Computer Junkyard board game review – cheeky, clever, but not bug-free

Everyone knows how to use a computer, but most don’t understand what makes them tick. The same is true of Computer Junkyard, a board game that touts itself as “the best computer game not played on a computer”. This puzzle game is easy to learn and love, but fully understanding its strategy requires serious study. That’s apt given the theme, but I have mixed feelings about its execution.

The concept is a delightful one. You’re building a vintage computer to play a classic videogame from yesteryear. The parts you need, having long been outmoded, are in short supply, so you’re racing other would-be retro gamers to get your rig built.

You don’t need to know about computers to appreciate the theme, but there’s more glee to be found if you do. I’m someone who considers coding a form of witchcraft, but the software engineers I played with were overjoyed by the graphic design choices and the small references to classic computing. Designers Allan and Jared Pincus both have backgrounds in engineering and computer science, and this certainly shines through.

Everyone gets one turn per round, and they begin by drawing hardware tiles at random from a bag. These are added to the junkyard, a public pool of tiles available for purchase. Prices depend on supply, so you’ll pay more dearly if your desired part is the only one of its kind on sale.

After filling the junkyard, you take one of three actions. You can buy and sell up to two tiles, swapping between the junkyard and your personal supply. Alternatively, you can attempt to steal a part from a rival by rolling a die and subtracting the number of locks they have on their current setup.

Your final option is to debug your computer. Sometimes, a bug tile will be drawn from the bag instead of a piece of hardware. The person that pulled it chooses a rival’s computer and places the bug in an open slot. That part and its path back to the motherboard are now bugged, meaning they can’t be tampered with in any way. Only a dice roll can remove it.

Speaking of slots and motherboards, let’s talk about what your computer actually looks like. Your player board is a chassis that, at the start of play, contains only a motherboard.

Bugs are placed by other players once drawn, and some additional features are added by failed dice rolls. Locks appear when another player successfully steals from you, and bug spray comes when you fail a debug roll. These can be sold or traded (more on this shortly), but they’re otherwise permanent additions.

For the most part, though, new additions to the chassis will be hardware tiles. Actually placing your tiles takes place in a separate stage, after everyone has taken their initial action for the round. Before that, however, comes bargaining.

Any kind of deal is allowed, provided it doesn’t violate the base rules of the game. You can trade bug sprays for cash, if you like. You can trade parts. You can offer one player rewards if they promise to screw over another player. Enforcement of the deals is entirely down to player integrity.

Between this and all the theft, Computer Junkyard is wonderfully mischievous. It’s got more ‘take that’ moments than a Bethesda game has bugs. It’s got all the wheeler-dealing of Sheriff of Nottingham, though the two games, otherwise, couldn’t be more different.

The build phase ups the whimsy levels even further. This is a two-minute mini-game where everyone places their collected parts in their chassis. You can rotate and rearrange pieces connected to your motherboard as you please (unless they’re bugged). As long as inputs match the color of outputs, nothing overlaps, and nothing goes beyond the chassis boundary, it’s all legal. Even the parts you stole.

The first person to build a functional computer that meets their game’s operating requirements, then plug said game in and shout ‘installed!’, is the winner. It’s a simple goal, but it’s also full of traps.

Race might imply you want to rush your build, grabbing as many pieces as quickly as you can. But this empties the limited pot of money you began the game with. With each round, more tiles end up in the junkyard, tanking the sell price of many hardware pieces.

In every game I played, the entire bag had been emptied long before a computer had been finished, leaving the players with a static market that was tough to buy and sell into. And, if you’ve spent all your money when that happens, it’s nigh-on impossible to claw it back. You might be able to sell a lock from your computer or steal the parts you need, but that’s all down to dice rolls – so no guarantees.

When this happens, the pacing of Computer Junkyard grinds to a halt, and it never really recovers. The flurry of exciting early turns are replaced with sluggish ones that struggle to move the needle. Buy one thing. Sell one thing. Attempt and fail at theft. Use an optional rule to acquire some coins. Spend a build phase doing nothing.

This is actually by design. A strategy guide on publisher Dream Egg Games’ website (which does not appear in the rulebook) lists beginner player mistakes. Case in point: “ignoring the market until you need something, then paying peak prices with money you don’t have”.

Computer Junkyard requires you to pay close attention to supply and demand. It encourages you to memorize how many of each part are in play, using an optional score sheet to track how many have appeared and who owns them.

Manipulating the market to your benefit is as important as building the damn computer, if not more so. This is a brutal economic board game disguised as a light dexterity game. Considering what’s happened to RAM prices lately, it’s a fitting mix of theme and mechanics.

My only gripe is how punishing Computer Junkyard can be if you aren’t switched on to its strategy. Poor choices don’t leave you a few points behind – it rearranges the structure of the game. Make too many bad decisions, and you’re backed into a corner without hope of reprieve. This can be a ‘feel-bad’ board game, but fortunately, its relatively short runtime means it’s never too grueling.

Besides, to a certain type of gamer, this is no hurdle at all. Some of the best board games of recent years have skill barriers you must cross before you can enjoy the game ‘properly’. Games like Arcs, so often hailed as genius design, can feel downright frustrating until you learn to lean into the brutal, chaotic, constantly changing environment.

Computer Junkyard subscribes to a similar sentiment. It’s not enough to read the rules and place the pieces. You must study them and read between the lines – or fail your way to understanding.

This is nowhere near as complex a strategy game as Arcs. It lacks the richness and replayability of that title, but, with a bit of patience, you’ll find plenty of reward in Computer Junkyard.

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Source: Wargamer