Very Briefly

Handy Brawl (Igor Zuber) is a fantasy brawler in-hand card game featuring multiple heroes to play as, multiple enemies to battle, and layers of depth to explore.

Briefly

  • In-hand play is quite doable; every game is 9 cards – five cards of a specific hero, and four cards of a specific enemy – shuffled together at set-up.
  • Every card is made up of four sections, representing various health states and ready states of the characters, utilizing icons to indicate the powers available in each section.
  • After set-up, you go through the deck card-by-card, starting at the top and working your way down, cycling the deck as you go. A game is thus a puzzle with a random set-up and then a complex series of decisions to find a solution that allows your hero to survive and beat down the enemy.
  • There are multiple difficulties and complexities for both heroes and enemies, while there doesn’t appear to be an imbalance between different levels of difficulty – the simplest beginner hero, the Warrior, can still win against advanced enemies.
  • You can thus methodically explore the system as you use the heroes one-by-one to defeat each enemy one-by-one, confronting ever-more complex decision trees as your skill increases. The game definitely grows along with you.
  • A double-sided reference card is included for each hero and enemy that allow you to quickly assess what each icon means, so the weight of having to remember what every icon does is greatly lessened. There are a few basic principles for every icon (mostly to do with targeting), and then away you go!
  • Games are fast, so this is something to play when you’ve got a little break. You can save game state easily by simply un-fanning the 9-card deck configuration and slipping it into your pocket.
  • What a joy this game is to me! I love to explore systems like this. I love to play until I win a configuration consistently. I love an in-hand game with so few components that still delivers a punch in strategy and tactics.

Brief Caveat

  • Right now I’ve only explored really the first three heroes – Warrior, Huntress (archer), and Pyromancer – against the first two enemies – the Ogre and the Vampire. I’ve spent over a week working through to win against the Vampire, having already cleared the Ogre extremely consistently with all three chosen heroes.
  • I still want to assess the more complex heroes, Werewolf and Beastmaster, against the three more deadly enemies (including one that apparently reacts more strongly to your actions than the other enemies).
  • However, since you can receive all the heroes and enemies at once in the PNP, you can also explore them before I manage to do so. I highly recommend it because given the clear amount of playtesting to balance the heroes and enemies I’ve used so far, I trust the rest of the game will be as rewarding.

Lục Bát

Oh gaming gods on high,
Yield a brawler curt yet elegant
And bless my times when sick.
Ah! I see you’ve answered my wish,
Even in this age that
Slowly wanes: the big box games.