Knights of the Cardboard Castle

This is a fun little cooperative game that Shan suggested we try. I’d actually read the rules for this one some time back and once you understand the time system lifted straight out of Thebes, it’s very straightforward. Not much point going over this one in detail considering its simplicity and how well known it is, so here are my thoughts:

• The name Red November is an obvious spoof of Red October and making them gnomes in a fantasy world is an understandable choice. What’s odder is that they’re not only gnomes, but seemingly Russian gnomes, completely with an unhealthy fondness of thinly-veiled vodka. Add to the fact that it’s set on an attack submarine armed with nuclear missiles, it makes me think that designer Bruno Faidutti was making an explicit reference to the Kursk submarine disaster, which seems a bit awkward. (Edit: I checked Faidutti’s blog, it is an explicit reference. That’s seems risque to me. Imagine making a boardgame of the 9/11 disaster.)
• There are a lot of components packed inside a very small box! When I first saw the size of that box ages ago, I was convinced the game was played on a paper map of some kind. It turned out that it does use a mounted board, albeit a small, and has enough components to accommodate up to eight players. Finding a way to pack all that into a box of that size must have been no mean feat! Of course, as Sean explained, packing it all away afterward constitutes a significant effort as well.
• That said, I can’t imagine that a game with eight players would go well. As Sean demonstrated, even stacking the timekeeping tokens so high is a problem and the submarine will soon be full of all manner of fires, flooded areas and stuck doors.
• The game mechanics are all very intuitive and fit the theme very well. You spend time units to perform actions, as time passes you draw event cards to determine what new disaster befalls the beleaguered submarine and you win once everyone is at the sixty minute mark and the submarine is still intact. Some actions require a die roll to determine success, and you essentially have better chances of doing anything by spending more time on it. You also collect and use up items to help you do various tasks.
• Strangely enough, the game starts with no disasters in the submarine at all, which means everyone has nothing to do except grab items. Of course, the bad stuff tends to start piling up rather quickly once you start doing things but it still feels a bit odd.
• Overall, it’s a solid enough cooperative game and one that probably even kids can get into. I don’t like that it’s quite obvious most of the time what the needed moves are and the only choice is how much risk you want to take when you perform actions.