Ponzi Scheme

Ponzi Scheme has that rare sort of Korean nastiness which fits inside a game that looks tidy and approachable. It is lovely on the table, but do not be taken in: beneath the calm surface sits enough resentment, insecurity and mental damage to make an investment victory feel like a direct insult.

The central idea is very simple, but the investment plan you choose never stays innocent for long. You make your choices, realise what you have committed yourself to, and find that the sensible answer may require rather more sanity loss than you had budgeted for.

You are not merely playing against the system, either. You are playing against everyone else, watching their moves, feeling them close in, and trying to defend a plan that looked brilliant a moment ago. It can turn into karate in suits. That is the hook.

It lacks the peculiar savagery of QE, which I consider its equal, and I suspect I enjoy explaining it a little more than actually playing it. Even so, it is one of those games worth having: not great, not terrible, simply reliably entertaining and pleasantly malicious.

Updated session

Later plays did not overturn the first impression, but they did bring it down to earth. The first encounter produced all the hate and devilish intensity; afterwards it became clearer that teaching it may be the finest part, while the game itself never quite reaches QE’s strange, harsh edge.