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Players use card drafting and simultaneous
action selection to form a story while interfering with other players'
stories. The game consists of four rounds. In each of them, players are
dealt five cards. They simultaneously select one each and pass the
remainder to the left, repeating until done. Then, they start playing
cards simultaneously, playing three and discarding two. When the cards
are revealed after each selection, card abilities turn other cards
face-up or face-down. At the end of the four rounds there are 12 cards
in front of each player and the players; they each score based on their
face-up cards.
Beautiful fantasy art by Nachigami is so enchanting.
The rule is quite simple. If you aren't
familiar to the game, you can understand easily and have fun. When you'll
be good at it, you can do more strategic playing. Also good for deep
gamers !
There are two type of fun in the game that make you to play the game
again and again.
Watch what card the other players chose and recognize the way they want,
then choose your cards. The game process that collecting cards, trying
to share the cards or interfere the other players, is full of fun that
no other games give you.
Collecting cards and weave your own story. And in the way you collect,
you have to think other players' hands or cards left in the deck, you
gain the same feeling of rummy and bridge.
Bruno Faidutti's ideal game library
I did not notice Fairy Tale at
the 2004 Essen fair, but after reading a few raving reviews on the web, I
ordered the game directly from the Japanese publisher… and received it four days
later in my mailbox. The graphics were so cute that I immediately wanted to play
it. Fairy Tale is a cute, rich, fast paced, fun and very clever card game. The
mechanics are subtle and original, and the graphics absolutely gorgeous. Players
build their hand of cards through the system called draft (for Magic the
Gathering players) or anaconda (for poker players). Then, they play cards one
after one, simultaneously, trying both to build combinations or suits, like in
rummy, and to interfere with the cards played by opponents. A few games are
necessary to get used to the different effects of the cards, and to the icon
system symbolizing these effects, but after this the game becomes fast paced,
deeply involving and surprisingly tactical. Since a game last little more than
ten or fifteen minutes, it’s easy to play a few games in a row and count the
overall scores.
Fairy Tale is a cute and clever
game, and I’m now eager to try the two other small card games by Satoshi
Nakamura, Saga and Masquerade. They are already in the pile of games I will
bring to my next gaming evenings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one, or even
both, soon enter also the ideal game library.
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