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Awards

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You Might Like

  • A pure co-operative experience.
  • Strong aesthetics and theme.
  • Forces players to be creative and improvise.

Might Not Like

  • Curses and spells feel somewhat repetitive.
  • Deck-building mechanics aren’t as interesting as in other games.
  • Not an overly relaxing game to play.
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The Big Book of Madness Second Opinion

BIG BOOK OF MADNESS

What is Big Book of Madness?

I would love to say that the clue is in the title, which, to be fair, it kind of is. But Big Book of Madness is so much more when you take the time to explore it. Yes, there’s a big book, and yes, there’s madness, but you are aspiring young apprentice mages who thought this book would hold some secrets. You decided to open it and find out. Well, that’s the narrative I like to use. This is a very fun cooperative game that has you working with your team on how best to beat the book and survive the night. Success or defeat solely rests on how well you work together, because facing one curse on your own will not save you from the rest that are waiting to affect you.

How does it play?

Over the years, I’ve played multiple cooperative games, and most of these work really well—some not so much. With Big Book of Madness, I have to say that the cooperative aspect of the game is one of the best because you can’t beat the book on your own; you need help. The way you help each other is what makes this game unique. On your turn, you can cast spells that allow your team to take a turn to assist you, or you can cast spells to add elements from your hand into a support pool on your board that anyone can use when attacking a curse. The strategy needed here is also where your teamwork is required the most. If you get a teammate to take a turn outside of their normal turn, any cards used are spent, and they cannot redraw their hand until the end of their turn. There are ways to get around this, but these are later-game spells that allow it.

All of this combined means you are constantly second-guessing your choices and your team's actions, as well as wanting to help one another to beat the game. There have been many games I’ve played where I was so sure I made the right call, but it turned out I hadn’t. This still made the game fun, as it turned into another opportunity for the team to brainstorm and figure out how to combat the blunder and stay on track.

Oh, and the curses I mentioned before? This is how the monsters from the book affect you and how you have to beat them. Each monster brings out three curses of different elements, and you need to beat them by using the number of elements shown on the card. Easy, right? Wrong! Each time it moves to the next player's turn, the turn tracker moves as well, and this is when the curses start becoming a serious threat. If you don’t get rid of a curse before the tracker reaches a certain point, something nasty happens, which can change the course of the game and further push you to brainstorm ways to win.

Complexity of the game:

At first, the game can look daunting. There are a lot of cards, some of them have horrible text detailing how you’ll be cursed, and there are cards representing madness, which might make you want to run screaming for help. But this isn’t the case. The book and game help you play with as much ease as possible, and the monster cards show you what curses will be used for them, represented by the elements beneath. The cards also show what nastiness will happen when they are triggered. Your element cards represent the elements, and if you have a stranger elemental card, this is represented with more icons on the card.

Your player boards have handy sections to show where you can place your support cards to help the team. The spell cards give clear instructions on what they do, what element they use, and the cost of the element. In conclusion, the very first game you play may seem confusing because there’s a lot going on, but you’ll pick up the rules and gameplay pretty quickly. Before you know it, you’ll start to become an aspiring mage yourself (just don’t go opening some awesome-looking Big Book of Madness).

How it fares as a cooperative game:

I’ve touched on this already, but I’ll give more of my opinion here on how I think it fares as a cooperative game.

The main premise of the game revolves around team play—there’s no sneaky backstabbing or trying to make it so one person does all the work. You have to work together to beat the game. Beating a curse gives that person a more powerful element card. This can either push players into making sure everyone beats a curse to gain the stronger cards, or if one person is taking on most of the curses, they then work on providing these elements in the support pool to help the team.

The spells that are provided allow for a more fluid approach to working with your team in different ways. The randomness of the spells works well, as you have different ones available each time you play (depending on how well you shuffle or if you prefer to use your favourite spells).

A good quote I like to use is: “If the line of communication fails, then we all fail.” This is true in the game. If you stop communicating and try to do your own thing, you’ll lose (unless you’re super lucky). The cooperation adds a level of fun that I didn’t fully realize until my third time playing. When you look at your hand and think, "Oh great, I have nothing," but then see your teammates’ hands and realize you can still do something, it feels satisfying. You might not be able to defeat a curse on your turn, but you can take actions that help the next person. The joy of defeating a curse is immense. Seeing people cheer and scream at a pile of cards, and seeing the pure joy of victory on their faces, is oddly gratifying. After being hit with madness after madness and discarding helpful cards because you had no choice, then coming back to clutch victory—it's something I can’t explain unless you experience it.

Final thoughts:

These are just my thoughts, but I hope they help in deciding whether this game is worth adding to your roster of games for family and friends’ board game nights.

Plainly, I love this game. The complexity of the game is enough to keep you thinking and engaged. The cooperation changes each playthrough depending on the mages you use and the monsters you face. The artwork is fun to look at, and all in all, even when I lose, I still have so much fun that I’m racing to get the next game set up.

The initial setup of each game can take a little time, as you need to get everyone’s starting decks set up, spells arranged, the book set up, etc. But once you're set up, it’s worth the time based on the fun you’ll have.

If you enjoy a challenging, fun, and engaging cooperative game, then this is definitely one to add to your list.

Ratings:

Artwork: 5 out of 5
Complexity: 3 out of 5
Replayability: 4 out of 5
Player interaction: 5 out of 5
Component quality: 4 out of 5

Overall Score out of 100: I would give this game an overall score of 85 out of 100. As mentioned before, the setup can be a little time-consuming, but it’s worth it for the fun you’ll have.

Zatu Score

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You might like

  • A pure co-operative experience.
  • Strong aesthetics and theme.
  • Forces players to be creative and improvise.

Might not like

  • Curses and spells feel somewhat repetitive.
  • Deck-building mechanics arent as interesting as in other games.
  • Not an overly relaxing game to play.

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