Published by Dream Cult Game Studio, Mischief is a card game for 2-4 players representing factions of faerie folk competing for favour at the marriage between the Fairy King Oberon and Queen Titania, who most of us know from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. The game is designed by Dan Cassar, who is best known for the popular card game Arboretum (Renegade Game Studios).
The fairy theme may seem gossamer light but Mischief is actually a highly strategic card game. You start with a hand of 13 cards and take turns to play them to a seven column grid, where each column represents two of the faerie folk factions (ie: two sharing the same colour). Cards in a column a card are deemed to 'protect' those with an adjacent higher number; so, for example, a 3 'protects' a 4 and is protected by a 2. If you play a card that protects a card already in play or which is protected by it, you take that column's Friendship token, initially from the grid and subsequently from another player, unless that player has won it twice running and so flipped it as 'locked'. Unlocked Friendship tokens score 2 points at the end of the game and locked tokens are worth 4 points.
If you play a card that's the same value as an unprotected card in a column, the unprotected card is discarded and you take the corresponding 'Prank' token, provided it isn't locked (been scored by a player twice running). Unlocked Prank tokens score 3 points at the end of the game and locked tokens score 5 points.
If you can make two protected plays to the same faction in successive turns you'll be able to nab and lock a Friendship token, but other players will probably try to interrupt your successive plays. You can potentially score even more points by playing a card that simultaneously wins a Friendship token while also nabbing a Prank token...
Play continues for eight rounds, so players are left with five cards in hand, from which they choose one to take out of play. The other four are declared and may affect how much each fairy faction scores and whether points go to the player who played a faction's highest card or to the player who played the lowest. This makes for end-game scoring that can seem initially fiddly but which makes sense once you've played it through a couple of times and realised that there is a depth to the gameplay that can defy your first cursory view.
Shown here on Board's Eye View is a preview prototype of the game which uses only provisional art and doesn't include the board that is due to come in the published version. Dream Cult Game Studio are bringing Mischief to Kickstarter on 1 October. Click here to find out more.