Game Announcement : Gosu

Publisher: Moonster Games — September 2010

Featured at: Spiel 2010

Build up goblin armies, then fight, fight, fight! Well, build up the armies anyway – sometimes fighting will be optional depending on what everyone else is doing. Gosu includes 100 goblin cards, with goblins coming in five clans/colors and three levels, with fifty cards at level 1 (two each of 25 cards), 35 cards at level 2 (all unique), and 15 cards at level 3 (again, all unique). Players start the game with seven random cards and two activation tokens. On a turn a player can start building an army, with level 1 cards first, or use activation tokens to draw cards or use the powers on goblins in play. Once a player passes, he's finished for the round, and the round ends once everyone passes. The player who has the most powerful army at that point wins the round; winning three rounds wins you the game.

Players can duck out of rounds at any time, and they'll frequently want to do so as they draw cards only by spending activation tokens (and you have only two each round) or by using goblin powers (which also requires tokens). In addition, if you want to play level 1 cards for a clan not already in your army, you must first discard two cards to do so, making it expensive to recruit new forces – but you can't play level 2 and 3 goblins without a level 1 goblin of the same clan in play. As in life, goblin management is the key to long-term success.

Those looking for feedback on how the game plays should check out Bruno Faidutti's rave review on his website. An excerpt:

The "goblin wars" setting is original and humorously rendered. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The game is both easy to grasp and highly challenging. Gosu is one of the very best two players battle card game I've ever played, and I bet it will be a world hit.