I’m an avid board gamer. When I saw the pre-release of Most Wanted, a review copy was Most Wanted. I received the game June 23rd and had lots of playtime (it won’t be released until September).

I take play testing seriously and I love the idea of “breaking” a new game. What’s to love? What’s got room for improvement?

First Impression

Upon punching the game, I noticed a couple of things: The box is nice and the storage compartments are perfect. The player boards are rather flimsy though and aren’t going to hold up well through a lot of plays. I wish they’d been made of sturdier cardboard instead of more of a standard cardstock. In addition, the player name is on one side of the board and the reminder text for winning hands is on the opposite side. So you either get to “be” the character or you get to see the reminder of what-beats-what on the player aide. It would have been nice to see the player names on both sides. As it stands, we ended up making up new names for our characters as we used the player aides. Shotgun Granny was a family favorite and comes with a song.

I read the rules in about ten minutes and it took only a minute or two to explain them to the family. Everyone was ready to go rob some stagecoaches and trains and become Most Wanted.

Game 1: 5 players (2 adults, 3 kids: 15, 11 & 9)

This is a family game, so having a big family was helpful for playtesting. We also had a visiting friend this summer who helped us play test it. I forgot to set the timer for game one, so I don’t know how long it lasted.

On your turn, players choose one of 6 actions: 3 robbery actions (with 3 levels of difficulty), a hand refill option, a money from the bank option, or a one-on-one duel.

The hands are then played out as a trump-style game where the better hand beats a lesser hands (4 of a kind, 3 of a kind, 2 pairs, 1 pair, etc). It has an interesting mechanism called the 6-shooter which allows a hand of ALL 6s to beat a hand of ALL Aces. The Six-shooter made it interesting but at the same time, it only applies for the entire hand (so not in the case of 2 pairs, etc).

On the first turn, the youngest player went for the Pony Express (the lowest difficulty robbery option), but since no one was on the board, there was no consequence for losing, everyone went in, even if just to rotate their cards out. In Most Wanted, the winning hand moves forward on the board, while the losing hand must then pay “bail” to avoid jail. The bail is equivalent to your character’s position on the game track.

One of the first stumbling blocks of the game – how do we pay bail when we don’t have any money? The starting hand does not include any money from the bank. It’s a Western-themed game about being an outlaw – centered around robbing stagecoaches and trains, and yet when you “win” the robbery, there’s no payout. You move up on the point track, but you DON’T receive money from the bank. Winning means you win points and not cash. It took a couple of players a few rounds to figure out priories and how to manage them. I can see how it could be confusing to some younger players who don’t understand their objective. It took the 9-year-old three turns to realize how to get money and then she wanted to collect money instead of points.

By the time the draw deck needed to be replenished – we still had two players NOT yet on the point track.

The first game ended just as the draw deck replenished for the second time, still with one player not on the game board. The 15-year-old won.

Game 2: (Same 5 players, this time I set the timer: 22 minutes of game play)

This game moved faster and everyone understood that going to an Honest Day’s Work was the only way to get money, so everyone did that with their first turn before venturing out to try to gain points.

Then immediately someone went for the Train action, because with all players off the board there was no consequence for losing, so some players jumped in just to enable them to rotate out their hands. It would have been nice to have a minimum bail to pay so that there are consequences for joining in the robbery.

Everyone also decided to go to Church a lot more in the second game because the higher hand count enabled more options when it came time to battle it out with cards.

We never used the Duel action during the first game, so I tried it during this game, just to see how it played.

The second game played a bit more evenly but there was still a player not on the board until the second Draw deck refill happened. That’s a long time for not participating too much in the game.

Overall Impressions:

• One person is constantly handing out card refills (in a 5 player game at an oval table, it didn’t make sense for everyone to try to reach the deck, especially with characters in the center of the board to be potentially knocked over).
• One person is constantly reminding the other players of their Bail charges when they lose a hand (while the card refills are happening)
• There’s not a lot of action for 22 minutes of gameplay and quite a bit of downtime if you aren’t participating during another person’s turn (or if they are choosing solo actions).
• Money is not accessible and the action to get money is kind of boring. There is no money reward for pressing your luck.
• There are times when you need new cards and you go into a Robbery action just to rotate your hand out.
• It’s disappointing to see that there are players who are not even on the board near (or at) the end of the game. It’s not much fun to feel like you aren’t participating.
• The youngest player could not wrap her head around how to use the Six-Shooter to her advantage.
• The theme was fun and everyone enjoyed the art and character names (and making up their own names and backstories)
• It’s a quick filler-game that is ideal for families or kids.
• Playtime works well for younger players and non-gamers or families that love gaming and don’t have the time for a big long game.
• I wish the player boards had been more reinforced and less flimsy.