5-MINUTE MARVEL (2018)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	ARTIST	PUBLISHER
2-5	5-45 mins	Conner Reid	Alex Diochon	Spinmaster Ltd

METHOD

Each player holds a deck of cards to represent a different Marvel hero.

In real time you must present cards with symbols that match certain requirements to be rid of a Villain card, speedily working through the whole Boss deck before time runs out.

This game is co-op. This game is real time. This game is chaos.

POINTS OF INTEREST

This is chaos in a box.

Like it’s predeceser, 5-MINUTE DUNGEON, it will have players chucking down cards and calling out symbols while the count down ticks closer and closer to zero.

Each Boss Villain has a deck placed on it’s board. This deck is full of Minions / Goons / Villains / Masterminds that all work the same way. They have a number of symbols on them, and your team needs to play Resource cards to basically cancel out those symbols. With that card ‘defeated’ you discard it and do the same again until you reach the Boss board itself. Which will have a bunch more symbols on it, representing the last, big fight.

But, not being turn based, and fighting a 5 minute time limit, there isn’t much space to work on tactics. There will be a lot of overlap and lost cards as communication goes out the window and multiple players throw cards down while shouting out “I’ve got two shields!”.

While it sucks to see that extra card or two wasted, it reminds the team that you have to work together and sharpens everyone for the next turn.

Take a breath. Check your cards. Focus, and go again.

As if tripping over each other wasn’t so bad, the deck has a few Crisis cards shuffled in that will cause issues just when you think it’s all going smoothly.

These range from flipping over someones Hero board, in effect injuring them and disabling their Hero power, to forcing all players to discard a certain amount of cards.

These Crisis cards sit in amongst the Boss Villain deck, waiting to spring out and ruin a good team’s glorious march towards triumph. It’s great for keeping people on their toes when adreniline is already spiking in the closing seconds of a fight.

But don’t worry. You have some special cards too.

Each hero has their own small deck of Action cards that differ from character to character. These give you powerful turns and will have you annoucning “I’m about to do this awesome thing!” before slamming said card down and being aplauded by the team for a clutch play.

What makes this Action card deck interesting is that it’s not shuffled in with your Resource card deck. Each player will have two decks in front of them. First is their cut of the Resource cards. Next to that is their Action cards.Every time you need to draw a card, you choose which pile it comes from.

But its a decision that requires thought. Hold nothing but Resource cards and you’ll be a hero without much super. But stack your hand with all Action cards and your team will resent you as you sit back waiting to strike in a perfect moment that may never come. It adds an extra layer, preventing the game from being too basic.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

I’m not sure if the game is only supposed to be played as just a quick 5 minute game. We’ve always seen it as a challenge to get through the six Boss Villains, taking on the increasing pressure and challenge as each deck gets tougher.

BGG states that the playtime is 5 minutes. I say it’s 30 to 45, depending on how quickly your group can sort out the mess of cards between each rounds setup. It’s almost like a roast dinner; time to set up, 5 minutes to play, more time to clean up.

And it’s this escalation that sees an easily fixable issue for me. The Boss Villain deck gets larger each Boss you take on, starting with the Green Goblin, and ending with Thanos. But your characters don’t improve in any way, and I feel that it’s a lost opportunity.

Sure, your deck increasing in size would negate the same increase in Villain cards because you can last longer (several games of this were lost because we ran out of cards, not because the clock hit zero). And adding time causes issues with the games title, so that isn’t the fix.

But what about a deck of special cards, generic or character specific, that get rewarded after each victory. The cards could be swicthed out for a different Action card. It offers a soft version of player progression and sees the heroes learn and grow as their opponents get stronger.

Because of this, you could, in effect, play the Bosses in any order; your decks remain the same mix of cards for each of the six battles.

Something else that lets this game down is the art. Or lack of.

While the Marvel characters all look great with the cartoony style on offer, most of the cards are devoid of pictoral representations. While the Resource cards would have looked nice with something more ‘Marvel’ on them, I can see that perhaps it keeps the design clean. Plus, they are all shuffled and dealt to all players.

The character specific Action cards, however, could easily have had a little more customisation to spruce them up. As it is, the bright and colourful character artwork only adorns the hero and villains mats, which isn’t much at all.

EXTRA CONTENT?

There are currently no expansions for this verison of the game, but if you want to mix things up and switch to a fantasy setting, there is 5-MINUTE DUNGEON, and for those who perfer a mystery setting, you can try 5-MINUTE MYSTERY.

FOR 2-PLAYERS?

At the lower count, the game works pretty well. You hand size is increased to 6 cards so you have more choice. However, the Villain decks are not reduced by that much, so it might feel like a bit more of a slog to get through each of them at 2-player, especially Thanos.

Your character decks don’t change size, so you have less cards to throw at the villains each round, and it will mean that certain cards that allow ‘all players to ???‘ are less effective when it’s just the two of you.

That being said, if the amount of chaos is off putting, things are a little calmer at just 2-player.

– – CONCLUSION – – For a light weight famiy co-op game, it hits the spot. You can switch your brain off and just engage with the frantic chaos of shedding cards against a clock. While there isn’t much in the way of tactics other than being clear with group communication, the villains offer a nice challange in their escalation while not being ultra difficult. And if Marvel isn’t your thing, definitely try 5-MINUTE DUNGEON for a generic fantasy theme.

Review #0072