonald games
- it's a puzzle you're exchanging stuff for stuff
- the coolest part is one of my favorite mechanics
- you pick an action everyone else could do that action but try to time it so they definitely can't
- one of my absolute favorite themes
- the back of the card read are so clever
- there are a ton of them and they are basically like Escape rooms in a box
References (from this video)
- light, whimsical overlay on a heavy strategic core
- unique three-module scoring that emphasizes balance and compromise
- thematic and witty theme with social satire
- heavy strategic depth may challenge new players
- managing multiple modules can be fiddly without tidy play aids
- wealth, social maneuvering, and public perception
- British high society with decay and political drama
- satirical yet elegant
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card play / event cards — cards depict social actions that impact money, votes, and prestige
- Compound Scoring — three embedded score tracks (money, votes, friends) with determining the final score by the worst score across modules
- erp-style worker placement — errand boys and staff go to events and social settings to acquire resources
- multi-module scoring — three embedded score tracks (money, votes, friends) with determining the final score by the worst score across modules
- worker placement — errand boys and staff go to events and social settings to acquire resources
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- time is an illusion
- it's a very linear game where you are going through the seasons
- everything you're doing makes sense in that world
- I think it's really, really cool
- I love distilled. It's got a lot of good sneaky theme in there
- this linearness really lends itself to the thematic tie-ins