Gremlins, Inc. Review

Have you ever wanted to be a Gremlin? A capitalist gremlin? Perhaps you want to send all your friends to jail while you reap the monetary benefits? "Gremlins, Inc." might be for you! This game plays like a steampunk Monopoly, but with loads more depth than America's favorite capitalism simulator ever had. You play a Gremlin (of course) and move around the board do make money, avoid the cops, and build your political career.

Mechanically, there's a lot going on in "Gremlins, Inc." Your goal is to get the most Score within the round limit. In order to get score you have to complete different challenges and dice rolls to earn Gold and Votes. Gold is used to buy things, naturally. Votes are your chances of winning political elections, with the goal of becoming Governor. The Governor has immunity from the police and never has to pay bribes.

For non-Governors, there's also the risk of getting caught by the cops and landing in jail, or even being hit by a Misfortune. There are about 30 Misfortunes in the game which have varying negative effects on the player who picks one up. The other resource you have is Malice, which has negative effects based on card effects. Malice also lowers your chances of being voted into office and forces you to pay more for bribes. More malicious players may end up in jail more often if they're losing a lot of Gold to bribes.

On the subject of jail... You actually don't necessarily have to avoid jail at all costs, unlike games like Monopoly. In "Gremlins, Inc." jail can actually be a good thing. While in jail you can level up and earn bonuses, and generally control your criminal empire from behind bars. It's not always the best option, but jail isn't a "sit and watch" simulator either. You can choose your behavior each turn you're in jail, having different effects depending on how you decide to play it.

The way you move around the board in "Goblins, Inc." is actually pretty unique. Rather than a dice roll, you have a hand of six cards. While each card CAN be used on corresponding tiles to get you various bonuses and effects, the cards also have a movement value. You can discard the card in order to move that many squares. Every time you use a card you immediately draw another. To use cards outside of movement, you have to pay a cost. That cost can be anything from a few hundred gold to picking up a Misfortune. There's tons of tiles to land on as well. You can run into the police, who have a chance to take you to jail if you don't pay the bribe. You can lose or gain money just by passing over certain tiles (no landing required). There also areas where you can gamble away some gold in hopes of picking up even more gold. Capitalism has never been so much fun.

There's a special set of tiles at the ends of the roads, called Locations. These Locations allow you to choose an effect, and many cards can only be played from a particular Location. They're basically the tiles you're moving between throughout the game and could be considered a goal in many ways. Locations include the Bank, the Court, the Jail, and a bunch more. Locations are the only tiles where players are allowed to stand together without a penalty.

If you land on the same tile as another player, a Conflict begins. During a Conflict, each player bids an amount of Gold. The one who pays the higher amount stays on that tile, while the loser is shipped off to jail to do hard time for daring to walk on the same part of the street as their clearly very rich competitor.

If you ever have a question about the numerous cards and mechanics, there's a convenient tab called "Gremlinopedia" which essentially acts as an in-game wiki. There are also a handful of tutorials which you should NOT skip. There are a lot of mechanics which you might have trouble getting the hang of without a bit of training.

For 1000 Gold, this card will give you 13 Score, but also 5 Malice

Aesthetically, this game is awesome. It's a seedy steampunk underworld of crime and politics. The art is really nice as well. I wouldn't call it "beautiful" but that's only because it's not really aiming for that. It's more grungy and rusty, with lots of browns and yellows and greys. I really dig it since there's not a lot of good steampunk-style games coming out these days. The card art is super comical fantasy-style. The whole thing has a little bit of a Harry Potter vibe, but with a decent helping of crime. The music is... well... I've heard it described as "porn music". I don't disagree.

I'm SUPER into this game. It's rare that a digital board game actually manages to be fun and keep player interest high after more than a couple games. "Gremlins, Inc." succeeds. There are some typos here and there, but nothing too bad. I DO recommend getting a group of friends together since this game is best enjoyed with other people you know. Playing against AI can get stale after a while. This game isn't gonna change the future of video games or anything like that, but if you're into board games I HIGHLY recommend you pick it up. It's super fun. You can pick up "Gremlins, Inc." on Steam for $15 or your regional equivalent.

-Justin

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Graphics: GREAT
Sound: HILARIOUS (the porn music that is) (otherwise, GREAT)
Gameplay: AMAZING
Value: GREAT

OVERALL: GREAT

Gremlins Menu Music

FULL DISCLOSURE: this game was provided to A-To-J Connections free-of-charge by the developers in order to write this review. Please keep this in mind while reading the review.