Designed by: Mandela Fernandez-Grandon
In Overstocked, players are – what else? – investors in 1980’s toy crazes, making their millions off the whims of culture. However, markets can be manipulated, and certain toys will end up worthless!
The game is mechanically very simple. Players are dealt six cards and an additional one is placed face-up in the middle of the table. The cards each have six slots in them and each slot is filled with a toy. Over six rounds, everyone plays a single card, and all cards are revealed at the same time before being played in ascending order. When your turn to play arrives, you can either play your card in front of you (it must overlap at least one toy, and at most two, on any previously-played cards) or you can add it to the card in centre, following the same overlap rule. There are some slots that can’t ever be overlapped, clearly marked as such.
At the end of the game, you’ll score each of the six types of toys thus: the amount of connected toys of a kind in your own cards multiplied by the amount of connected toys of the matching type in the centre. So for instance, if you have six teddy bears connected on your cards and there are four connected in the shared cards, you get (6×4) 24 points for teddies. Not bad! Especially if you only scored a single point for tamagotchis.
But the catch with Overstocked is a doozy: the toys in the shared area with the most connected slots score minus points! So each card is a decision based on temptation and risk: improve the worth of your investments at home, or protect them (and harpoon others) in the middle. At the end, the player with the most points is the winner.
Plenty. There's always someone meddling, and they most likely meant it.
Low to moderate. Because...
...even though the rules are incredibly simple, the import of every decision is big. You want to develop your portfolio of stock, but you need to keep an eye on what is being devalued...
There are some miniature expansions in the box, but plays tend to feel the same. Fortunately that 'sameness' is fun, engaging, and breezily brief.
2-6
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
A fun, clever little game that packs a moderately-sized punch from deck of cards. For my personal preferences, I think it's a bit too abstracted and thinky to become a firm favourite, but I like it all the same. The designer's previous game Glasgow is very much worth a look, too.