Scooby-Doo The Board Game, review: the cartoon comes to life in this dynamic game
Scooby-Doo The Board Game, review
Scooby-Doo The Board Game is a strategic collaborative game based on the cartoon of the same name in which we will be called upon to impersonate the members of Mystery Inc. dealing with creepy monsters and seemingly inexplicable mysteries. The game, published by Cmon and localized by Asmodee Italia, is the work of Fred Perret and Guilherme Goulart and is suitable for 1-5 players aged 10 and over.
Scooby-Doo The Board Game faithfully translates the atmospheres and typical elements of the timeless cartoon, an aspect that will delight fans. However, the game can still be fully appreciated even by those unfamiliar with Scoby-Doo, thanks to the quality of the components, the playability and the fast pace and always on the razor's edge.
Following the structure of each episode of the show, Scooby-Doo! the Board Game sees the protagonists investigate a mysterious Monster who is terrorizing a quiet town.
Are you curious to know if the Scooby Gang will be able to catch the monster and foil the plot of the bad guy, or the five " nosy poultices" will have to run away?
Scooby-Doo The Board Game: let's open the box
A distinctive trait of all the games produced by Cmon is the very high quality of the components , especially as regards the beauty of the miniatures , which alone are able to significantly increase the value of the game itself, thus justifying a price range a little higher than other games of the same type.
Inside the box we find well-finished components, which include shaped cardboard counters, some decks of cards, 8 plastic miniatures (the Band of Scooby and the Monsters) and a 3d element to assemble (the Mystery Machine). All the cardboard elements are contained in two punched sheets and once freed from their initial location they can then be housed inside the container tray inside the box, designed to accommodate the various elements. To complete the game equipment there are the board (a 4-fold folding panel), the character sheets and the game rules.
Shaped counters represent the various elements of the game that the Scooby Gang and the Monsters interact with during each game, while the cards are mechanical elements of the game such as initiative and movement speed and traps that will serve to counter the Monster.
Miniatures aside, one of the coolest and funniest elements of the game is undoubtedly the Mystery Machine, a must-have in any game dedicated to Scooby-Doo. The van is perfectly reproduced from an easy-to-assemble paper model, which can house up to two miniatures of the game inside. Once built, the Mystery Machine will also find its place inside the tray.
As for the miniatures in the box, we will find the five members of the Scooby Gang (Fred, Daphne , Velma, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo) and three of the most memorable monsters from the cartoon (Green Ghost, Brutus and Ghost Clown)
The miniatures are in line with the usual production quality to which Cmon has accustomed us and undoubtedly represent one of the strengths of this game. The only peculiarity is the coloring of the stickers: the Monsters are made of gray plastic, while the five protagonists are uniformly colored by taking up one of their distinctive colors (Fred in blue, Daphne in purple, Velma in orange, Shaggy in green and Scooby in brown) .
The setup of the game is not particularly complex, but it requires a few minutes to study the rules and a sufficiently comfortable space to arrange the various game elements which will be divided into distinct groups; once the preparation is completed, the investigation can be started.
Scooby-Doo The Board Game: let's start playing
Looking at the layout of the game board before starting at the dances we asked ourselves how it is possible that a similar game, characterized by an articulated regulation and different components, can last only 30 minutes.The answer to this question is quite simple: Scooby-Doo! The Board Game is a fast-paced game that leaves very little room for uncertainty, because every action of the characters and the Monster will have a direct impact on the progress of the game.
This will oblige us immediately (or almost ) to collaborate and focus on the right moves to make.
In each game, players will have to face and defeat a monster before it drives away the inhabitants of the town. To succeed in this enterprise, the Scooby gang will have to create three traps, collecting the necessary resources located in various places in the city. Obviously, while the gang will be busy looking for the materials necessary to create the traps, the Monster will certainly not sit idly by, on the contrary, he will begin to terrorize the inhabitants, gradually making things increasingly difficult for the players.
But let's go in order and find out how all this translates into the game. Each turn is divided into three phases:
draw and choice of reveal action cards During the first phase, each player draws two cards from the draw deck, choosing the best of these (the second is discarded). The Monster, on the other hand, will draw a Monster Card from the corresponding deck.
In the second phase, the numbers on the cards are compared, these establish the initiative and therefore the order of action of the characters and the Monster (the initiative is determined in ascending order starting from the lowest value).
In the third phase we continue by moving around the map, interacting with the surrounding places and solving the various actions.
For the players this will mean collecting resources, recover useful character cards, build traps, or counteract the Monster's influence in some way. For the Monster, on the other hand, the action phase will be equivalent to frightening the inhabitants making them run away, using his special ability and infesting uninhabited places.
Unlike the players, who can decide to move freely (except for some limitations due to consequences of the Monster's activity), the Monster's movement will be arbitrary, following steps determined by the Monster Cards that indicate which path it must follow.
The monster's dangerousness is such that if uncountered with the right counters, losing a game will happen very quickly, because each time the monster passes into an inhabited area one of the inhabitants will be removed from the board. An uninhabited area will be declared infested and, if the Monster manages to infest 2 other areas, the players will have lost the game. Removing the inhabitant tokens will also have another consequence, i.e. hampering the movement of the characters , precluding access to some specific areas and forcing the characters to have to move along longer paths .
This means that a strategy time only to create the three necessary traps will not be enough to win, but it will also be necessary to keep an eye on the visitor tokens present in each area of the board and eventually restore them before it's too late.
Obviously the danger of the scenario will be proportional based on the number of players and the level of difficulty chosen, with a more facilitated experience in the easiest level and the presence of a more or less limited amount of some elements of the game based on the number of players (the mode in solitaire isn't too dissimilar to multiplayer). Regardless of the level of difficulty in which you decide to play, the danger of the Monster and the consequent and tangible sense of urgency of the situation will be immediately evident.
