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Darren Bezzant(dbezzant)Canada
Calgary
Alberta
"Everyone wants to be unique, but no one wants to be different."
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I received a review copy a couple of days ago, requesting that I take a look at it from a Colour-blind perspective.
I've never done an an official review, so please forgive me for any rookie mistakes
Emu Ranchers
Emu Ranchers is a 2 player card game, using the Series: Decktet Games. It really reminds me a lot of Lost Cities with a few really neat twists.
Firstly - since it is a Decktet Deck, there are two suits on each card. They use both colours and neat simple symbology to make it very clear which cards are which. The symbols are a little small, which are great for reading your side of the table, but a little tiny for a quick glance of your opponents cards. It was rarely an issue, as we were playing on a smaller table, and weren't too far apart from each other.
Secondly - Unlike Lost Cities - and my personal favourite part of this game is that you can create your set of cards, in either ascending or descending order! No more getting all the high cards and being stuck searching for a better card to open up with! And to put the cherry on top, you don't need to declare the order, or even the color of the set, until the second card is played in the flight.
Thirdly - For some advanced play, they have added wildcards, which can come in very handy if your opponent has swiped the very card you needed. They have also added a card that allows you to discard a set, which really adds to the flexibility of gameplay.
The Board
No board
The Cards
Obviously, the core of the components. They are of good laminated cardstock, with clear colours and symbology.
They use an elegant combination of open and filled in circles, squares and diamonds to differentiate between the colours, which I found to be very useful, and non-intrusive to Normal colour-vision players.
I did feel that the symbols may be a bit small to see from across the table, I think they did a really good job here, and I have no problems recommending this game.
The Player Pieces
No player pieces
Other components
I guess the only other components in the game are the rules and the box.
The box is a functional tuckbox, and is kind of on the small side. Sure it holds the game, but not much room for much else. It definitely hides on the shelf. But realistically, it is a card game, and it does its job well.
The rules are fairly well laid out. They have clear pictures of some of the cards and examples of game play. I have no complaints about the rules.
Personal Thoughts
This is a fun game, that does an excellent job of differentiating itself from its inspiration. There are enough differences and decision points between Emu Ranchers and Lost cities, that I believe that they both can sit proudly on my game shelf.
My opponent for the first game wondered if this could have been made into a 4-player game with a second set, so he thought he would work out something on that, and I will let you know if that makes any headway.
I suffer from colour-blindness (red/green/brown) and I've started this blog to explore how to improve games and systems to make them more playable.
I will also showcase the games in our hobby that do it right as well, to let people know that there is hope - one day, all games will be playable by all.
- [+] Dice rolls
