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Fallen Angels Preview
Fallen Angels, by John Kean from Side Room Games, is a deduction based card game for 2-6 players set in the criminal underworld of the 1920s. Straight out of the box this looks great, each card a black and white photo of a different criminal with a little detail about their name, age and crime. The grainy images look a little like mugshots from history and add to the theme perfectly.
Your job, as a team, is to work out the evidence for each of the criminals contained in your hand, that is needed to convict them. To win, your team needs to convict 12 of these shady characters whilst trying not to acquit any. For if 3 are acquitted, you lose the game. Sounds simple right? Well in terms of gameplay it is but actually succeeding isn’t quite as easy.
I played this with a group of three, and the first game we were absolutely smashed by the criminals, we managed to convict only one, and that was on easy mode!
So how does the game actually play?
The key to the game is the card design, each card has three sets of evidence on each face of the card. These are grouped into either pairs or individual evidence icons. On your turn you raise one card out of your hand. Pictured on your side you will see either a pair or a single icon. On the reverse your team will see the opposite. If you see an individual icon, that icon and one other will be depicted on the reverse , if you have a pair, one of those icons will be seen by your team.
Their job is to help you deduce which icons they can see. They do this by using their cards in exactly the same way. They arrange all the cards that bear the icon or icons you are showing them on one side of their hand with those that don't on the other side. The clues they give are separated by a clever little card, the crime scene card, with a tick and cross icon, to help the active player work out which are which. This also doubles as a handy player aid with all the icons for the possible types of evidence depicted.
Elementary?
Sounds simple, but these types of games never are as simple as they seem. Remember that the players will be giving you a mix of clues. If they choose a matching image on their side of the cards that is part of a pair, they may be displaying, unknowingly, the wrong image to you, or if they pick a single icon that matches yours, they will be showing you two: one that is correct and one that might not be. So, the active player needs to gather information from both sides of the crime scene card. If you are able to deduce the evidence needed, and are correct, you are able to move the character closer to incarceration.
The characters are either three, two, or one step away. Beneath the number, are icons that describe how you move the character on. Sometimes, you flip, sometimes you rotate the card before guessing again in the next round. As you flip the card, the required evidence changes and so you need to use the same method to deduce again. However, if your team is unable to provide you with enough information, you can use one of the 6 informant cards, removed from the pack at the start of the game. Your team tells you how many of the icons you need are depicted on the card.
However, once the informant has blabbed they go into hiding and so cannot be used again. These are clearly a valuable resource and so should be used sparingly. If you are still unable to, or you guess wrong, the character is acquitted and counts against you.
If you manage to beat the criminals and convict a dozen, the number of informants left provide a winning score.
Final thoughts:
Fallen Angels looks and feels great, it is a clever little game and the way you set up the decks at the beginning, with different numbers of cards in different orientations creates varying levels of difficulty. The removal of at least 8 cards per game means that each game will see different combinations of characters and as such will ensure no two games are alike. If you like a game of real, not social deduction and enjoy a game that requires puzzle solving and use of logic, this is a game for you. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would thoroughly recommend you take a look at the Kickstarter campaign and see if you can convict enough of those Fallen angels to win the game.
The Kickstarter Campaign for Fallen Angels has since finished but you can still late pledge for it.