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When I first heard about Eye for an Eye I missed the crucial 'real time' aspect of the game. I assumed what I would be getting was an arena version of King of Tokyo. To be honest that had me excited enough, so when the prototype arrived and I discovered it was real time dice rolling I was... disappointed.
Yeah real time dice rolling can be hard to get right, and often favours the quick to roll. Could Eye for an Eye be the Project Elite of verses gameplay?
Eye for an Eye
Project Elite is a real time co-operative dice roller that is very hard to get hold of. It's been a 'grail' game of mine for a while. I recently managed to snag a copy and was very pleased with the gameplay. You roll and assign dice to perform various tasks and fight off an alien invasion. It manages to give compelling choices in a quick and frantic way. I'm happy to report that Eye for an Eye is pretty much the verses version.
Eye for an Eye pits you against other players in free for all or team battles. You choose an Occulite, the bizarre race of creatures in the game, gather its player mat and three extra power cards for advanced mode. Each player also gets 15 red cubes to represent health and a cup to store health taken off opponents in. Every player also receives five dice.
Load up the soundtrack and away you go for five manic minutes. You will roll your dice and assign them to different parts of your player board and power cards. What is nice here is that you don't have to use that power straight away, rather you can save it for optimal results. So say you are three spaces away from me, I can roll my move dice and attack dice and assign them all before using any of them.
Eye Spy
Some of your powers require a minimum amount of dice assigned to them before you can use them. These boxes are indicated by having vines around them. So if your defence has two vine boxes you must assign to those first before you can use any defence. You will use dice to heal, attack, move, defend and activate special powers. Once you have decided what you are activating you shout it out and take that action. If it is an attack you declare your target and how strong an attack you are making. They then reply with any defence they have and the difference is taken off them in health.
This means they take that many health cubes from their supply and put them in your cup. This is a great element as it really simulates taking damage in the game. You have to stop what you are doing and pay your health before carrying on.
The bases for the minis are really cool too. They are hexagonal and have three arrows pointing out from three of their sides which means you are never in doubt as to which way anyone is facing. Movement actions allow you to change your facing as attacking someone from behind is unblockable.
To use one of your three special powers you first have to prepare it. The cards start face down and must be flipped by placing prep dice faces on them. Once flipped they are used as per the other actions and then flipped face down again.
Eye Eye
Eye for an Eye won me over with its easy to understand, quick gameplay with strategic depth not always apparent or indeed present in real time games. As in Project Elite you have to make choices and prioritise on the fly. Each of the six characters feel different thanks to their unique player boards and even more so with the power cards.
I was able to try a variety of tactics from storming right into the middle of two opponents (not recommended) to careful creeping round the outside of the other players before smash and dashing. Everything about Eye for an Eye is made for ease of play. The graphic design and artwork by The Mico really shine and it's nice to see the artist get to draw wacky creatures rather than human based fantasy characters.
Eye for an Eye is well worth a look for a fresh fun, real time game that works with gamers of all ages. The game is now live on Kickstarter, with a target goal of £28,367 and a closing date of May 24.