Last article I discussed my intent and interest in different games you can play at family game nights, so you are not stuck playing Monopoly for the fifth time. This week I’ll be discussing the rather fun, colorful and silly, Adventure Mart. This game, made by Digisprite , will set you back about 25 dollars but is well worth it for a fun, cute, and surprisingly deep deck builder
The object of the game is that you run a convenience store in a fantasy world, where you need to hire workers, buy lucrative and expensive items for your shelves, and buy fixtures to make life working a 9 to 5 in a dungeons and dragons, high fantasy dungeon selling lukewarm hot dogs and scratch tickets.
The board has a cute, easy to read, and very colorful design, which gives it lasting appeal. My two co testers both agreed the style is very appealing, with a children’s story/ anime style.
The game itself is pretty simple, you each take turns either buying stock, hiring employees, or buying fixtures to add to your store. employees and fixtures can either make stock cheaper to buy, help make your stock look more lucrative to would be adventurers, or just screw over your fellow minimum wage worker on the way to the very top.
Things get really spicy when a customer arrives, see each customer has certain needs, and a certain amount of cash in their pockets. So you need to out bid your opponent to make your stock seem cooler than theirs. This can be with buying expensive and rare items, having cool fixtures that make your stock look better, or ruin your opponents stock in various, evil ways. Tempers sure can flare in this game, friendships tested, and voices will certainly raise.
The game ends after five in game days of buying, selling and giving living wage to a bipedal crow man. whoever has the most cash, most expensive items, and best employees becomes the CEO of Adventure Mart, those losers are sent to the Shadow Realm for a training seminar before being let out in the world again.
My two friends who helped test this certainly had some good things to say as well, such as Kevin who said that – “The game was chaotic and fun though a little difficult to learn at the start, however once was had gotten underway it was quite tactical and hat a lot of nuance as to when to play certain cards. Also all the art was Adorable”
Meanwhile Barry, told me afterwards “A shockingly deep, yet entertaining game. It can admittedly be frustrating due to some of the cards, but it’s endearing”
And I must agree, it’s an endearing, cute, and deceptively intense game of strategy, luck and bargaining and I’d highly recommend it to anyone with a love of deck builders, cute art, or the big wide world of market research and capitalism.
Thank you again for taking a look at this adorable little game, and remember to take a drink of water, call your parents, and spend like twenty minutes to do that assignment.