Pet Evil

In these troubled times, engaging in a game where players build missiles to lob at each other is probably not at the top of everyone’s to do list, but hey! What’s life without a bit of laughing in the face of total oblivion? Pet Evil is a set-building PVP for two to six players designed by Joe Liano and ‘published’ by GamesQuest. They just distribute, so to all intents and purposes, this is an indie – so, yay! It did rather well as a Kickstarter and is now available to us mere mortals (also yay!)

Cluster Bunny

Each player starts with their missile marker on the Hit Point Tracker (start points vary depending on the length of the game you want to have). They then take it in turns to draw, steal and trade cards, build and launch rockets and generally try to destroy their opponents. The last rocket remaining on the track is the winner.

All players start with a hand of five cards (players can hold a maximum of seven cards). One of which is a Pet and, on their turn, will draw a card from the deck, carry out a Supply action and (optionally) carry out a Command action before discarding back down to seven cards.

Before the game starts, there are four Scrap Piles (marked on the side of the Hit Point Tracker) that must have one card drawn from the deck for each of them. I’ll explain more about the Scrap Piles when we look at the Supply action. The cards themselves are a mix of rocket parts, both conventional and nuclear, and defensive cards such as Health Packs, Treaties and Shelters. Players will have a mix of these (and a Pet) in their opening hand.

Everyone will draw a card from the deck on their turn, but the Supply action is a bit different. Players can either draw another card from the deck, draw a card from one of the Scrap Piles, steal a card from another player or trade a card with another player.

Drawing another card is fair enough, but why do one of the others? Well, drawing from the Scrap Piles allows you to see what you’re getting – one man’s rubbish is another man’s thermonuclear MEV device, as the saying goes. Players can only steal from someone who has more cards than them because sharing is caring, and trade is just mutually beneficial theft… or something like that.

But Trading And Stealing Have A Dangerous Risk, Fear The Evil Of Pets!

The Pets cards all do the same thing, you can play them as a Command to do two damage to an opponent, which is a bit underwhelming but could swing it for you. If you have the Pet stolen or give it to someone (did I say you had to trade the card you said you would? I’m sure I never said that…) that player must reveal the Pet card and take five damage OR discard their own Pet card. And yes, I have used this tactic. And no, I did not win.

Anti-Personnel Puppy

After a player has taken their Supply action they may (*may*) take a Command action. This can mean that they play a Health Pack card to… heal, or a Treaty card to stop other players slinging missiles directly at them for that turn. Or they can go for the fun bit.

Break Out The Ballistics.

There are two kinds of missile in Pet Evil: Conventional and Nuclear. Conventional missiles come in a range of colours and have to include a Rocket, a Warhead and at least one Explosive. Their effectiveness is determined by how many of the cards’ colours match.

The more you match, the more you smash. You can also boost these missiles by having up to three Explosives of the same colour. So, if you had an all red missile with three Explosives, you would be doing a massive 12 points of damage. THAT’S A LOTTA DAMAGE!

Fortunately, you do not have to just sit and take it. There are instant effect cards, like Deflection and Shelter that allow you to either re-direct the missile (and yes, it can be re-directed at a Treaty holder – not so cool to be playing the Switzerland card now, is it?) or half the damage. These can also be played on the Nuclear option, although the beneficial effects may be negligible because nukes are bad. Very bad.

ATOMIC KITTEN

For anyone who hasn’t watched Threads (yay 80’s trauma!), the consequences of a nuclear war in real life are beyond unpleasant. It would mean the end of everything. Even Pop-Tarts. In this playful little game though, the consequences of a nuclear exchange will be a much shorter game.

The initial attack does ten damage to the target. It also does five damage to players on either side of the target and yes, that can sometimes mean you! The target also receives a radiation token, and each radiation token on the board means minus two hit points for everyone every time the round reaches the holder(s) of the token. And the tokens don’t go away. If the player holding the token runs out of hit points, the token moves on to the next player. And so on.

So, kids: nukes are bad; don’t do nukes.

Give Meece A Chance

So, the smoke has cleared, the radioactive dust has settled and all that remains is a single red balloon and the summary of this game.

This is a lovely compact icebreaker of a game that can accommodate six, which is a good number for an icebreaker. Plays relatively quickly but has enough strategy and variety to make it fun for new and seasoned gamers alike. There’s a good opportunity for back-stabbery and ‘they started it first’, plus the deflection cards can really upset people’s alliances in an almost cartoonish manner. Not a game for everyone, but for some a definite selling point.

The cards and artwork, in general is cute and amusing. Not quite as grotesque as Exploding Kittens, not quite as saccharin as Sylvanian Families and the components are of a decent quality, especially the point tracker-cum-gameboard. For an indie, it’s very polished indeed.

This is also a war game that almost has a message, like the classic Amiga game Cannon Fodder. It’s fun but brutal and the fallout will make you fall out. Eh, I could be kidding myself here, I have been watching too many videos on old Amiga games recently.

Ultimately, it is a lot of fun that doesn’t outstay its welcome or take up too much space. My get-back pet-related game used to be Exploding Kittens, but I think this old favourite might have some thermo-nuclear competition…