Gray Eminence

Gray Eminence first looks like the sort of dish you order because the description is irresistible: a more European, more serious Corporate America, with global conspiracies in place of corporations. It is certainly distinctive on the table. You take control of the Illuminati, Freemasons, Rosicrucians and famous personas, and the production has the care of a game that wants to tell you something enormous is moving behind the curtains.

Each player pursues public and secret objectives, while a board tracks international relations and an event deck is built around the scenario. Every round brings an event requiring a particular amount of resources to resolve well. So far, so good: the game puts a crisis in front of you and waits to see what sort of person you are.

Then come the bids and the cards. You can contribute to improve the situation or make it worse, according to your own agenda, and players spend the game tugging the thread from one another's hands. Do you support the common cause, or let the chaos do your work for you? That is the game's properly suspicious heart.

The designer has clearly done the research; the themes are well handled, and the flavour text holds up even when a random Trump tweet turns everything to dust. But the rulebook earns a brisk “needs work”, and the loose rules framework creates timing problems. Some mechanisms simply do not fit. They feel as though they are sitting beside the conspiracy rather than taking part in it.

I am glad to own it because it really is unusual. But it is one of those unusual games I admire more than I want to play again.