Allegory

It’s always a risk buying a brand new game that you’ve never heard of before. But I have to admit, the artwork on Allegory sold me on it. The images on the cards are absolutely stunning, and that fact hits me every time I play. Even if you decide this game isn’t for you, I highly recommend any fantasy fans look up the cards just to drool over the aesthetic.   This is one of those games where that you can imagine being played in a high stakes casino in an alternate reality. The players are trying to accrue three sets of cards, based on the little corner designs in the top left and bottom right of the card. So by the end of the game, you should have three columns of cards. The lore of the game is that you are a writer working on a trilogy of books. Nature (represented by vines), Energy (represented by the sun) and Spirit (represented by wings). The cards are themes you want to put in your books. You will use tokens to bid on the cards you want to add to your collection.   One thing I adore about this game is that when I explain it to someone, they’ll think the game sounds pretty straightforward and easy. And it is, the rules are pretty easy to get the hang of. But the more you play, the more hidden strategies and tactics you find, and the more you try to psyche out and double-cross players.

Set-Up

To set up the game, each of the players is given a set of Lore Chips, a Moral Card (which I’ll touch on later) and a Rest Marker. Then you put all the Theme Cards in the middle of the table face down. Draw the same number of cards as there are players, and lay them out in a line. The game starts when the youngest player picks one of the cards laid out and starts bidding on it.

Tokens Versus Points

Each of the cards has a score, which can be a positive or negative number. Pretty obviously, you want to collect plus cards and avoid negative ones. The tokens you’re given are cardboard disks with a pretty simplistic design, especially compared with the cards. They’re referred to as Lore Chips in the rules, but personally, I feel like that’s the creators pushing the writing metaphor a bit too much. One interesting mechanic is that when you buy a card, you put your Lore Chips on a card that you didn’t take. This allows someone to just take that card next round, once they’ve dropped out of bidding for a different card. This creates the challenge of weighing up the tokens on a card with the negative value of that card. I once played a game where someone used all their tokens to buy a high-value card, then put all their tokens on a card worth minus four. The plan was to drop out of the bidding next round and get all his tokens back. Unfortunately for him, I managed to snag the card before he could, meaning that for the next few rounds, he was flat broke. This kind of thing is something I love, where players can outmanoeuvre or trick each other.   When a person drops out of the bidding, the player takes back the coins they bid and instead will put down a Rest Marker to show they’re out of the bid. At first, I thought this mechanic was pretty useless. But when you move up to four or five players, it can get pretty difficult to remember who’s bidding and who’s not. But like the lore chips, the illustrations on the disks are pretty dull in comparison to the cards.

You Need A Good Poker Face For Allegory

As I mentioned before, there are nine different card types. When the game begins, you are given a Moral Card which will show you one of these cards. At the end of the game, you get an extra bonus point for each of the cards matching the Moral Card that you collect. Also, if you get three cards matching each other, you get two bonus points. This results in bidding for mediocre cards to complete your set or get your bonus points. Other players work out your Moral Card, or the three in a row you’re aiming for. And then the devious among them will set out to ruin that plan. Personally, I love games like this. In this way, the game kind of reminds me of Skulls or Perudo, lots of bluffing and psyching out your opponents.

Another Round!

A round of Allegory usually lasts around 30-50 minutes. This is the kind of game you can play maybe four or five times in a row. You get yourself in the right headspace, or demand revenge after another player ruins your plans. The great thing about the game is that it’s the type where the feel of it is really defined by the player. That’s what makes it exciting. You don’t get bored with replaying it because it’s the players that make it exciting.

The Allegory Of Allegory

Okay, so you can probably tell that I’m a fan of this game. I’ve raved about it enough to prove that. However, there is one thing I found annoying about the game. The whole ‘writing a book’ aspect. I feel like it doesn’t quite fit. In the game, you’re competing in bidding to buy themes. J. K. Rowling and Rick Riordan didn’t have to bid against each other over who could use the ‘coming of age’ theme in their series. And you use lore chips to bid and buy themes, but you don’t have to sacrifice lore for themes when you’re writing a book. When reading through the rules, this setting of the game can get kind of tedious and complex. So I guess what I’m saying is one of the weaknesses of the game is Allegory’s allegory.

Final Thoughts

I’m really glad I went with my gut and got Allegory. It’s quick and easy to understand with hidden depths. It’s perfect to start or end a longer playing session, or just to play over and over and watch your friends get progressively angrier and angrier. In the stats, I’ve only given the art four out of five because I think the tokens let the overall art down. But, to restate a point I can’t stress enough, the card art is amazing.