Review
Guns & Steel
Guns & Steel is a minimalist half-hour civilisation game with a surprising amount of thought packed into its small frame. At three players, it makes an excellent sharp little companion for coffee or a gamers’ holiday.
- Published
- 2015
- Designer
- Jesse Li
- Publisher
- Moaideas Game Design, Grail Games, Pegasus Spiele
- Players
- 2–4
- Playing time
- 60 min
Jesse Li knows how to compress a civilisation game into a small slice of time, and Guns & Steel returns to the table like an old friend for morning coffee. With three players it finds the right level of pressure: there is no time to tire of it, but plenty of time to think.
Its core is spare and demanding. You shape your small polity through a shared board, watching not only what helps you now but what you leave open for everyone else. The design has no clutter behind which to hide its decisions. Every move is visible.
Do you let the player beside you take what they need, or cut them off before it becomes a problem?
TheCuttlefish
The other players need to see those moves, too. The game asks for denial, anticipation and a constant reading of the whole board; if everyone simply tends their own corner, the outcome can be settled rather early. Do you let the player beside you take what they need, or cut them off before it becomes a problem?
That hard metagame is its one thorn, though the half-hour running time makes it much easier to swallow: finish, reset, and try not to donate the same openings again. For a holiday with gamers, it is small, sharp, and quietly excellent.
For a holiday with gamers, it is small, sharp, and quietly excellent.
TheCuttlefish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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