"There is Nothing to Fear, but FEAR Itself" Fast-Forward: FEAR - Review
Does Friedemann Friese have anything to fear concerning his new game, "Fast-Forward: FEAR", one out of his newest 3 small box games in his new "Fast Forward" series?
We say...
- over & over again!
Read on for more...
Before explaining anything about FEAR, you should know more about the "Fast-Forward" series created by legendary board game creator, Friedemann Friese. Friedemann Friese is probably best well known for developing the classic euro game, Power Grid and more recently, the experimental constantly evolving card game, "Fabled Fruit". "Fabled Fruit" led Friese to experiment with what he calls the Fast-Forward system which gets the players right into the game without needing to read a rule book. The rules of the game, along the lines of "Fabled Fruit" unfurl and change as the game goes on. There are currently three new small box games in the "Fast-Forward" series: Fortress, Fate, and Fear. Reviews of the other two are forthcoming, but as we recently finished FEAR, this will be the first in the Fast-Forward" series to be reviewed.
Even before reviewing the game, one must know of the Fast-Forward game system. This is a brilliant system which seems to generate all three of the Fast-Forward games. The first thing you notice upon opening the box is the absence of a rule book. The rules of the game are introduced to the players within the game. There are cards scattered within the single deck of cards which either introduce the game's rules, change them, or simply add to them. Therefore, the players discover the rules as they play. The first few cards introduce the game in easy to read and understand terms. After reading the rule or rules, then the next few cards allow the players to become familiar with these rules before introducing more. The rules become a major part of the game play area, as the rule cards are to be prominently displayed during game-play withing the viewing area of all players. This is done to remind the players of the current set of rules. Somewhere within this large deck of cards will be further rules addons to further complicate the game. Furthermore, scattered throughout will be rule-changing cards. These cards either change a current rule, or change the end of game objective. These rules remain in play until the next one is revealed.
In Fast-Forward: FEAR, the cards in the deck come in many different colors and are ranked with numbers. Each turn consists basically with each player either taking a card into their hand, or discarding one into the middle. I don't want to give too much of this brilliant game away, so I'll stop with the description here. However, the ultimate goal is to have the highest value cards in your hand while not making the middle pile exceed 15 points on your turn.
Each round/game of Fast-Forward: FEAR is actually quite short, possibly clocking in at only 5-15 minutes. However, we quickly learned that, just as with a bag of Ruffles potato chips, you can't have only one. This is true with FEAR. "Just one more game", we would shout after already having played around 10-15 rounds that evening already. This little game also took us many weeks of playing to finally get through the deck. We couldn't wait to see what new rules would screw us over further in the deck. In the end, we found that this game is infinitely replayable, as you shuffle the deck together after discovering all of the rules to the game and then playing it again with the rules coming out in a different order.
So in the end, did this little game "WOW" us or not?
Actually it did!! Friedmann Friese has come up with a polished gem of a game here. Some people have criticized this game as not being a complete game since the rounds are so short and there are no real long-term end of game conditions. However, I beg to differ. It is true that there is no long term end game, however, this could easily be remedied with a couple of house rules which add an end game condition once you have learned how to play. The game was so much fun that this was not really a concern for us. We simply enjoyed each round and revelled in each victory or defeat we had. Each time a game is over, the loser needs to remove his hand of cards from the game permanently until the deck is finished. At this time, all cards are reshuffled back into the deck to start again. This removal of cards is what drives the players further into the deck, able to discover new rules, some which may help and others with will hinder.
In the end, Fast Forward: FEAR plays kind of like a gamer's version of UNO, if the rules of UNO constantly evolved as you played. It is highly recommended that you play as many games as possible with the same group, so they can experience all of the evolution of gameplay that FEAR has to offer. This is however, not completely necessary as FEAR is very easy to teach. Even children and non-gamers can easily pick this up and play it. However, the game play may be very simple, but the decisions you make can be quite difficult. You also may upset people, as this game definitely can have a "take that" element to it. We absolutely LOVED and would like to thank Friedmann Friese for "Fast Forward: FEAR". This game for us was like finding a 100 dollar bill in our dirty clothes hamper. We had no idea what to expect, but were thrilled by the outcome.
Fast-Forward: FEAR makes for an excellent filler game, or can be the main event if the players, like us, want to continue for hours. We very highly recommend Fast-Forward: FEAR and look forward to playing the other two games in the series. Stay tooned for Fast-Forward: Fortress.
Our gaming group gives Fast-Forward: FEAR a resounding...
"LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE"... as we have already done night after night.
