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When I first found out Asking for Trobils was getting a reprint I was super excited as it was a game I really wanted to play. I was really disappointed when I discovered it was sold out everywhere. I was told a few days later that the reprint was coming and via Breaking Games (The guys behind the awesome Rise of Tribes).
Chris Strain originally Kickstarted this game the second time of asking and raised over $35,000. The game quickly sold out and people like myself really wanted to play it, more so when I noticed it had won the seal of excellence from The Dice Tower.
Asking for Trobils is a worker placement game where you play as competing hunters of the space vermin called Trobils.
First Impressions
I am not surprised this game was a sell-out before the reprint, during Essen Spiel a few weeks back it sold out again. The artwork is visually striking, and the box stands out against any other in my collection.It appeals to kids, but its comic style looks also appeals to the older generation.
Upon opening the box, you are greeted with a large rulebook that has the same art style throughout. The writing is easy to understand, and I am a huge fan of rulebooks that have a layout of the components for you to check off against so seeing that was something that pleased me.
The component quality is good, you have thick pieces of card that represent the resources, money, traps and more. The ships are small minis of various styles and they are cool looking plastic shapes. The board is again of good quality and the art/colour is great.
The thing that really impressed me though was the iconography and graphic design, the board feels clean and everything becomes easy to understand after only a few turns.
Asking for Trobils - The Game
The idea of the game is to be the best hunter of the creatures called Trobils. They are overrunning the planet and you will compete with the other players to score the most points by capturing them and making the planet safe once again.
On your turn, you will have two actions
- Place a ship. Here you will place a ship on a location and take the action stated on the board. This will be things like;
A.- Take a card.
B.- Collect Resource.
C.- Buy upgrades so locations give added bonuses
- Take Ships. Here you will remove all ships from the board if you have none to place.
So with only two actions, you would think the game was straightforward right? Wrong!! There is a mechanism in the game called Bumping. This is a neat idea where you can actually go where other ships are, unlike other worker placement games. If you do this the opponent's ship will be retrieved, giving them an extra turn but you will be able to take the benefit of the action space.
To summarise, players will take turns placing their ships, collecting resources and catching Trobils. Drawing cards from the deck will reveal city cards, these represent happy cities that you have freed from the Trobils and when all city cards are drawn the player with the most points is the winner.
Final Thoughts
I said above that I really wanted to try this game and a desire to play a game can sometimes lead to disappointment, in this case, it did not.
The rules are simple and easy to learn/teach and as you only have two actions to consider on your turn the downtime is almost non-existent. The bumping method is genius as it adds a level of player interaction. The bumping makes you think, do you knock a player off the spot and inevitably give your opponent another move or do you try and wait to get what you need on the next turn.
Worker placement is one of my favourite mechanics in a game and it's done with such a simple style here that you can play with younger people easily, but with the bumping, there is a lot of hidden depth and strategy involved.
Asking for Trobils flows at a great pace and everyone is kept engaged throughout. The turns are quick and more often than not you know where you want to go before your turn comes around. If you are a fan of worker placement and have a mixed age range of people you play with then I highly recommend this game.
