Long gone are the days when the villains in TV and movie Westerns wore black hats and the lawmen wore white hats and were always the good guys. More recent Westerns have often been more nuanced, with lawmen sometimes unaverse to bending the law to their own favour and fortune. That's perhaps the premise for Sam Barton's High Noon Heist from Table for Two Games. High Noon Heist is a two-player card game where one player represents the law and the other outlaws but both sets of characters are competing for loot.
Each player has a set of eight character cards ranked 0-7. Each card also has its own special effect. The lawmen and outlaw cards use different nomenclature and have distinctive artwork. Some of the cards are unique but others have identical effects; for example, the value 1 lawman card (Bounty Hunter) and value 1 outlaw card (Cutthroat) both have corresponding effects on the opposing cards valued 6 and 7.
Gameplay involves selecting one of your character cards and playing it face down for simultaneous reveal with your opponent's choice of card. You're competing for a heist card and that heist card will have its own effect, resolved before the abilities set out on the competing characters cards. The highest value card then wins the heist, provided that character hasn't been eliminated (put in the Jail or Doctor's office) by the heist or character card effects. Characters still standing are sent to the hideout/saloon; they can be recovered (returned to your hand) as the effect of the value 0 ('No Show') card.
High Noon Heist is a simple push-your-luck game where players can try to take advantage of a location's specific heist effects and will be attempting to deduce or guess the card that their opponent is playing. There's ample scope for bluff and double-bluff and, with a playing time of around 15 minutes, High Noon Heist makes for an entertaining filler-length duel. The artwork from Wilson Hendrik makes use of anthropomorphised animals, which adds to the game's child appeal, but the text on the cards may make the game initially challenging for younger players. Still, youngsters will find this family-friendly game a step up from familiar staples like Top Trumps.
High Noon Heist is scheduled to come to Kickstarter on 19 March.