Clank!, a Review

•Developed by Paul Dennen
•Published by @renegade_game_studios and Direwolf
Clank! is, at its core, a deck builder with adventure elements. You play cards to buy cards and beat up monsters, trying to move around the board to grab as much loot and treasure as you can before escaping.

What I love most about Clank! is that it’s just plain fun. You’re moving your pawn through the board using cards that allow you movement, finding bits of loot here and there that give you bonuses to your purchasing power (skill), your attack, or gold. The board itself (which is double-sided) has multiple paths to those sweet artifacts that boost your score (and also makes the dragon angry… and why wouldn’t it be, you thief).

The tension comes from getting attacked in the form of dragon icon cards appearing in the “shop” and all your clank cubes getting tossed in the bag, where the likelihood of taking damage becomes greater, as well as pushing your luck to get even more treasures and escaping before getting knocked out.

One negative would be that, as a two player game, it’s easy to grab an artifact and get out. It all comes down to who draws what and when and maximizing your deck through your acquired cards. We never really felt like we were going to get knocked out. It would definitely shine as a four-player game, which I cannot wait to experience.

I played with my brother and we had an absolute blast. We laughed as we raced towards the more valuable artifacts, cringed as we hoped our cubes wouldn’t get picked out of the bag, and engrossed ourselves in the various ways we could maximize our points while trying not to get knocked out.

If you’re looking for something light, fun, and thematic that’s easy to teach to people, Clank! is a game that would fit nicely in your collection.

Rating: 4 1/2 Clanks! out of 5.