Unstable Unicorns
Magnetic flap makes for easy access.
Today’s post is about a different kind of a game. It has been a while since I have tried a new board game. Unlike video games, my wife is actually interested in these so it is always a treat to find a good new one we can play together. Only problem is she is very, very good at board games. When we get a new board game, there is about five or ten times before she “solves” it. From then on, it is almost impossible to win against her, much to the chagrin of others. She also has no interest in playing any co-op game because she can not “crush” other players in those. As a result, we have a graveyard of games she has already mastered, and no one wants to play those anymore.
In 2019 most of my cousins realized how much fun board games can be. We had a few parties where we ended up playing some party games. The last one was a really big one with over twelve people. It was so much fun we decided make that a regular thing. A month or so later pandemic started. And here we are, socially isolating in our homes. All the games we bought in anticipation of the next gathering, sitting unopened and collecting dust. The good thing is there is no expiration date on them. Hopefully there will be a time a time when COVID is a distant memory and we will still have these games, waiting to be opened and played.
Unstable Unicorns is a card game made by Ramy Badie in 2017. The rules are fairly simple. Each player starts out with 6 cards and a baby unicorn. Whoever gets 7 (or 6 if you are playing with more people) unicorns in their stable first wins the round. There are upgrade, downgrade, and magic cards. The strategy comes from deploying these cards to put the other players at a disadvantage and negate any attacks the player is subjected to.
Box uses the space well. Makes it easy to carry around.
I bought this game on a whim a while back and forgot all about it. It is available pretty much everywhere board games are sold, and cheap enough to be in the impulse buy range. Over the Christmas break we were looking to play a new game. Something easy to learn and one that would not take too long to play. Since Unstable Unicorns was sitting at the top of the pile of board games, we chose to go with that one.
The cards come in a small box that is sturdy (unlike flimsy sleeves a whole lot of card games ship in). I like the clean sleek presentation, especially the magnetic flap that secures the cards inside, but it is still easy to open. The back of the cards are of two different colors. The main cards have a darker back while the baby unicorn and rule cards have a lighter back. The art is cute. Each unicorn card has a different unicorn that ties to the name and the effect the card has. The upgrade and downgrade cards also have a picture related to function they performed. The art is inspired by Oatmeal (and I say that as a compliment). So much so that for that longest time I thought this game was related to the Exploding Kittens card game. These cards are so much fun to look at, I ended up going through all the cards and admiring them for fifteen minutes before I even started reading the rules. The corner of each card has a color coding that lets the player know what type of card it is.
Color coded corners help in tracking cards in hand
It did not take me long to learn how to play, and even less time to teach others. There are four phases of each turn. Beginning, Draw, Play, and End. The phases really help with the rule clarity. Cards that activate at the beginning only work before the player draws from the deck. Overall vocabulary is also concise. Destroy means removing card from opponent’s stable while sacrifice is to remove a card from own stable. Same way discard mean to remove are card from hand while return means to take a card from the stable and put it back in hand. Each player draws only one card, unless they have an upgrade that allows them to draw more. They can then choose to play any of the cards in their hand. In any one turn, the player can only play one card, unless they have an upgrade or magic card that allows them to play more than one card in a single turn.
There are three types of Unicorn cards. Baby unicorn cards are the ones each player receives one of at the beginning of the game. These cards cannot be discarded. Whenever they need to be removed from the stable, they go back to the nursery. Since they cannot go into hand, their removal from the stable is permanent for the round. This means the player can not put it back in their stable in the next turn the way they would be able to with any other unicorn card. The basic unicorn cards can populate the stable, but they do not have any extra effect. They are still useful to fill the stable and complete the win condition. The magic unicorns is where the game shines. They have an effect tied to it. Most of the times this is activated every time the card enters the stable. And it can range from protection against magic to letting the player pick out more cards from the deck.
The magic card is a one-use item. The player plays the card, the effect is activated, and the card is then discarded. The Neigh card can be used to negate the effect whenever it is played. In that case, both Neigh card as well as the Magic card goes to the Dicard pile.
The upgrade cards allow the player an advantage. Most of the time the player decides if they want to activate is in their turn. The only catch is they can only be activated at the beginning of the turn. If the player draws a card, they can no longer use the upgrade card. They can also be used as many times as the player wants since they are not removed from the stable until the opponent destroys it or the player sacrifices it.
Art is fun to look at
The downgrade cards do not activate when they are played either. Instead, they only come into play when the player turn starts. There are only two ways to get rid of a downgrade card. Player can either play a card that allows them to remove all the downgrades from their stable, or they can use it as a sacrifice for a different card. It is almost always a good idea to place it in another player’s stable. The only situation where I found it useful to put it in my own stable was when I had planned to sacrifice it for something on my next turn. Even in that case a card the only activates in certain situations is the way to go. The one I ended up using would only activate when there were four unicorns in my stable. Since I ended up sacrificing it well before it happened, it did not come with a penalty for me.
Once the player has put a card down, or chosen not to put anything down, they can end their turn by discarding any extra cards, so they have no more than seven in the hand. The turns continue until one person gets 7 unicorns in the stable of the deck runs out. If the deck runs out first, then whoever has the highest number of unicorns in their stable wins. Each round lasts about 30 minutes. At the beginning the players don’t know the effects on each card which adds more time. The more we played, we got more familiar with the cards and the game moved smoother.
Certain cards are removed when playing with two players to balance the game better. Those become part of the deck again when there are three or more players. In the limited number of rounds I played the game scaled well. The two player as well as three player rounds were equally fun. I would like to play with even more players to see how well it works.
There are expansion cards sold separately. These add new effects. The ones I saw came with a model of a unicorn and one card. I would like to see an expansion deck that has multiple cards. I would be more likely to buy that as opposed to single cards.
Overall, the game is short and fun. It does not require a large space to set up and play and easy to carry around. All of that makes it a good game to carry around. Not that we have anywhere to go at this time, but it would be a great choice to take on the go when that becomes a possibility. The two player setup takes a little longer because some of the cards need to be separated out, but other than a minor hassle it took almost no time for us to set up and play. I can see this becoming our next casual card game.
