Game Review: Attribute
By Steve Bennett
August 10, 2007
Publisher: Z-Man Games, Lookout Games
Designer: Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
Players: 3-8
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Rules Language: English
Price: $15.00
The Short Review
Attribute is a good game in the Apples to Apples vein. Essentially, you try to best match nouns to descriptors. In some ways I prefer Attribute; in some ways I prefer Apples to Apples. Such ambivalence sums up my feeling about this game: It’s good, but it’s not great, and I so hoped it would be great.
As an aside, Attribute bills itself as “the creative word game about associations.” Apples to Apples is “the frantic game of hilarious comparisons.” You can see for yourself why people might lump the two games together.
The Designer
Isn’t it funny how the mind can make certain associations based on minimal evidence? Marcel-André Casasola Merkle is the person who comes to mind when I think of game designers with a varied body of work. I’ve played only three of his games—Attika, Meuterer, and Attribute—but they are soooooooo different from each other. I’m sure other designers of note can point to a selection of games from their canon and claim structural and stylistic diversity, but that doesn’t stop me from viewing Merkle—or perhaps Casasola Merkle as I’m not sure which is correct—as the poster boy for game design diversity.
Background
Attribute is a game that’s been on my radar for a long time, but it was only recently, because of the new Z-Man Games release, that I was able to play it.
From what I can tell, Z-Man Games has purchased the cards from Lookout Games’ English-language version and repackaged them in their own box. My understanding is that Lookout’s version was released in Canada, but not in the United States. Assuming that is true, kudos to Z-Man for making it readily available to English speakers below the 54th parallel.
The Contents
The 6” x 8.5” x 2” box contains 164 Attribute cards, 60 sheep cards, one two-sided rule sheet, and 3832 sheep. Fortunately, the sheep are not molded plastic pastel sheep, as one might expect to find in a game of Through the New Zealand Desert! The count comes from all the sheep pictured on the cards.
The first thing that must be commented on is the box size. There have been complaints about how large it is relative to the small-format cards. Indeed, the cards take up roughly 2/9th of the box, leaving 7/9th to be filled with a three-section cardboard insert.
At the risk of ending up with a fence post up my rump, I’m going to take a position squarely on the fence on the matter of box dimensions. Some people have said if you’re going to have a box that size, at least have normal-sized cards. I believe the small format cards are necessary for the frenetic nature of a a seven- or eight-player game, the details of which I’ll explain below. I don’t like wasting that much space in a box, particularly when my limited storage capacity affects my game-buying decisions. At the same time, I understand the nature of retail and the need to be noticed on a game store shelf. A simple tuck box is far easier to overlook when browsing a store. Plus this box will hold up to wear far better than a tuck box. So I understand what Z-Man was doing when it created the box, but I wish it would have made the box a little smaller.
The cards are all good stock. They shuffle easily and should hold up well.
The Attribute cards serve a dual function. The front of the cards each have a different attribute or characteristic. Some examples are “overrated,” “spunky,” “striped,” “underestimated,” and “hazardous to health.” They are gold-colored on the back, complete with a drawing of a gold coin. You play using the front of the card. When you win a point, you turn the card over to the gold coin, which represents your winnings.
The Sheep cards are either positive or negative. The positive cards have a white sheep on a green background with lots of plus signs on it. The negative cards have a black sheep on a red background with lots of minus signs on it.
The rules are well laid out and graphically interesting. Examples are provided to make everything more clear.
Setup
Shuffle the Sheep cards and the Attribute cards separately. Deal four Attribute cards and one Sheep card face down to each player.
Game Play
The object of the game is to acquire as many gold coins (i.e., the backs of the Atrribute cards) as possible. Here’s how you do it:
The start player picks a topic, which can be anything at all. The topic can be one of the other players; it can be George Bush; it can be existentialism; it can be the color yellow; it can be mercy. The start player isn’t randomly grabbing a topic out of the ether. She is selecting a topic that will work with her Sheep card and one of her Attribute cards.
If she has a green sheep, she will choose a topic that is best described by one of her Attribute cards. If she has a red sheep, she will want a topic that doesn’t match the Attribute card she intends to play.
With the topic announced, all the players choose an Attribute card based on their own sheep, their cards, and the given topic. They put their Sheep card face down on the table and put the selected Attribute card face down on top of it. When everyone is ready, on the count of three, all the Attribute cards are turned face-up.
Then the grabbing begins. If you see an Attribute card that you think describes the topic, you grab it and its corresponding face-down Sheep card and put the pair in front of you. You can grab only one set of cards, and you don’t have to grab any if you think none of the remaining cards match the topic.
Once everyone has grabbed an Attribute/Sheep pair (or chosen not to), the Sheep cards are revealed, and the scoring begins. There are four ways to score:
- If you grabbed a set with a green sheep, you score a point.
- If you grabbed a set with a red sheep, you lose a point.
- If your set didn’t get grabbed and it had a red sheep, you score a point.
- If your set didn’t get grabbed and it had a green sheep, you lose a point.
When you score points, you take the Attribute card and put it in a pile near you, turning it to the gold coin side. When you lose points, you discard from your winnings pile (in addition to discarding the Attribute card you grabbed or the card that went unclaimed in front of you). If you lose points when you have no winnings, then you lose nothing. You can’t go in the hole.
All the players receive another Attribute card to fill their hand to four cards. They also get a new Sheep card with each new turn. Play passes to the left as another player chooses the next topic. A round is completed when everyone has chosen a topic. The number of rounds depends on the number of players, but the total number of hands played will be from 14 to 18.
Plusses
I like the fact that topics are chosen by the players. It adds a limitless variability to the game.
I also like those moments of total deflation when you see a hand reach out and grab the Attribute card you played with a red sheep. (If you’ll recall from above, you score a point if no one selects your red sheep.) I’ve had this happen with cards that I was certain no one would touch.
One instance will illustrate how differently minds can think, and this is one of the joys of the game. The topic was “a circle.” I had a red sheep and played it with the Attribute “square.” To my total incredulity, my daughter grabbed it. Her reasoning was that a quilt can look like it has circles even if it’s made out of squares. The proof? My wife designs quilts, and if you go to her website, JudyMartin.com, and scroll down to Week 3 and Monet’s Wedding Ring, you can see the quilt that is on our daughter’s bed. The circles, which are the wedding rings, are made out of squares. So my daughter’s perfectly reasonable logic cost me a point! Dang her!
Another plus for me is that you have only four Attribute cards in your hand at a time. It can lead to some painful decisions where none of the cards adequately matches the topic, and you’re left to choose the least bad card from the hand. If you held more cards, it would increase the chances of you having the perfect card and make the game less engaging.
Minuses
Attribute is what I call a “slapping” game. It rewards quickness. You have just a moment to read the newly exposed Attribute cards and slap your paw down on a set that you think possesses a green sheep. I’m sure for some folks that slapping makes the game more festive and party-like. For me, it just underscores my poor reflexes.
I’ve also had problems with people getting confused about the scoring. This might be an indictment of my rules explanations, but I don’t think so. It might also be an indictment of the kind of riff-raff I play with, but again I don’t think so. There are two kinds of scoring going on: You score (plus or minus) for what you grab, and you score for what you laid out that doesn’t get grabbed. On the surface that seems easy enough, but in the heat of the moment, I’ve seen people get confused, and in some cases get confused repeatedly. This may have to do with the heat of the moment and the fact that this is a slapping game.
Anyway, even though this is a party game, a number of people I’ve played with have had a learning curve to deal with. I don’t think it’s a game killer, but it does temper my enthusiasm for the game.
Final Thoughts
Attribute is a good game that plays in 30 minutes, which is the right amount of time for what it is. If you like games that play to your creative side, and if you don’t mind having to think and act quickly, you’ll enjoy Attribute. We’ve had fun every time we’ve played it.
I give it a 7 out of 10.
Editor’s note: The Z-Man Games edition of Attribute uses a simplifed scoring system compared to the original Lookout Games edition. The original system had two additional scoring rules:
With this scoring system, you have the opportunity to win or lose a point each turn no matter which color sheep you were dealt. In the Z-Man edition, receiving a green sheep means you will either lose a point or break even, while a red sheep gives you an opportunity to score with no risk of losing. If you receive only red sheep, your chances of winning are probably much better (assuming you can choose words better than a monkey at a typewriter).
While the Attribute scoring system is balanced, it’s also even more confusing for newcomers since they have to handle more cards and draw points from the deck when someone chooses their card and green sheep. I prefer the Attribute system, mostly because I’m a take charge kind of guy and will handle everyone’s points, but with first-time players, the Z-Man system makes more sense.
Two other changes that improve the game in my eyes:
- Give each player two tokens of the same color—One token remains in front of the player, resting on any points that player has to separate them from his hand of cards or the card being played. Players use the other token each round to claim a set of cards in front of someone else. Tossing a token is less risky than having everyone grab and claw for cards across a table. You also know who claimed which cards since players have another token in front of them, which makes the point distribution easier.
- Don’t give the topic chooser a Sheep card until the topic has been announced—I prefer that the player not know whether he has to match or not match the topic before choosing said topic. This restriction usually leads to more interesting topics being chosen as players can’t tailor their topics to a particular card in hand.
Posted by Steve Bennett on Aug 10, 2007 at 04:00 AM in Game Reviews, In-Depth Reviews / 1286
Comments:
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"Don’t give the topic chooser a Sheep card until the topic has been announced—I prefer that the player not know whether he has to match or not match the topic before choosing said topic.” Yes! I agree with that! Otherwise, the chooser will be able to pick something ridiculously obvious. Then everyone keeps their eyes on the chooser’s card, and it becomes even more a game just of reflexes. I tried using this variant recently and I got ridiculous resistance to it. Another alternative - The chooser has to pick the card he’ll play at random from his hand. He looks at it and at his sheep card, and then needs to tailor a topic to his selection. Posted by Jonathan Degann on Aug 13, 2007 at 11:53 PM | #
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Eric - As we played the first couple of times, intuitively we wanted to score as you outlined the original scoring to be. It seemed like if you did a good job of putting an appropriate Attribute card with your green sheep (as evidenced by someone taking it), you should score. In the current rules, such an action merely keeps you from losing a point. Jonathan and Eric - I like the suggestion of the chooser not looking at his Sheep card until he has picked a topic. As it is now, instantly the other players look at the choosers Attribute card before scanning the others. I’ll have to try this the next time we play. Thanks for the ideas. Posted by Steve Bennett on Aug 14, 2007 at 08:35 AM | #
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