The year is 2484 and 80% of the Earth’s surface is uninhabitable from the last Great War. Surviving colonies fight over what resources are left by hiring cybernetically and genetically enhanced snipers to battle and minimize their own casualties. These snipers try to take each other out to see which colony claims these remaining precious resources. Sound interesting? Read on!
Our review today, Super Snipers, the polyominoes 2-player dueling game from Galen’s Games. Where you try to place polyominoes on various grids to eliminate your opponent or the AI in solo mode to win the game. Super Snipers plays in about 20–30 minutes.
Game Overview:
Super Snipers setup is straight forward. Players will choose a sniper (there are 7 unique ones with ability, adrenaline cards, and hide discs), scope board with tokens, each player choose 3 locate grids (with matching target grid for their scope board), and a bag of 30 focus (polyominoes).
Each player will take the same number of turns and flip their Ready or Go tokens to signify the start and end of their turn. Game play is over a series of rounds and each round includes 3 phases.
- Hide: choose the locate grid where your sniper is hiding and place the miss or sniper hide disc.
- Locate: place focus on the locate grids trying to find your opponent by isolating crosshair icons and if a player does they flip the hide disc to see if they found their opponent.
- Target: once you’ve found your opponent you then move to the target grid and place focus to isolate innocents and target and damage or kill your opponent.
There are important things to note about the Super Sniper gameplay.
Focus tokens come in three colors (purple, gold, gray) and must be placed starting with the edge of either the locate or target grids and then can only chain off the same color.
Focus tokens are used to isolate crosshairs, innocents, and primary targets by blocking those orthogonally from the border of the grid.
Once the primary target is locked, then the player uses their bullet (polyomino) and makes the kill to damage their opponent. Once a Sniper takes their 3rd damage marker their opponent wins the game.
Game Experience:
Super Snipers has two modes and mentioned above is Duel Mode with players taking simultaneous turns at time resulting in ties. It’s a good way to learn the game but the other mode Quick Draw gives Super Snipers a more exciting and fun edge. Each player gets a 10-second timer, places their focus, and flips it over once it runs out. Players can keep taking turns and not have to wait on their opponents so players will not have the same number of turns. This makes Quick Draw more intense and gets your blood pumping while Duel Mode feels slower and can be a slough especially if there’s any analysis paralysis by a player. The other plus with Quick Draw is there are no ties.
While I do not seek out puzzle games, Super Snipers is a fun polyomino puzzle game where players are trying to fit and chain focus onto multiple grids not only trying to isolate icons but also trying to cover them which helps in the Hide and Target phases. In the Hide phase players can reserve focus for the Target phase and in the Target phase itself players can gain 3 bonuses that can break the rules of focus placement. Players gain focus by pulling from their bag and most of the time those are not the most advantageous pulls in either color or shape for the grid space(s) you’re trying to fill. So, while Super Snipers is not a complex puzzle trying to chain and fit pieces but you are racing against your opponent which makes it feel much more puzzly under that added stress.
Luck can be a factor in Super Snipers. Each bag pull for focus as mentioned previously might not be ideal but there are game has mechanics that help mitigate bad luck. Each player’s Scope board has a section labeled Line of Sight (LOS) where there are always 3 focus are lined in order for a player to use and to see what is to come. This helps but you cannot change it unless you gain bonuses. Some of the bonuses you can secure during the Target phase can change the order of your LOS, create a reserve token, or chain a different color. Plus, each player begins the game with 2 Clear tokens that allow them to either remove a focus from any grid (locate or target) or discard their active focus in their LOS. All these mechanics help with bad luck but are not vital if you don’t need to use them.
Super Snipers has two solo modes: Contract Mode and Hostage Rescue. Contract Mode simulates Duel Mode by using an AI instead of an opponent. Again, like Duel, Contract Mode is ok and more difficult with the AI. Now, Hostage Rescue differs because it pits you against 2 AI rival Snipers and uses the timer like Quick Draw Mode. I thought I was going to like Hostage Rescue since it uses the Quick Draw timers but that was not the case. The timer has you stop placement unless you have 1 of the 5 you’re supposed to start with. So the timer felt somewhat artificial since you can still place focus in your hand after the timer expires. This mode also has the player use two scope boards which is just too much to manage in 10-second intervals to be considered fun. I did not enjoy it and wouldn’t recommend it.
Final Thoughts:
Super Snipers is a fun polyomino game with a Quick Draw mode that makes the game more intense and emulates a real-time feel. It is also puzzly trying to fit focus onto grids trying to isolate targets and gain bonuses to help you defeat your opponent. Super Snipers also has many mechanics to help players try to change their luck and have more advantageous focus placements.
Now what holds Super Snipers back from scoring higher is the Hostage Rescue solo mode that takes a great element like the timer but makes it artificial and has too much going on to make it enjoyable and fun.
Final Score: 4.0 Stars – A fun puzzly polyomino game where mechanics alter luck and help players defeat their opponents.
Hits:
• Quickdraw mode
• Puzzly fun
• Luck mitigation
Misses:
• Hostage Rescue
Source: Board Game Quest
