Board Game Review: Bull's-Eye

My first review coming out of PAX is Bull's-Eye, which is independently designed by a DNA Family Games, a small company independently owned and operated by Doug and Nilda Loriz, who are both passionate about playing and making games.

The goal of the game is to accumulate a total of 100 points.  Similarly to Scrabble, the primary mechanic for obtaining points is to assemble the letters that are in your hand into words, and are awarded points based on the value of the letters.  However, unlike Scrabble, it is not always ideal to have the highest value words, as there are tiles that you can land on that allow you to draw cards that have various effects, ranging from putting everyone else back five places, moving you up as much as ten, or giving you immunity being hit by the negative effects of a future card draw.  This gives the player more options to weigh, and adds a layer of tactics to the game beyond simply making the biggest word.  Another difference is that rounds are timed and everyone is assembling their words at the same time and after each round of play the players get to draw a new hand rather than being stuck with the same consonants that you can almost never use.  There is also an advanced mode where a dice roll determines how many letters the word can contain, adding an extra level of challenge to the game.  The average time for a diceless game is 15 minutes, whereas the advanced game is roughly 30 minutes.  

I really enjoyed Bull's-Eye as not only was it very fast paced, my spelling skills gave me a slight edge over my friends who attended PAX with me, who can typically beat me in a typical board game where tactics are normally the dominant factor.  Having a good vocabulary of words and how to spell them is a definite asset to the game, and I can see it being very effective as a teaching aid for both teachers and parents.  (A good house rule for parents is to let the kids spell words of whatever length they want, but have the adults follow the restrictions of the die roll)  It also makes for a good party game as it is both fun and quick, so players don't have to dedicate the entire night to playing it.  

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to purchase a copy of the game before leaving PAX, and the game is not yet in circulation in Canada.  However, I let Darrell at Lost Atlantis Games know about it, and given his interest in acquiring rare and difficult to acquire games, I may hopefully be able to pick up a copy from my local gaming store sometime in the future.