28th January 2023 It's a Saturday afternoon and we're at Wogglecon 6 for a whole day of gaming fun! The second game of the day was No Thanks! Do you want to play a bad game? No Thanks! Do you want to play a game with a long play time? No Thanks! Do you want to play a game with complex rules? No Thanks! That's right, No Thanks! is none of those, instead it's an accessible family or party game. What's in a game?
Due to their size, the cards feel a little flimsy but I'd say they're of an average quality. The counters seem to be opaque circular acrylic tokens. There's no real art to speak of other than borders. Amusingly, each card contain several humorous little statements. There also no iconography on the cards, only numbers. How's it play? Setup
On to play The objective in No Thanks! is to score the lowest score, that is; acquire the least number of cards during the game. Each card will score its face value at the game end. No Thanks! uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking their action before play progresses to the player on their left. The game starts with the first player who begins the game as the active player.
Endgame Play proceeds until the deck becomes empty. Scoring: This is where the game's wrinkle comes in, remember the objective is to get as low a score as possible.
Points are tallied, lowest score wins! Overall
There's not too much that can be said about No Thanks! The game's rules and options are rudimentary; take a card or pay to pass. This is a game about playing the other players and not the game because everything everyone will do depends on everyone else is doing! Basically; taking a card is bad but acquiring counters is good. Players will need to balance these outcomes with their choices. E.g., getting counters early not only can deduct from a player's final score, they can be used to good effect to avoid cards later in the game but this at the cost of also getting a card. Where No Thanks! is really clever is the mechanic for sequential cards because this creates an asymmetrical value to certain cards. For the most part all players will obviously want to avoid taking cards but when a player has taken a '5' and then later in the game a '6' appears during a round, taking it would essentially have no affect on their score but for all other players, it would increase their scores. This means players will suddenly have different motives during that round and one player can happily take the card that everyone else wants to avoid, the rules even recommend not taking the card immediately and letting players pass to pile up more counters on it before taking it! But there's another factor in play, because cards are discarded at the game start, everyone is playing with imperfect knowledge. A player may have a '14' and '16' but there's no guarantee that the 15 will appear. Creating sequences of cards is generally prudent but by no means a guaranteed thing. This kind of dynamic between players keeps the game interesting. No Thanks! is quick to learn, quick to play and makes a good filler game or ender to night of gaming. It's accessibility also makes it a good party or family/crossover game. It's a fun little game with lots of player interaction and definitely one to try.
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