Swordplay Review – Stick ‘Em
Swordplay comes from Australian indie tabletop designers DoughBros Games comprised of Kyle (designer) and Joel (artist). As their first retail product, they’ve focused on a small box card game which regular readers would realise is catnip to this reviewer.
Svelte in form, Swordplay is a two-player only bluffing and hand management game that represents a fencing duel between opponents. Thematically reminiscent of Reiner Knizia’s En Garde, Swordplay is similarly built around a ‘tug of war’ mechanic, the kind of ‘back and forth’ that is the hallmark of a great two player game. The mechanical base is straightforward; players sit side by side, simultaneously revealing a card from their hand into the ‘Stage’ and check what effects were triggered by the combinations which run along the side of each card. Both players receive a ‘life counter’ card, a basic deck of ten cards in their colour, as well as a separate deck of five ‘Special’ cards that can’t be added to the basic deck until certain conditions are met. Visually, Swordplay keeps things simple with a limited colour palette and an art style that emphasises the speed and power of the duellist’s movements.
With a mix of initial symmetry and slight asymmetry later in the proceedings, much of Swordplay is built around above-the-table play in bluffing, card counting and reading your opponent; as with many ‘duel’ games, it improves with a steady partner to really play around with the intricacies and develop a meta. The basic cards are used to Attack, Block or Evade, their execution dependent on how the card lines up with the opponents’. Take the ‘Lunge’ card, which is perfectly timed against an opposing ‘Retreat’ and will result in an injury for an opposing ‘Thrust’ card – quite powerful, unless Evaded. Rather than being discarded right away, each pair of played cards shifts upwards in the play area to tell the ‘fight story’, further narrowing the opponents’ possible plays until at least one player uses their ‘Refresh’ card. Timing a Refresh is of utmost importance, as it not only adds one of the Special cards to your hand but also lets you scoop up previously played cards and reshuffle your deck. However, it does come with a drawback – it’s incredibly vulnerable to attacks and affects the control over the hand composition for the following bout if it does indeed take damage when used. This tempo shift ensures that each match reaches a crescendo with the most exciting interactions occurring when both players are pushing to end things before a final Refresh.
Adding extra depth to the basic interactions are ‘Conditions’. Some card combinations will result in one or both players taking on a Condition, most of which are explained in text on the bottom of the card. These range from ‘Stressed’, which reduces card draw, to ‘Upper Hand’, which forces the opposing player to reveal their card choice before the round commences. The Special cards lean more into Conditions and outright ‘gotcha’ moments, like ‘En Garde’ that will take damage in all areas, but as a secondary effect gives a card draw and can be replaced with a Block card from hand if desired. While powerful, Special cards don’t tend to completely imbalance the proceedings given getting one into your hand can be costly – with only three hits before defeat, timing is crucial as saving a Refresh until the last one or two cards in hand is a dead giveaway to the opponent.
A short playtime averaging around 10 to 15 minutes gives a good feedback loop and will see the game feel shift considerably after the first few plays as you come to grips with not only card effects and their ramifications but also the wider decision space and potential for mindgames. Box size means Swordplay is ideal to toss into a bag or pocket when going almost anywhere, even on a plane, although it does still need a decent footprint on a table to work most effectively. It feels like something that could have been right at home in iello’s Mini Games line, or amongst the Allplay ‘Tiny Box’ series.
Swordplay isn’t without a few areas for improvement however, sporting some minor flaws that go hand in hand with first time indie designers and the fraught printing process. For starters, the included rulebook could use a little work for flow, while a player aid denoting the meaning behind Condition symbols would improve the experience for new and returning players as some of the symbology can feel a little arcane and disconnected from the effect. Legibility of the text running along the bottom of the cards can be tricky in low light, especially in the Blue deck which also suffers its ‘Lunge’ cards damage dealing area not being as highly contrasted as that of the Red decks. I find the square card size an interesting choice, and one that helps the game standout a bit more in hand and on the shelves of Vault Games than it might otherwise with standard size cards or even something smaller like mini euro. Balancing out the constraints of a small rulebook however is the excellent teaching video from DoughBros which clarified many of my initial misunderstandings.
Swordplay is a neat little diversion in a box after a play or two, but the simple system belies greater depth and benefits most from regular play with a regular partner. Like any bluffing game, true skill comes from playing your opposition as much as the cards themselves. Provided you have a worthy foe, Swordplay is a lot of game in a little box.
Swordplay was reviewed using a retail copy kindly provided by the publisher. It can be purchased from Vault Games or Good Games.
