Wonderland

10th November 2019

Sunday lunch time at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus, so board games it is.

We actually begin the day with a card game. A little 2 player 'Alice in Wonderland' themed game called 'Wonderland'. Yeah... Someone spend a while coming up with that.

What's in a game?
Wonderland is quite a minimalist game. There is a deck of cards for each player and each deck has only 7 cards in it. 7!
Despite the differing artwork, the 2 decks are identical.

• There is a deck for the 'Alice' player and a deck for 'The Red Queen' player.
• The cards in each deck are numbered from 1 to 7.
• Each card will display one or two symbols. These symbols are a 'vial of poison' and a 'cake'. They may be along the short edge or the long edge.

The art on these cards is obviously themed around the book and is quite nice.

The theme though, is entirely replaceable, it could as easily been about cats v dogs or elves v orcs or whatever v whatever.

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Wonderland.

A nearly concluded game. Note the face-down cards around the outside.

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How's it play?​
The purpose of Wonderland is to place cards down in the playing area (In a 3x3 grid.) to 'win' the rows and columns.

After deciding who will be playing who, each player should take their respective deck.

• Both players keep all 7 cards in their hand.
• Both players will play 3 cards face-down.
• One player should put their 3 cards in a row and the other in a column. This should look like a 'right-angle' shape. Between the row and the column there should be a imaginary 3x3 grid.
• Then taking turns, both players lay down their remaining 4 cards face-up. These can be played in the 'normal' orientation or upside-down.
• Once both players have finished playing their card, we go to the endgame.

Endgame
Rows and columns are 'won' by calculating the value of each players' cards in each row and each column, the player who has the highest value in each row and each column 'wins' it and takes that row or column's face-down card.
However, it's not just the value of the cards that matter here. The poison and the cake play a vital role here.

• If a card has a cake along one side and that side is is pointing at another adjacent card in the 3x3 grid. Then the value of that adjacent card is doubled.
• If a card has a vial of poison along one side and that side is pointing at another adjacent card in the 3x3 grid. Then the value of that adjacent card is reduced to zero. The card is still worth 0 if a cake is pointing at it, zero doubled is still zero.

The player who captures the most face-down cards, wins the game.

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The game conclusion.

4 cards taken and a winning score.

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Overall
Wonderland is an interesting little game that seems to be about trying to out-predict the other player and ruthlessly take advantage of any error the other player may make.
Playing a card with a cake or poison symbol facing the right way can dramatically change the scores.
There's also an element of bluffing here, as each player essentially has to discard 3 cards and only play 4. This means it not possible to count cards as a player never knows what their opponent has put into their row or column.

Wonderland is a quick game to play and is small and portable.
I don't think it's a game that stands up to a lot of repeatedly play. But has a quick filler for 2 players it's OK.