CUPHEAD: FAST ROLLING DICE GAME

The Devil’s in the Roll

Cuphead was an instant video game darling due to its winning mix of instantly endearing rubber hose style animation and jazz soundtrack mixed with infamously challenging run-and-gun platforming gameplay. When transitioning to the tabletop in the form of Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game, the game retained a lot of elements that were already very successful. The classic animation art style has only been made slicker with simple yet beautifully made components, like boxes for each boss level, great quality cards and custom dice. Even the music makes re-appearance through a free app that acts primarily as a timer but is also essential for mood setting. The main characters are also here – the titular Cuphead, his brother Magnum, Ms. Chalice and Elder Kettle – along with many bosses from the game. We won’t spoil which bosses though, because opening a box after beating one boss to discover who your next challenge is all part of the fun.

Re-imagining the chaos of the bullet-hell gameplay in a tabletop top format was a much more difficult challenge and the one that Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game found only half a solution to. It easily nails the sheer sense of panic of facing each boss, as players only have 20 seconds (or less depending on the difficulty setting) to roll dice to match symbols of the boss attack cards. Each card must be addressed in order because - as they would in the video game – players must dodge or parry the first attack before addressing the next. Each attack sequence may consist of three or four cards with one or two symbols on each. So, if you are unlucky, you may need to precisely roll to match all six symbols, but in a less challenging attack, you would only need to match three symbols. The latter not only offers a millisecond of relief, but an opportunity to attack back by using extra dice.

At the same time, Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game suffers from the Dark Souls syndrome. Like Dark Souls, Cuphead is a video game of skill. Players need to react quickly to attack patterns, moving precisely to jump, dodge and parry in order to beat the boss. It may be tough knowing you have only yourself to blame for failing a level, but that is also what makes winning so exhilarating: your fate lies in your hands. The luck of the dice roll, however, is not. Even if you are the fastest dice-roller in the world, rolling the wrong symbol three times in a row will cost precious seconds that this game does not offer. Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game at its very core is a game of luck.

Yet if you don’t go looking for exact replication of the video game as a board game, Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game still has a lot to offer. Each boss plays differently, introducing new mechanics, environments and challenges. Weapons and items change the flow of the game, some offering more powerful attacks that in return are harder to set up, while others even have abilities to mitigate the luck of the roll somewhat.

Just like the video game, this is a tough, at times demanding game, that has you lose more times than win. Yet its incredible sense of style, ease of set up and play and, most importantly, engrossing fast-paced gameplay makes it a challenge worth attempting, again and again.

❚ WE SAY

Perhaps, this is not the Cuphead board game that the fans were looking for, but still a great game that recaptures the video game’s sense of style and chaotic gameplay.

Phil Walker-Harding games have their very own feeling about them. A light, enjoyable engagement, a cute concept, a tiny bit of friction, a warm and satisfying feeling. Like freshly baked bread, or a new duvet cover. Recent outings had left us a little cold however, with Llama Land being perfectly fine, but lacking in focus.

So with Neoville, a town building, tile laying game, we weren’t ready for what turns out to be one of our favourite little puzzles of the year. Players get a starting tile, set up a market of tiles and then a few draw piles. Two of the modular ‘utility’ types are chosen, randomly chucked next to the board with the appropriate towers, and you’re away and building a new elementally themed empire of your own. Each turn players place a tile in their own city, and then choose to place a tower or a utility. The towers are all based on ‘organic architecture’ – i.e. rocks, forests, waterfalls, and dirt (or earth as it’s probably meant to be called) – and these can only be placed in matching biome types. The size of the biome when you place the tower doesn’t matter until you get to end game scoring, where you have to have an equal (or higher) number of dirt squares in your dirt biome for your dirt tower. If you don’t you get that many points taken away from you. Equally, there are special requirements for the utilities, having a specifically shaped biome for example, or a number of parks in the row and column that it’s in.

And that’s it, you could probably play the game now – and then again straight after, and then probably again for the decider, mixing up the utility standees each time. It’s that kind of game – especially at two players. Its simplicity is a little bit ‘solvable’ in the sense there’s few surprises once you get going. But the real game occurs between players taking the tiles you want, or you committing to a big tower early, despite not being sure if you’ll complete it. When to go in for certain tiles, or when to grab a tower, or attempt a utility strategy, is all played out in peaceful conflict – only the odd grunt of annoyance when one of your opponents snatches a tile you wanted. As an aside, there’s no reason this couldn’t be played solo with a little rules nudge, and it’s a wonder that over the three pages of rules they couldn’t have added a line to contain a simple set up for solo play.

If we had to make any complaints, it’s just on the theme and art work – which is totally serviceable – but a little bland. We could just put this down to all utopias being boring (which they are), but it’s probably because it didn’t really matter what the theme was in the end – and it certainly won’t matter to you as much as choosing the right tower placement.

That aside, if you’ve got the right kind of family game set up, or you just want the equivalent of really comfy chair on a Sunday afternoon, this could see some hard rotation on your gaming table.