Review - Random Encounter (2016) - IDW Games

Ty was excited about this game when it was on Kickstarter because the art was done by Jamie Keddie, an artist on Minecraft: Console Editions.  Unfortunately, the game did not reach its funding goal, and he was saddened.  However, victory was around the corner, as IDW games decided to publish the game! After much anticipation, Ty challenged me to a game of Random Encounter.

Random Encounter is a strategic, number-based, pixel-art card game for all ages. Players build encounters made up of various creatures, then try to win as many battles as possible at the table in the pursuit of loot! Each fully customizable deck is made up of basic number creature cards along with several trick creature cards to throw your opponents off guard. Two or more players compete to reach five loot before other players by either winning the most battles or stealing loot from the coffers of their fallen enemies. The game and pixel art is being created by Jamie Keddie (creator of Jackpot! and artist on Minecraft: Console Editions) of Joyride Games who has extensive experience with both card and video games design. Random Encounter combines these things in a new, fun, package for everyone to enjoy! The game also contains a one-player adventure mode in which the player tries to find keys so that they can open a boss room and defeat the final encounter.

 

Defeat thine enemy! Randomly.

So, you get nine cards in the game, which you do not look at ahead of time, and you have to set them up in 5 teams. You can put any amounts that you want in each team. The cards have varied effects. Blue always wins, unless it's vs. red. Red always loses. If you have a green and another card, then the teams switch sides. and yellow is just normal. You get a point for taking another army's loot (which is marked by that player by an 8-bit die), and that army loses 1 point if you take it. You get 2 points for winning the most battles out of the 5 you set up. In turn order, each player picks one of their armies and then picks an army to fight against. So you could pick an army that has 3 cards, and fight against an army of one, and still lose if the reveal a blue card. Tyler and I went best of three.



Game 1:

Ty wins the head-to-head loot battle, and and wins 3-2 on overall battles to go up 4-1....and then whipped me in the next round and won 6-1.

Game 2:

All I need to say to this round is my Troll King lost to a chicken and a guy in his underwear.

Tyler 6-1

This was a thrashing of epic proportions.

Dad:

"The Troll King is what I deserve to put up."


Tyler:

 "The Lord of the Toads is my favorite, it's overpowered and awesome."

Dad:

"This game is well-named. It is very random. The strategy is how many cards to put in each army, do you make your armies a standard 2,2,2,2,1? Do you load up on a 3-army and have 3,2,2,1,1 set? It's light and the art is great."
3/5


Tyler:

 "The green card makes the game super-interesting because you can build up the armies and have it switch on you. I love the art and the characters!"
4/5