I love it when game designers give us a unique take on mechanics that have been around for a long time. Fight 5 gave us a new spin on the card game war, Samurai Spirit channeled its inner blackjack, and quite a few games have pulled from the ancient game Mancala, notably Five Tribes.
Today, we are going to look at a two-player dueling game that is the latest game to use Mancala as its foundation. Set in the world of Wonderland’s War, Madcala puts you in control of one of the unique denizens from the other side of the looking glass.
Gameplay Overview:
Madcala comes with 6 unique characters to control, each of which approaches the game in a slightly different way. Once set up, the round structure is pretty quick. On a player’s turn, they must move Shards around the board, and then may optionally use a “plus-one” card or commoner card.
Moving shards is handled via Mancala, which, if you’ve never played, has you scooping up all shards in one space on your side of the board, and then dropping one in each subsequent space. Where you place your last shard is the action you can take. These range from damaging your opponent, to healing, to adding more shards to the board, to drawing cards.
Each character also has a unique ability and 3 Plus-One cards that they can activate by removing shards from the board. What they do will depend on the character you are playing. For example, Alice is great at using her Plus-One cards and denying her opponent their cards, while the Jaberwock is a straight-up attacker who never heals.
Players will take turns back and forth until one player is defeated.
Game Experience:
While I haven’t played them all, I’ve yet to be let down by a game that uses Mancala as its engine: Five Tribes, Theseus: The Dark Orbit, Istanbul, and Come Sail Away all come to mind as great games that build off this ancient game. And Madcala slots right in with those excellent titles.
I was a little skeptical at first of how well Manacala would work for a dueling game, but it actually flows really smoothly. Turns go by lightning fast, as damage is frequent and sometimes deadly. The battles have an almost ebb and flow to them, as you’ll have some turns where you are just trying to position yourself for a big attack, or perhaps maybe just healing up, and then others where you lay down a few commoner cards and unleash a wallop on your opponent.
Game designers Aaron Hein and Manny Trembley also injected some nice replay value into the game by making each character feel really unique. The game isn’t quite asymmetrical, as the turn structure is the same for both players, yet each character has its own way to break the rules. The Cheshire Cat, for example, turns his doubler shard (each player has 1 shard that doubles the effect of the space it lands on) to a six-sided die, which can do anything from a few points of damage to tripling the effect of the space it lands on.
And it would be hard to talk about Madcala without mentioning the excellent artwork from Manny Trembley. His whimsical style is perfect for the game, and I always love seeing what he works up. The production values in general are top-notch, with a neoprene mat for the game board and acrylic chips instead of punchboard tokens.
Honestly, my only gripe with the game is that the rulebook isn’t the best. I’ve tried most of the characters and more than once we’ve found ourselves scratching our heads as to how a power works, or how an interaction might be handled. Sometimes we were able to answer the question by hopping online, and other times we just made a judgment call and moved on. In any case, a FAQ would be a welcome addition to the game.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, Madcala is a great addition to the world of Wonderland’s War. I’m always keen on trying out a new dueling game, and this one gets high marks from me. The 6 unique characters (with 2 more available as an expansion) inject some surprise and variety into the game, and the production values are excellent. If you are a fan of the 2-player dueling genre, this one is worth checking out.
Final Score: 4 Stars – A fun and quick battle in the world of Wonderland’s War.
Hits:
• Each character feels unique
• Excellent art and production values
• Easy to learn rules
Misses:
• Could really use a FAQ
