Story War is a great party game for nerds. It combines the simple idea of Apples to Apples with the story-telling and favorite characters of Dungeons & Dragons and other nerd-tastic classic games.
It’s on Kickstarter right now, but I had a chance to play the playtest version. This game is heavily dependent on a few factors: knowing the people you are playing with, being able to play a game that has an open, less structured set of rules, and strong storytelling abilities.
The Cards: There are three kinds of cards in Story War:
Battlefields: There are a few of these cards. The cards have green backs in the prototype. There is a picture and witty description on each card.
Warriors: The warrior cards have red backs and also have an image and description. Paying attention to both elements of the card can win or lose the round. Does the dragon picture show wings? Is the vampire lame and sparkly? Yes, these things matter.
Items: Again, items have both an image and description. Images can be played at any time during a battle. Some of the combinations are quite adult and punny. For instance, using the Ring of Invisibility with the Cockatrice...yes, Katherine Green went there (if you go to the third video in the YouTube series of Hank Green playing Story War).
The Play: Each player (except the judge) draws a number of Warrior and Item cards based on the number of people playing. The judge flips over a Battlefield card and announces where the battle will take place. Next each player picks a Warrior to play in that Battlefield (considering the image and text provided on the card). Each player/team also picks an item to be used during battle.
When the Warriors are revealed each player tells the story of how their Warrior challenges, weakens, and finally defeats the other Warriors in the combat. The judge makes the final decision as to who won the battle, and each player involved in the winning team keeps their Warrior card to keep track of victory points.
The Finish: As the rounds end each player takes a turn being the judge. Once all of the players have had a chance to be the judge, the game ends and everyone counts up their victory points to determine a winner. Though, the times I have played through Story War there has always been a tie. But as the rules state, it isn't about who wins or loses, it’s about having fun!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6e9uxwAZzI[/youtube]
Hank Green has been sharing videos of a group of his friends playing this game. It’s silly fun. It doesn’t hurt that they keep bringing back that one of the people working on the project is the creator of Keyboard Cat. YES!
This project has a few days to go on Kickstarter. Pledges range from Print and Play for $10 to the Patron Pack for $1000 or more. The basic pack of 100 cards can be backed for $25. For sheer silliness and laid-back fun it’s worth having in your game repertoire.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/J—aiyznGQ[/youtube]
**This game was received for play-testing. Keyboard Cat was not included.**
