Monday, December 13, 2021

All is Bomb is a nifty puzzle

 When I saw All is Bomb, I knew I had to try it just on the concept alone.


You need to serve the princess the perfect breakfast. You need to consult the prophets before they explode to choose the right food before it explodes to give the princess before she explodes. Because everything will explode because ALL IS BOMB!

Somewhere, James Ernst is wondering why he didn’t think of this theme first.

The base game consists of eighteen cards. The cards have a passive side and an ignited side. You have to play the card to flip it to ignited. The ignited side is more powerful but you discard it after you play it.

The goal is to play an ignited prophet to determine which of the three foods you need to serve the princess. You then need to play the ignited princess and then play the correct ignited food. 

And then I’m guessing everything explodes.

This is the clever bit. After you shuffle the deck at the start of the game, that’s it for randomization. BUT each card has a number on it. When you play a card, you draw that number of cards, add the last one to your hand and put the rest at the bottom of the deck on the same order.

So you cycle through the deck but in an unusual way. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this mechanic before. And you have a lot of control (almost all the cards let you rearrange the deck in some fashion)  but you have to use that control to work your way through your puzzle.

First of all, the theme is hysterical. (Prophets of breakfast dishes on top of everything being a bomb?) At the same time, the game play reflects the theme. And I find the mechanics quirky and engaging.

I like it.

I made a copy of the low ink version, which doesn’t have the expansions. I may well make the color version so I can try the expansions.

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