Designed by: Ramy Badie
Unstable Unicorns is a race to gather together a certain amount of unicorns in your stable, with the successful trainer winning instantly once they hit the target. The problem is, this undertaking is far less angelically serene than you might imagine…
Everyone starts with a Baby Unicorn and a hand of five cards. On your turn you draw a card, then either play a card, or draw a second card. The cards you play have a number of categories: Unicorns don’t always do that much, but they are what you’re actually trying to collect so shouldn’t be totally ignored: add them to your ‘stable’ in front of you to push you towards victory. Upgrades can be played to your own stable to improve your lot, expanding, protecting or perhaps attacking other players or stealing from them. Downgrades get played on opponents, hobbling them with handicaps until they can get rid of them. And there are also one-off cards that have an immediate effect, either for you or against others.
Any of these cards can (usually) be stopped by any opponent playing a Neigh card, which renders it ineffective: both the played card and the Neigh go to the discard pile and the next player starts their turn. What it all amounts to is a merry-go-round of Unicorn collection, theft, and interference, where the lead may swing wildly from one player to another as anyone clearly closest to victory will naturally be targeted…
But victory will eventually be achieved, and the moment a player hits the required target (it varies according to player count) they are crowned the victor!
Plenty.
Low.
Low, though not absent. Some cards can combine and looking for these links can be key.
Plenty of cards coming out plenty random!
2-8
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
I have two responses to Unstable Unicorns. The enthusiast/snob in me (delete as appropriate) feels that games can be so much more interesting, creative, or intriguing than a set of cards that do arbitrary take-that type stuff to opponents, played one at a time, and on and on until someone finally wins. My other response is that as a dad I've enjoyed playing it with my family, because it's family time. And I have seen other human beings playing Unstable Unicorns and having a real laugh, so clearly it is conceivably not as bad as my perception suggests: There's a nice chunky deck of cards here, and the game moves pretty quickly. Unicorns are, allegedly, cute. Plus it is possible to pull off some swooping chain-reaction type stuff as well of cards triggering cards... And as one of enthusiast/snob's favourite games is about tin-mining in Industrial Age Cornwall, you maybe need to bear that in mind too.