YORKTON - So a small box arrives containing the recently released card game Odin.
That was immediately interesting as The Meeple Guild typically gravitates to Viking-themed games.
But in this case the enthusiasm for the theme was misplaced. There is only the most scant connection to anything Norse here, the theme very thinly pasted on.
Now the art by Crocotame tries to instill a Viking flavour but doesn’t quite manage it with its stylized cartoon infused images that at best as OK, and not enough to make you pause to enjoy each differs card.
It has to be noted too the cards on this game by Helvetiq are undersized – not typically poker deck size. This didn’t bother some of our guilders, but it disappointed this writer. Smaller size takes away from the dynamics of any art, and should you love the game and want to sleeve the cards which makes it a challenge.
Next up was the rule set from designers Yohan Goh, Hope S. Hwang, and Gary Kim.
The initial read made the game sound rather obtuse and confusing – you can play for example three cards – say a 9-2-5 and they play as 952.
By now you are expecting little here – even though it is versatile playing two-to-six.
And, then we got it to the table, got into play and found it surprisingly smooth, and just different enough to be interesting.
Odin remains a quick game – the box suggests 15 minutes – but in that quick play there is something just different enough to raise this one above its small cards, just OK art and pasted on theme.
This is a game that shows game play wins out over aesthetics, if that game play is refreshingly different as it is here. The aesthetics do not win fans with Odin, but game play should.
