Going over all the Evil Lab games

 The Evil Lab family is one I’ve been going through. (I got them as an add-on to a Kickstarter and I’ve spent more time on them so far than the actual Kickstarter) There are seven individual games in the series, although the differences between each one are just little tweaks. 

It’s a collection of print-and-play, Roll-and-Write multiplayer games. I feel like there is a meaningful number of small publishers who specialize in this kind of game. To be fair, it makes sense as a business model. The overhead is less than physically publishing and games that just require printing and adding dice and pencils are accessible.

(I also initially wondered why every variant had its own entry on Boardgame Geek, as opposed to a game like Voyages. The answer, quite obviously, is each one is a separate product. I feel silly for not realizing that)

The core game is filling in different shapes in different colors in a grid. Roll two dice and pick one for the color and one for the shape. You are trying to create patterns of colors, like four in a line.

The two clever bits are that the same shape can not be next to itself and the patterns have to be exact. A line of five doesn’t count as a line of four with a buddy.

At the end of the day, Evil Lab is pretty simple. But those two restrictions are enough to create some hard  but interesting choices. Enough that I have ended up trying out all of the variants. 

My Little Evil Lab

This one is designed to be for younger players and an entry point in the family. The tweak in My Little Evil Lab is that it adds a fourth shape.

Which is enough to possibly make this the most dramatically changed variant. That extra shape makes a huge difference and does make the game substantially more forgiving.

This was my starting point in the family and, unless I’m playing with non-gamers or younger gamers, I wouldn’t pull it out again. It feels like it makes the system too easy.

Biohazard Zone

Biohazard Zone may actually be the simplest modification of the core system. Four of the squares in the grid are blocked off.  

I did find the rules a little vague. The concept of Evil Lab is that you are dropping the shapes down into the grid, a pencil and paper Connect 4. One reading of the rules could be that the blocked areas  keep shapes from falling through them. Which would remove fifteen of the thirty-six squares which is just too much. And the visual examples also indicate that shapes just can’t be in the blocked squares.

With all that said, I am actually pretty indifferent to this variant. It doesn’t feel different enough from the core game for me so I’d rather play the base game.

Bio Split

Okay. Some of the lines on the grid are thicker. Those lines don’t break the ‘the same shape can’t be next to itself’ rules but they do break up the patterns you are forming.

Bio Split actually annoys me. I feel like it is saying you could pull off some clever patterns but luck keeps that from happening. It feels like a premise built on false promises.

Least favorite variant.

Color Rampage

Certain squares are marked with specific colors. BUT you can put different colors on those squares. You just take a point penalty for doing it. So now it becomes a choice.

It’s still not different enough from the base game to make me choose it over the base game. However, I think it’s more interesting and offers more real choices than Biohazard or Bio Split.

Monstrous Monster Mixer

Instead of a square grid, MMM has an asymmetrically shaped grid. That’s it. 

And I like it. That changes things enough to make you change the kind of patterns you’re going to try to make. MMM plays differently enough to justify playing it instead of the core game.

Tetra Terror

Tetra Terror has you using different shaped patterns for scoring. This set is actually the five Tetris shapes.

And like MMM, Tetra Terror changes the way you play the game. It feels different. It arguably makes the game deeper because the scoring shapes are more complicated. It makes the game more interesting.

Good stuff.

CONCLUSION 

There are Roll and Writes that really push the envelope about what you can do with paper and dice. This is not one of them. Evil Lab is a decent but very abstract little game that works with familiar R&w tools. It doesn’t do anything new but it does an effective  job at what it does.

However, I really only see myself going back to the core game, MMM and Tetra Terror. Those are the ones I’d recommend if you’re interested in Evil Lab.