I played a Print and Play game called #Vector with my roommate Emily. The game sounded fun and even looked appealing, but not five minutes after we sat down to play the game many questions arose. This was due to one simple, very crucial aspect when it comes to creating a game...and that would be its design.
That being said, I will now give you the reason as to why this game failed on one of the most important aspects of a game. The diagrams shown in the instructions on how to set up the game are confusing, and the reason why is obvious. Instead of having the necessary placement of all the cards in one giant square, the creator separated the playing field into three rectangles (one for black's home, white's home, and the grey area known as "The Grid, where you play the game"), making it look like three different images instead of three pieces to a bigger whole. (See image below):
Once you manage to figure out how the layout of the game is supposed to be played (which took us a collective thirty minutes), the game is pretty straightforward. I wouldn't call it fun, because a lot of it is just you trying to prevent the other player from taking over the "Grid" with their color, which means neither one of you really advances, nor do they want to take the chance. We barely got in to using something called Reputation, a sort of point-based system for the game before calling it quits due to how bored-and irritated-we were at the overall design and set-up.
Overall I would give this game a 4/10.
Summary: A LOT of cutting out for a confusing and pretty boring game. Poor instruction when it comes to set-up, and confusing diagrams; lettering on the vector cards that distinguish the cards from each other need to be much more bold as well. Gameplay is quick once you manage to figure out how to start, but it isn't very exciting. Interesting graphics.
