The age of video game cartridges and rental stores might be bygone, but board games never go out of style. In Video Game Champion, a set collection game for 2-5 players, nostalgia meets the table in this blast from the past.
The game is published by Arcane Wonders and designed by Patrick Matheus and André Negrãoplays. Video Game Champion takes about 50-90 minutes to play.
Gameplay Overview:
Video Game Champion is played over the course of five in-game weeks, during each of which players will take three turns, plus a weekend turn.
On your turn, you will choose an action by taking a button tile from a grid on the table (grid size varies by player count). When you take a button tile, you also choose one of the two actions associated with that tile, based on its place in the grid. These actions include gaining money or IOUs, doing chores and homework to pay back IOUs, claiming first place, renting games, receiving games as presents, buying game magazines, and claiming the start player position for the next round. At the end of your turn, you can also play video games you have access to–this will be any games you personally own, as well as games you’re currently renting.
Playing games is done by discarding button tiles in a specific color and/or number pattern to match the requirements of the game. For example, some games might require three buttons of the same color, or four buttons in sequential order, or a combination of both. Some games are harder to complete than others and their victory point rewards reflect this. In addition to spending tiles, players can get an edge by using strategy magazines they’ve purchased to count as a button tile. You beat a game by discarding all of the required tiles, or you can use just two matching tiles to play the game without beating it, which will make the game easier for you to win during future plays. Players also gain special crystals for buying magazines and playing new games, which will help them gain bonuses by filling in sections of their password notebook.
At the end of each week, players get a shorter weekend turn where they can rent and play additional games. At the start of a week, new button tiles are randomly placed on the grid, games and magazines at the shops will refresh, and the rental store will display more new releases that players now have access to. After the fifth week, the game ends and a winner is determined based on the VP value of games they’ve beaten and from bonuses for playing more than 5 games, playing the most games, public achievements accomplished, new release crystals collected, and lines and columns filled in on their password notebook.
Game Experience:
The theme of this game is what will carry it for many players. Those 90s kids among us will remember well the time spent browsing the games section of the video rental store, and the fun titles and art used in this game are reminiscent of those 16 bit days of glory.
From a mechanical point of view, it’s a set collection and hand/tile management game, where you are trying to get specific sets and runs of tiles in order to fulfill the requirements on video games. There is also potential for a little bit of chaining because any time you play a game for the first time, you get to take a tile from a special display called “the thrill trail”, this might enable you to play another game. Filling in rows and columns in your notebook by using new release crystals can also give bonuses to help you out. Pulling off a big turn can be satisfying, but it also comes with a bit of mental fatigue that might not be worth the payout of a relatively light game.
The rules themselves are not too complicated, but there is a lot of upkeep and moving parts in this game: at the end of each round you’re discarding leftover button tiles, as well the video game store and magazine shelf (along with the crystals on them, which are not returned to the bag they came form, but go into the box), then refilling everything and flipping over two newly released games in the rental store.
While it doesn’t feel like the game lasts longer than it should, you seem to have the appropriate amount of time to try to do what you want to do, it does run a little long, and by the end, I found I was just kind of ready for it to be over. There will also be instances where you plan for a big turn and it doesn’t work out because somebody takes the tile you need, or rents the game you wanted.
Added to this is the fact that, aside from an endearing theme and some fun parody titles and covers on the game cards, this game feels like it doesn’t really offer anything new or interesting, and repeated plays don’t have a lot to offer. The objectives you’re going for from game to game will differ, and the action grid with button tiles is randomized, but I personally didn’t feel this was enough to keep the game feeling fresh with repeated plays.
It also requires a lot of space to play because the video game cartridge cards are big (tarot sized) and you lay 15 of them out on the table. While this was presumably done to display their artwork prominently, I think they could have been square size without losing much in appearance while decreasing the space required.
Besides this, there is the action grid, a place for discarding buttons, player areas, the video game shop which displays three more game cartridges, the magazine shop which displays three smaller cards, and the achievement cards. All together, it’s a lot. There are also two bags to draw from, the button tile bag and the crystal bag. The crystals in this game are chunky and look cool, but are rather fiddly and it’s easy to bump them off your notebook card.
Setup also differs by player count, with some tiles needing to be taken out at two players, which is always something I find annoying (but difficult to avoid). Overall, the layout and setup of this game just feels kind of clunky and awkward, and as depicted in the rulebook would take up a ton of space. I found I preferred to setup the game differently, otherwise some players would have to reach way across the table to access the button grid.
Despite these drawbacks there are a few design choices I appreciated. Even with a line under the 6 and 9 tiles, it can be easy to confuse them, but the small image of a dice depicting six pips on the 6 tile makes it quickly easy to distinguish. There is a turn reference card that looks confusing as heck at first, but once you take a minute to make sense of it it’s actually really helpful. And while it’s annoying to do all the upkeep between rounds, nearly every supply is set up in such a way that it will run out at the end of the game.
Final Thoughts:
Video Game Champion does a few things to rescue it from being just okay—there’s satisfaction in pulling off what you want to accomplish, and there’s some tension in not wanting players to rent or buy a game you want, or for scoring achievements before other players.
Yet, all of the nice little touches, the fun artwork, weren’t enough to really make it stand out mechanically among similar games. I feel like it just barely edges into the good game category, but with some caveats. If you are a theme-first gamer and this theme specifically enamors you, then go for it, otherwise, with a $60 MSRP, I’d say this is one to try before you buy. For me, the game length, somewhat laborious setup, and fiddly component management mean I probably won’t choose to play it often.
Final Score: 3 stars – Fun for a stroll down nostalgia lane, but with a few drawbacks.
Hits:
• Fun artwork and theme
• Satisfying when you accomplish what you want to
Misses:
• Game is long and mentally heavy without a lot of depth
• Table hog with a lot of upkeep
Source: Board Game Quest
