Cannibal World Review: Is It Gamey?
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Transcript
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Dice Tower. My name is Z Garcia.
I'm Joey Evans.
Today we're taking a look at Cannibal World.
Good World,
the card game. Cannibal World here is based on uh comic books from Oscar Martin, who is an illustrator who has a a combo called Solo.
Okay. Uh, this is a world in which these animals are sort of combatants. They It's a post-apocalyptic. They eat each other, you know. It's weird. Uh, there's also a guy who used to draw for Disney, by the way. Like, you know, um,
really
a lot of like their f like, you know, Tom and Jerry stuff.
Really?
Oh, yeah. So, he's a very very well-known illust illustrator, artist. Uh, and this is a card game using that his his comic book. So, we're going to go ahead and take a look at this. It's a dueling. It's a fighting game. You're going to be using one of these factions to have at each other and try to win by destroying the opponent's sort of headquarters, right? Let me show you how it works. We'll come on back. We'll tell you what we think of it. In this game, you are trying to take down your opponent's habitat, which is this card right here, and attack that thing three times. If you remove all three of those tokens from there, you win the game. But to do that, you need to get rid of their units in play first, or make sure they are exhausted. uh which means tapped turned sideways and then you can get through and attack the uh the habitat there. This is going to be a deck construction kind of game. You can do some deck building before the game starts and there's enough cards that come in the game for you to change out the units you want to play with. There's rules for deck building in there, but it's basically sort of a trading card game, you know, trading cardesque kind of game in which you are going to be drawing a card at the beginning of your turn, adding that to your hand, spending your meat. So, you have four of these tokens on your turn to deploy units to attack with those units to activate abilities on the characters trying to eliminate the opposition trying to hit and get through there. Uh you can also have abilities here that trigger during combat. So the card abilities are going to show up and be uh in a few different
symbols, a few different colors I should say. Uh first of all, you have a front row and then a back row, like a support row. And then back here you've got your habitat. These guys can attack directly. And if there's no one in that row, then can they can attack the back one. If there's no one in there, they can attack all the way through. And these guys back here cannot normally attack directly. All right. Uh the symbols on here allow you to uh the light tan ones, you can activate those. They do something and then initiate combat, though you can just initiate combat. And everybody in the game can actually combat multiple times until they die. So they don't exhaust or anything to attack. And so if I chose to do this, for example, I could put one of my tokens on there. It'll stay on there. So I can really only do that once per game. And this one happens to say I am going to shoot somebody three times. So if I did this, I could attack that guy, shoot him three times, and then combat. This is how much health uh you have and how hard you hit. Uh so by doing this three and shooting this guy, I actually just kill him outright and there is no combat. The blue ones here are going to be uh triggered abilities. They look for something to happen and they they happen. Uh there's armor. There's these which let me build this sort of side pile of cards I can choose to draw from. And then there's these darker ones. These are going to be activated uh during combat if you want.
You can do it whenever, but also during combat it could happen. So I could activate a combat and then put one of my tokens on here and do that and then my opponent during my activation of combat could take one of theirs and put it on there and shoot me back for one things like that. Uh, these guys are also again possibly going to be exhausted by abilities. This ability right here would do it. Netting this guy. And now I can still be attacked, but I don't fight back and I cannot activate the abilities on him. Uh, that's kind of the general idea here of the game. That's what's going on. On your turn, you are going to spend your meat over here. Once you are done, you replenish back up to four from the supply. And these are double-sided to track hits on people and to uh you know be your tokens uh for your your actions. And then it's your opponent's go. You're also allowed to when they activate a combat or one of these triggered abilities, you can spend two of these meat tokens from your actions to cancel that thing. So when I'm attacking my opponent here by doing u this and activating against them, they could say, "Oo, I don't like that. and I'm going to spend two of the meat I have to cancel you triggering this.
We'll still fight, but you don't get to do that. But then on their own turn, they have much less to do. They'll only have then what's left over. So, you have to balance how much you want to commit during your opponent's action so that when you have your own turn, you have enough to do. You now only have obviously a truncated turn. Um, you're going to have four different factions in the box. You have these humans, these rejects, I think they're called, dogs, rats, and cats. And they're all funky and post-apocalyptic. Plus, they have their own abilities, which you can see in this uh tiny little player. And it is very tiny. There's very, very small writing here. The four different kinds of abilities. Uh and unfortunately, they do only give you one of these. So, there you go. Uh that's going to do it for a pretty quick and dirty overview. Let's go ahead and go back up top. All right, so that is Cannibal World, the card game. Here, let's talk about some some good things. Let's start with some amazing things. The artwork, of course, is kind of like a gimme.
Yeah, it's it's so it's so good. There are some that you questionable. You're like, "Woo!"
Yes, that's another thing we need to mention. The artwork is very, very good. It is It is stylized. It is his artwork through and through. If you like his style, you'll like it. It is also can be very adult and you need to be aware of that going in, right? There is some nudity here. There's a lot of scantily clad creatures, people
creatures, I guess.
Yeah. Um anyway, so be aware of that. It could be divisive. Therefore, because of that, or it's just cuz you don't like the artwork, whatever. Uh the components in this edition at least are very, very nice. The tokens are plastic tokens, double-sided. They have the wound on the one side and then the meat on the other side and you use those for, you know, various things. That's nice. Card uh quality is decent. And they are large format cards, which is neat.
Makes sense. And then organization of the box.
Yeah, it's decent. It's good. It has some dividers that it comes with. It even has the divider that comes in here for an expansion that was in the crowdfunding. That's not in here now, but they give you that in here. That's cool. Um yeah, the the the box is this cool looking magnetic thing. I I like that. Right. So, it has this like,
you know, some artwork up top there and then that that's that's neat.
It's a good sound.
Yeah, I like that. Um, and then there is a good variety in the box. I would say four factions come in here and
they do kind of have their own thing each of them. They have some symbols that only apply to them. Uh, and uh, they're going to feel a little bit different. They're each going to have kind of their own thing. Some are more complicated, some are a little simpler, more straightforward, some are dumber. And that is according to them themselves. This one's kind of dumb. Run up and smack. Cool. Um, but that's good. I'm glad that you have that much in there. And then you can take what's in here and do some deck customization,
right? Which is where I think the game would shine.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you can kind of you don't like what a character does, swap that out with another one. Um, now I have a lot of negatives. We're going to get to a lot of those negatives. That's game.
Let's talk about some more positives before we do any of that.
Before we do that, I do like certain things. A couple things I like the reinforcements. I like the way those are utilized.
That's a cool rule for sure. I like that a lot.
So, you can pull if you need something, you know, you've got, you could, you know, where you stuck him. Yeah. You put them over there. Then also I like there's a bit of interaction on someone else's turn because you do have certain options like the decision on do I want to waste these two action points or whatever just to block meet just to block
or take the hit so I can actually do more on my turn.
So it's really a defense versus offense. You don't feel like you're just sitting back watching. That is one benefit.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um yeah, I think both of those things are neat and interesting and certainly that side deck is a cool idea.
Yeah. um having a you know kind of like a zone up front and a zone behind has been done but it's done well here. So that that that all works. Um
I think for me my big issue with this one I'm going to start kind of overall and then work my way down to pnikity things is that this game to me feels very derivative and tactically the game play of it is fine. It's somewhat repetitive. It is tactically okay has been done adnauseium and it's playing in a crowded market as it is. There are so many of these headtohead defend your thing wipe out the other person kind of games. Now this one does a couple of things differently like you said.
I like for example that when a creature here attacks
you can keep attacking with that guy. It does not exhaust doesn't tap right. Um, he'll die cuz per damage is permanent in this game. But you can keep doing that. Like you can use one tanky dude to attack that guy. Okay, he heard me back, but I killed him. Now I'm going to attack that guy. Yep.
And he I kill him and maybe he kills me back. But that dude can keep attacking until he's gone. I like that. As long as you can pay for that. Um, but yeah, I think that's interesting. And then but but the sort of the the everything around that is is has a real this is well tread territory kind of feel to me. You know what I mean? Uh so that's that the main thing.
Other things I thought were kind of a little wacky. The player aid in this. There's one player aid in here.
That's a unforced error.
Uh let's see. It's this one. I printed another one there because I had to. But this is the player aid you have. Double-sided. has all the symbols. It does say everything you need to know, but it is one of these. Uh, which is insane. Uh, why? Why? Why? What?
Yeah.
No. So, I don't love that. I think the rule book, while it's I feel like most of the rules are in there, I just don't like organization of it.
Organizationally, I think it is a bit of a mess. It's sectioned out weird. There's one section I pointed out to you that said like this is for card card game veterans or whatever and I'm like no no no those are rules in the game.
Those you can't skip those.
Like if you're not a card game veteran do not skip that section please. You need those rules. That's where they explain oh yeah cards don't tap in this game like in some other games. Like no that's a rule in this game. Don't don't worry about the fact that people who play this also play Magic the Gathering. teach me all the rules in your rule book. Why would you have a section called that that has rules? This isn't tactical advice. It was not, you know what I mean? It was it was a really weird move. Um, so I think that's interesting and kind of bizarre. The management of the tokens, the symbols here, I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out. When you have a reaction power, they're blue. They're sort of triggered abilities. They just happen when they happened. Those when they are triggered, you got to you well, it's right here. But it's like again, look at this. Uh the meat, you put a meat token on there, but it doesn't come from yours. It comes from outside and you put it on there. It's like, "Oh, okay. Got it. That that's from out there." There's all these little pnicity things, you know. Um rules wise, there's a lot of pnicity things like
icons on there.
Yeah. The difference between the shot and the stab icon is dubious.
They kind of do the same thing.
Yeah. And then like stunned, I had to look up, you know, like, okay, you don't you have to take an action to become unstunned.
Yes, you do. Right.
Which is a big thing.
Um there's a weird rule about if your opponent runs out of cards, you would win. But you don't win if the attack of the units you have left is in totality less than the number of meat they still have on their habitat. What? Please simplify that. Either I take out the habitat or you're out of stuff. We're done.
Right?
There's all this like, but if you count the numbers of things and then that's less than the Well, then technically speaking, that's a tie. That's a tie. No. No. That's that's that that's unnecessarily messy, you know.
Yeah.
Um, now here's one that I don't think you realized uh because I did this part. Deck building in this game is insane. Deck building in this game, you they give you a pre-recommended like a pre-built deck, 21 cards,
who to use, which faction, all that.
Yeah, it's just great. You know, you can do that. But if you want to build a deck, the deck is going to be between 15 and 25 cards and it has to be a total of 160 points or less. That's deck building in this game because every card in this game has points
value.
Okay, every card has a value. The value is right here. That's the value. It's anywhere between like three and 14 maybe. and you're adding up the values of the cards you're including and you cannot go above 160. It's okay to have less than 160, but if you do, then you're leaving points on the table. You're making your faction weaker. So, it's like, wait, what? That's like building a miniature army for a miniatures game. Yes. You You want me to figure out the points on my deck building for my deck building game up to 160 points? Okay, that seems kind of weird. And so it has a lot of those things, right? That's that's a lot of
And that's one thing I have no interest in is debt creation. Some people may love that and really get into it. I have no interest in that.
I absolutely like it. I just don't necessarily want to do the math. They have an app, right? You can go to their website, which I' also stumbled across. You can go to their website and there you can kind of deck build it, which is nice, but there's no QR code here that takes me to it. Uh, not that I see. And so I just have to know that or do the math myself and be like, "Okay, I'm up to 122 points. What do I have left? What can I put in?" Um, I don't like that kind of deck building in a game like this, deck construction in a game like this. You know,
now having said all of that negative stuff, let me pivot back to some positive stuff. Right? While the game feels derivative, and that's kind of like the biggest nasty thing I can say about it is that it's ultimately kind of derivative, I do like inhabiting this place. I think it's striking.
Theme is great.
Theme is interesting. The game has this sort of striking minimalistic vibe to it. It sort of feels, and I think I said this to you, this kind of feels like uh Radland's, you know, the the poor man's Radland,
right?
A little bit. because I think Radland Lands mechanically, strategically is sounds better than this game. I think I think that game has a lot more oomph and it's still minimalistic. This one takes some of the it's it's, you know, marching orders from that game. It just does so more clumsily. It does it a little less elegantly.
I agree. On the positive thing, I think I I like how again you can see hit points on each habitat or base. It's a very visual game. It is.
But again, Radlands, I think because it's 1 v one. I know there's different like there's no columns here and a shared deck over there, but I still feel like they inhabit the same world.
Yeah,
that's the thing. So, I would prefer Radlands over this.
And there's just so many games like this, unfortunately. You know,
there are
um there's the the collectible ones, right? And there's not that's a whole world of that. But even those that are not collectible that just come in one box like this,
there's quite a few of them. Uh, and they're easier to get to the table. They're less demanding with their iconography,
right? Oh, yeah.
Uh, they're, you know, you put them down for a little bit and pick them back up and you're not going to struggle as much. In this one, you're going to struggle knowing all the little symbols. Wait, how does that work? What does that mean?
This gets a token and it never activates again, right? Okay, got it. So, you know, some interesting ideas, but just
a little tougher than I would like from bang to bullet.
Yep.
You know. Yep. Um, anything else you want to mention?
No, I think that's it. I mean, really, it's just it's again
definitely feel like I uh did the the you know, a lot of talking here. I apologize if it's been me talking and Joey shaking his head.
I just shake my head. No, no, I I agree with all I agree all of that right there because again, if you know the IP, it's different. I love the feel of this and again, the look on the table. It's just a clunkiness. The fact that first off, this just irritates me. I mean, why not make it bigger? Why not make it more legible? Why not make two of them? That's I You printed a second one as
I did. I printed a second one here, you know, on a piece of like photo paper or whatever, which is nice. I mean, but it's this is bare minimum.
You have to live in that for the first couple games. That's that's the only thing, you know, one person can have the rule book, the other person can have that, but still you're diving into that because they're little not huge changes, but little intricacies you have to figure out.
Mhm.
Yeah. So, anyway, yeah, that's it.
All right. Where you coming down on this one, Joey?
All right. 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. You know, I'm a 6.5. So, I do enjoy it. There are little clunky things. I think the more you dive into it, the more you'd enjoy. And again, I would just take the decks they tell you to use. I'm not big into deck creation. I know you are. Certain people out there may be. And if you love that, then I think you might
enjoy building those. But again, I think there are other games in this space I would choose above this.
Right. And that's kind of where I'm at, too, because my thing is here's here's why I recommend this to you. love the artwork and you are in a world in which this is the only game that does what this game does, then you're it's going to be a banger
and you're going to dedicate a lot of time to it. Yes.
Okay. You're going to have a good time with this game. I think once you iron out the little things, you go on Board Game Geek, you get some of your questions answered, they're active on there. That's where I found out some of my answers. Um, and then the the icons become second nature because you and your buddy are playing this game every day and and it has no competition, right? You're you're looking at this in a bubble. You're diving into Cannibal World or you're a fan of Solo the comic book.
Um, then yeah, I think absolutely I would recommend this. My point being there's no glaring issues that I have with this game.
Yeah. I just find it for me and kind of where this game is at that yeah, some of those things could have been a little better, a little tighter, a little more oomph, you know. Um, I'm going to come down at a six. So, slightly below you. But I'm but I agree with you. This is a game I would not mind playing, especially if the person sitting across from me thinks this game's a banger,
right?
I'm going to find that enthusiasm infectious and I'll I'll enjoy it. Mhm.
It's just hard to build up to that and then put this game down for a week and build up to that again. It's going to be a tricky thing.
Yep.
Cuz it's it it it slides right out of the mind. You know what I mean? All the icons, all that stuff. Uh almost there. Almost there for me to the point that if they came up with a Cannibal World, the card game, second edition, I'd be intrigued
again because the artwork is incredible.
It is incredible. Very nice production. Very nice box.
Yep. It's just almost there. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's where we're at. So, this is almost there for both of us, folks. That is going to be Countable World, the card game. Let us know in the comments. Have you played this one? Have you read the comic, which we have not. I've not read the comic. Uh, and what did you think of it? You know, is this one that you're going to put into rotation and keep it there and really get that marrow out of them bones?
There we go. That's Cannibal World. I'm Z Garcia.
I'm Joy Evans. marrow out of them bones.
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