Joe Andrews
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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Bonnie & Clyde-Death By Design
North Texas.
Bonnie & Clyde sit at a roadside picnic table in a grove of trees in the stifling heat just outside the town of Grapevine, sweating in the shade. Cards hang limply in their hands. Two stout glasses of lemonade drip sweat. Bonnie waves off a random mosquito. Clyde sighs.
"You got fours? I can't see da fours. Got any in front of ya, Bon?"
Bonnie groans. "This routine again? I can't take it. Fours are sittin' right in front of your face! You sure you're okay?"
Clyde picks up the small wooden car sitting on the playing board between them. "What number is the car on? I can't see it without moving everything."
Bonnie shoves her cards back in the box. "I'm don with this. Let's go rob a bank."
Clyde folds his hand, gives it to Bonnie and wipes off the board.
"Sure seems easier than playin' this game."
The Stakeout
Bonnie & Clyde is the latest Mystery Rummy game by Mike Fitzgerald. This is the fifth in the series (well, fifth in spirit only, as Wyatt Earp and Bonnie & Clyde are Rio Grande titles. The remainder of the series was published by U.S. Game Systems).
If you're a card game fan and have never played a Mystery Rummy game, what are you waiting for? These games use popular themes and add some spice to take the old game of rummy and liven it up. With Jack the Ripper there are five victims. If Jack successfully gets all five victims on the table, he immediately wins the hand. In Murders in the Rue Morgue cards may be placed under the 'Orangutan', which the winner will get to use to make more melds. In Bonnie & Clyde a wooden car moves down the board. If you are able to successfully find the locations on the board where the Bonnie & Clyde cards are hiding and get them in front of you on the table you'll win the hand. These variants move the Mystery Rummy series away from the traditional game while maintaining that same system of 'draw a card/play/discard' which rummy players have come to expect and enjoy.
The box is different than any of the others in the series, which is unfortunate. The U.S. Game System boxes have the appearance of small books. Wyatt Earp is in an oblong box. This box is closer to a square. It appears that there was little attention paid to previous boxes or that owners may like to see this as part of a series of similar titles by the same author.
Arming Up
Physically, the pieces are great. The central piece of the game is a long, narrow board with ten location spots which are meant to represent ten cities where Bonnie & Clyde either had a run in with police or orchestrated an armed robbery. This is meant to be stretched across the tabletop between the players. The locations on the board are numbered from 1 - 10 and are in the same style as the card suits in the deck. There is some flavor text on the board which tells what happened historically at each location. Incredibly, there are several misspellings on the board. Although this doesn't affect the game play, it's hard to believe this went to the printer without proper proofing. This is especially strange for a Rio Grande title because they have a strong history of good quality control.
The cards are traditionally sized and easy to shuffle, a nice departure from some of the U.S. Games created decks which were overly stiff. A wooden car is included to move along the board. It's orange. This makes it easy to spot on the board, but aesthetically questionable.
Much less easy to spot are the actual card suits. I know you're thinking, "how can you screw up the card suits?" They found a way. All cards have similar styles regardless of suit and have the same color combination. Because of this, identifying suits once played on the table is problematic. In our games each player had to study the board carefully to figure out which suits had been played. Additionally, each suit features similar but different artwork. Each suit shows a printed scene but then each card in the suit shows Bonnie & Clyde in various places within the scene. I'm not sure the artist and physical designers have played cards (surely Mike Fitzgerald has, but I don't credit this error to him). Design is a key component in a card game and in this case the physical creators of the game made it much more difficult for players than it needed to be.
The rule book was brief (four pages) and systematically presented. We were up and running in minutes, partly because we've played all of the other Mystery Rummy games and only needed to understand how this one was different. Each section was well laid out and easy to understand.
The Heist
Here is where the game shines. Mike Fitzgerald, I'm happy to report, has done it again. Having Mystery Rummy experience playing other games in the series we attempted to play this game like all the others. What a mistake! I was worried that this would be a 'me too' title. Not so. Bonnie & Clyde forces players who want to win to hold cards until the car reaches key numbers on the board. Players have to make tough decisions: do I advance the car (only getting a few points) or hope that my opponents will move it over my number so I can score big points and try to get Bonnie or Clyde (or, even better, both!) in front of me. Should I play Ted Hinton (a wild card that gives you some choices) and grab two cards from the deck, on card I know I need from the discard pile, or peek at one card so I can find Bonnie or Clyde more quickly? The decisions are difficult, the game play enjoyable, and the time of the game is roughly as long (or shorter) than the others in the series without feeling too short.
Each hand does play longer than those elsewhere in the series because of the car mechanic. Our games only lasted two to three hands to compensate for this, where most of the series' other titles are three to four hands (usually). Because there are so few hands, scoring in each becomes much more crucial than in other games in the series. Bonnie & Clyde cards count for 10% of the overall scoring in the game each time you find them. Clearly, your strategy should be to hunt for and find these criminals. This creates a feeling different than any other Mystery Rummy game, in that you find yourself flipping cards and paying attention to the board at all times to manipulate the car token. When the car is on a location, that card becomes 'active' and may be turned over by a player laying cards. We'll play this game often despite it's faults because Mr. Fitzgerald took so much care with his design to make it tight, replayable, and fun.
Conclusion
Bonnie & Clyde's ultimate fate was to die in an ambush near Shreveport, Lousiana. I believe, however, this game will survive some awful physical decisions from the publisher, because Mr. Fitzgerald has done such a great job of designing a playable game which overcomes these difficulties. I'm hopeful that at some point a reprint will fix the misspellings, artwork, and box style decisions. Sadly, this version took so long to come out that I can't say I think this will ever happen. If so, although I'll happily play this version many times between now and then, I'll invest in a new copy.
If you haven't played a Mystery Rummy game before? I recommend you purchase another game in the series which doesn't have confusing artwork and style decisions first. My recommendation would be Jekyll & Hyde or Jack the Ripper. Once you know the system the physical problems in this title won't be as confusing.
If you've played Mystery Rummy? Play this! It's great with two or three. I couldn't imagine it with more players because turns are too long, due to the car mechanic.
Overall? I love Mystery Rummy games, so this is a 7 overall for me. It would be an 8 if I didn't have to overlook so many poor design decisions.
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Fraser
Australia
Melbourne
Yep that was 12 Power Grid maps back to back over two days. Worth doing, but possibly not in such a concentrated burst.
Ooh yes, now a little to the left - my nose is itchy. No, no the other left! Now what colour is 12 supporter badge going to be I wonder?
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We found no problem with the length when adding extra players. I have played it two, three and four. With four players once melds start getting played you are very unlikely to get more that one turn though.
Two player rarely goes for more than three rounds, most people I know who play the game use the variant rule to play two player to two hundred points instead of one hundred points.
The cards are a triumph of graphic design over usability. If they had stuck with the concept of bright and different colours like all the US Games editions it would have been much better. I have packed a set of ten meeples into the box so that when somebody plays a meld we put a meeple on the board so that everyone can quickly see which melds have been played.
The mechanic of Bonnie and Clyde being kept separate and shuffled in with only eight cards has meant that this is the only game I own that is sleeved so that the Bonnie and Clyde do not end up showing different amount of wear and tear than the other cards. It is either that or shuffle them into the main deck every hand and then take them out and we ruled that option out very quickly.
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Joe Andrews
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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Thanks for the comments, Fraser. I definitely can see sleeving the cards in this game. I agree, it sure beats the alternative.
On playing with four players....I guess my joy in rummy is the back and forth tug of war, so your comment on rarely getting more than one turn doesn't excite me. I'm not sure I'd have enough influence to move the car before the turn is over. It seems like only getting one turn would get rid of the fun of this wonderful mechanic. Of course, I prefer every four player Mystery Rummy game I play to be Rue Morgue. I love the partnership aspect of that title.
I love the idea to play to 200. Excellent, and something we'll begin doing in our games.
I'd read the meeple advice before. I didn't place it in the review because I wanted to review the game "as is."
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Richard Berg
United States
South Carolina
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Two new books just came out about these two totally inept, useless failures.
RHB
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Mark Stanoch
United States
Bradenton
Florida
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Richard,
Are you considering a design involving Bonnie and Clyde?
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