Stonemaier Games: Red Rising by Jamey Stegmaier | A Competitive Strategy Game Based on the Pierce Brown Novels | Craft a Hand of Powerful Characters from the World of Red Rising | 1-6 Players, 60 Mins

I'm currently reading the Red Rising series of books, so when I saw this game drop to an astonishingly low price for the holidays I couldn't resist. After playing multiple rounds with my wife, and multiple games solo, here are my thoughts. ----- The Good: The production of this game is amazing. I purchased the base game - not the collector's edition that I've seen around - and the components are still great. The cards are heavy duty and feel great in hand, and the artwork looks fantastic. All of the character cards (112 I believe) have unique artwork, and even the "unnamed" characters look interesting. House markers & the game board are heavy cardboard with good artwork, and while nothing fancy, the plastic cubes & various other markers are bright and acceptable for what they are. Even the instructions are heavy duty, look great, and are easy to follow. Once you know how the game is setup, you can do so fairly quickly, and it looks great on the table. While appearing complicated, the rules are super simple to follow. After only a couple games, the only thing I need to refer back to the manual for is endgame scoring. The expansive card roster creates countless hand combos, and so far every game has felt like a new strategy. Speaking of strategy, you will need it to beat the solo variant of the game. That's not a bad thing... the AI in this game is very well done. In fact, I like the solo variant equally as well as against a second person. ----- The Bad: Until you get really familiar with the different characters and colors (castes), you'll spend a good deal of time reading the different abilities and post-game actions of cards. This can lead to a bit of analysis paralysis for some as they try to determine what their best option is. As with any game relying on card draws, randomness & luck will play a part. You could start off the game with a great hand and not need much hand management, or you may feel like your whole game is just trying to get two cards that really work well together. A large majority of your end-game points come from your hand totals, so that can make games seem really one sided at times. However, there are other options to score significant points, so you may need to shift your focus. While the game looks great, it's also a huge box for what it contains. I'm not sure if they used the same box for the collector's edition (which has card holders and maybe some other extras), but I feel like the box could have been half the size and held the components just as well. ----- The Indifferent: When it comes to the theme, you can take it or leave it. Since I'm reading & enjoying the books, I love seeing the different characters and how they synergize (good or bad) with other characters. However, at the end of the game, I'm going to base my hand purely on how the cards combo and score points, regardless of who I assemble my "team" from. On the flip side, my wife has had no problems playing & enjoying the game with zero knowledge of the books. So while I'm sure fans of the Red Rising series will get a bigger kick out of the theme, it can be played equally well by non-fans. It's fairly light-weight, plays quickly, and just enough strategy to keep things interesting without bogging it down. You'll have to decide if that's for you. ----- Overall I am really enjoying this game. It has enough strategy that when you put together a great hand combo, it feels really good, but it doesn't turn the game into a slog. I also really, really enjoy the solo mode of this game. Whether playing the AI, or other players, every game seems to necessitate a different strategy. Just one more game...

I'm a huge red rising fan and board game fan. To my delight, those worlds merged. This game is very fun to play. I love the art style in it and it's very repayable. Not too hard to learn. I got it on sale and it was worth every penny.

I have no idea why this game is not more popular. It's a lot shorter than most stonemaier games, but it deeply tactical slightly cutthroat, and tons of fun. I would recommend you try this out and keep it handy as a game to fill in an odd 30-45 mins at board game night.

I love this game. Love the art on the cards! Made from high quality material. It’s a little complicated initially, but once you play a few rounds, it’s easy to get the hang of

Seems fun, deep strategy. I bought game from a store, returned it because resealable bags shredded. Ordered on Amazon. Bags shredded... No game components appear to be ruined.

Great game! It did take me a while to read through the instructions and figure out what all the pieces do, but the gameplay is actually very straightforward. Knowledge of the books isn't necessary. In a group of 3, 2 of us were familiar with the books (okay, we were geeking out), and the 3rd did not know them, but we are all able to enjoy the game. If you are familiar with the books, you're in for a treat. The card art is amazing! The overall quality of all the materials is also fantastic. Even the manual is printed on high quality, textured paper. Great value for the money, and the replayability is definitely there.

This game can take a minute to grasp because it is slightly more complicated than your average family card game, but once you do, it becomes wildly competitive with a dynamic and fairly deep strategy element. While initially you may be tempted to focus on the non-card elements of the game (Helium, Fleet Track, Institute) these are present to a: Trigger the endgame b: Supplement your endgame hand score - and not be your primary source of points. Once you understand this, the real game begins. Highly recommended, especially for what you get at the price point. Good Quality, Great replayability, lots of fun. Players do not need to have read the books for any element of the game, those in the midst of the series will not have anything spoiled, and regardless of where readers are in the series, they will enjoy all the references.

Very nice quality game, similar mechanics to fantasy realms, another game I love, but with a board gamey feel.

An absolutely fantastic game even if you never read any of the books, the artwork is fantastic and game mechanics work so no one game feels the same.

This game does the books justice on so many levels I hope one day they make an expansion using the rest of the books

Being something of a fan of book series and a board gamer I couldn't, not purchase this. The basic aim of the game is to end the game with a solid 'point' scoring hand of cards to beat your opponents scoring hand. The cards themselves are all coloured around specific 'castes' (Golds are the leaders, Reds miners/underdogs, Obsidian's assassins', blue fleet commanders and so on.) The components themselves are very high quality and Stonemaier have been very generous with baggies to help keep things organised in the box. Set up time is quick and learning the game is pretty straight forward as you only do one of 2 actions on your turn - Lead or Scout, then its on to the next player. The rules I felt are very straight forward and only encompass 5 or 6 pages. My main advice for the game is try not to get too bogged down over analysing all the different point scoring methods with your hand and options that become available during the game. In my first game I decided early on I was going to go for a strategy for having a combination of Reds, Pinks and Obsidians in my hand by the end of the game. Whilst it was tempting to switch up my strategy based on cards on the table, my original plan worked and took me to a comfortable win despite thinking it was the wrong plan mid way through. I would really stress this to people who may suffer from analysis paralysis and really bog the game down trying to calculate their end game score constantly in advance. You can do things to mess around with other peoples hands by giving them extra or banishing cards but its not quite as obnoxious as other games. You'll also want to keep an eye on the colours other people are picking up and perhaps make plays to deny them. Very much looking forward to play it again, and definitely something you'll learn new strategies for, the more you play! Small edit - the reviewer below giving this 1 star - the images have only ever been of the standard version and what was delivered to me. No where in the title or description does it say collectors edition.

Juego muy rejugable que sé que ha mucha gente le importa la rejugabilidad antes de comprarse un juego de mesa. Administración de mano y de mucho pensar como desarrollar tus combos para hacer jugadas fuertes, es difícil ver todo el mazo en una partida a dos, pero si le ponen ganitas casi se logra. Luce más a tres o cuatro, pero a dos se puede hacer más ágil.

The game is great but the subject matter in the novels is not acceptable. If you start getting questions about characters and the novels etc. (R@@e). Works best as a solo game rather than a m.player. Same game, different thematic skin would have been better.