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Combo Critters aims to build a party of adorable creatures and have them work together using synergies to steamroll an enemy group.
Engine Building is one of my absolute favourite board game mechanics, and I’m absolutely elated that its starting to surface more regularly in games. This is the latest game I’ve played that’s packed full of modifiers, mutators and twists, and it’s all done with an adorable, low-rez art-style stuffed with tons of cute little critters to recruit.
Combo Critters is the latest game from PUNKCAKE Délicieux (creators of MOONPONG, Shotgun King, and a whole lot more). As with their previous titles, it’s a tasty little indie delicacy with fantastic art and well-rounded systems. However, as I said previously, this time you’ll be curating critters to your party of six in order to hit score goals before your opponent does.
It all plays out in an easy-to-understand turn-base structure with players taking turns to draw from either the discard deck or the draw-deck before discarding a creature of their choice. The complexity comes in the cool critters and their effects.
Each critter has its name, a basic score that they give, a type, and a description for any extra requirements or effects that activate once it gets played – with play starting as soon as the discard pile is full. For instance, there’s a very cool dragon card that’s (perhaps obviously) fire type and scores a whopping 50 points. However it negatively affects a whole bunch of other types. Similarly, Electric critters can have some fantastic abilities but might require an Energy unit to be in play somewhere, anywhere, including the discard pile.
Simple enough, right? It certainly is if you’re familiar with engine building mechanics in games like Balatro or board games like Terraforming Mars… it just needs a bit of reading. And, if you win your level then you unlock a new critter and march on into the next stage.
Combo Critters is available now on itch.io.
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