The people behind Killer Snails: Assassins of the Sea are clearly focused on education being part of the games they do.
They are the people who also did the game Biome Builder reviewed here previously, and like BB Killer Snails is a card game, and those cards are used to share interesting tidbits, in this effort relating to sea snails.
Admittedly sea snails have not been a topic of interest previous to playing Killer Snails, but sometimes some interesting facts rather than an attempt at humour as is often the case with fluff text on cards is a nice change.
Interestingly “predatory marine cone snails are found in tropical environments all around the world. They feed on fish, worms, or other marine mollusks using a venom arsenal, which is similar to those of snakes and scorpions. The venom is made up of several peptide combinations (‘Cabals’) that scientists are investigating to treat human diseases and disorders such as cancer and pain,” notes the game’s introduction, which was in itself more information than I had known about sea snails.
This game was designed in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History, so that again suggests you will learn some neat things if you pause to read the cards.
“The goal of the game is to collect peptides on your snail to match the three mystery Cabals in the centre of the table. The Cabals are different every time you play. Just like scientists who go on expeditions to collect snails, and then conduct experiments to describe their venom peptides, you will collect snails and experiment to build the winning peptide solution.
“The first player to complete all three sets is the winner. Another player may extract a Cabal that already been extracted by a different player in order to gain all three sets and win the game,” notes the rules.
“You collect peptides by using snails to attack prey. To win, you must build a powerful deck by acquiring stronger cards – to hunt tougher prey and acquire peptides – then correctly solve the Cabals.”
But, how does it all work?
Well there is a deck-builder element which is a preferred mechanic for us. However, here you never seem to build much of a deck since a hand of five cards has most of the cards dedicated to feeding your snails each turn.
The idea of having to feed the snails, or lose them is interesting, but perhaps dominates card usage a bit too much.
There are cards that are called ‘instants’ here, but they are not exactly an instant at all. You play the cards on your turn only. For an old Magic: the Gathering player that was a major bugaboo. And, if they were MtG-like instants they would be much more interesting and useful in game.
As it is, a handy concept like exchanging cards with an opponent is often a wasted effort, as you are likely to have it happen to you by another player in a multi-player game. As an instant that could be played ‘out-of-turn’ then allowing you a regular action on your turn would impact that game much more, and frankly be better.
There are some nice aspects here, ‘solving cabals’ in particular, but the limited deckbuilding players can manage, and the less than fulfilling rules in terms of instant cards holds this game back from being a top-rated effort. That said the educational aspect will be appreciated by many.
Check it out at www.killersnails.com
Thanks to fellow gamers Trevor Lyons and Adam Daniels for their help in running through this game for review.
