Video Game Champion (VGC) is a new strategy board game from Arcane Wonders. VGC is for 2 to 5 players and about takes 50-90 minutes to play (depending on player count). The recommended age group for VGC is 14+.
You and your friends are 1990’s kids dividing your time and attention between begging your parents for money, visiting gramma’s house, studying, renting games, buying strategy guides, and, ultimately, playing as many video games as you can. Do you have what it takes to rise above your friends and become the next Video Game Champion?
What’s in the box?
This is a modern sized game box that’s about 11″ x 11″ x 3″. The box is chock full of components. Here’s what’s inside:
- 17 Achievement Cards
- 15 Magazine Cards
- 5 Starter Video Game Cards
- 1 Reference Card
- 30 Video Game Cards
- 1 New Release Bag
- 1 Button Tiles Bag
- 5 Password Notebooks
- 10 Cubs (2 of each color)
- 15 Meeples (3 of each color)
- 40 Dollar Tokens
- 40 New Release Crystals (8 of each color)
- 80 Played/Beaten Tokens (16 of each color)
- 26 IOU Tiles
- 50 Button Tiles
- 1 Initiative Board
- 1 Discard Board
- 8 Action Boards
- 1 Scorepad
- 1 Rulebook
How does it play?
In Video Game Champion, you are essentially trying play as many video games as possible over the course of 5 rounds. Each round you will try to beg for money, rent some games, draft button tiles, and try to play (and/or beat) video games.
Video Game Champion is essentially a drafting game combined with a worker placement game. Each round you will have the opportunity to draft 3 “Button Tiles”. These button tiles essentially unlock button mashing combos to defeat video games. Players take turns drafting tiles and placing them in front of themselves. Players can only accumulate a maximum of 8 tiles.
Each tile corresponds to a row and a column. In addition to drafting the tile, you have the opportunity to take one of 8 Actions that might correspond to that tile. Those actions are:
- Game planning – Draw 2 more button tiles randomly from the Button Bag
- Can I have some money? – Take an IOU tiles and 2 dollars from your parents
- Asking for a present – Take 3 IOU tiles and one game from Video Game Store
- Waking up early – Change turn order so that you can get the video game store ahead of others
- Studying and doing chores – Pay off 2 IOU’s
- Going to the newsstand – Pay a dollar and buy a Video Game Magazine from the newsstand. Magazines basically give you cheat codes to beat certain games easier.
- Visiting the Grandparents – Get a dollar and return one IOU tile
- Going to the Rental Store – Pay money to reserve video games to play. You essentially take the game home and no one else can play that game for the week.
Video game cards:
There are a total of 30 different games in VGC. Each game has a difficulty level, a score for beating it, and reward for simply playing it. There is also a Button Tile combination to play and beat each game. To play the game above, you just need to match the color for the first two buttons and you earn a “Thrilling” tile. To beat the game, you must match the color all the 3 tiles. You redeem the tiles in to earn your rewards.
Playing and Beating Games
After you rent (or buy) a game, you have the opportunity to play it. To beat some a game you must own the correct button tiles to solve the game. You redeem the tiles at that time. These can be:
- Button numbers is ascending order (any color)
- Match colors (any numbers)
- Match colors and numbers in Ascending order
- Match all numbers exactly
- Or match sets up button combos.
Passwords – Each player gets a password bonus sheet that you can use to get some bonus points. You get Crystals from buying New Release Strategy Guides or being the first person to play a New Release video game.
So, the basic gist of Video Game Champions is to:
- Beg and plead for money
- Use your money Rent Video Games or buy Strategy Magazines
- Draft button mashing tiles
- Play and or beat video games
- Pay off your IOUs because they take up unwanted space in your button tile inventory. You can only have a total of 8 tiles (IOUs + Button Tiles)
- Rinse and repeat this process over 5 turns.
There is a little more to this game, but that is the overall gist of Video Game Champions.
A variety of Achievement cards come out that will change some game goals each time you play it. There are 17 different Achievement cards. These can be things like:
- Play the most RPG games
- or, Buy 3 Action Game magazines,
- or Own 3 Video Games
- or Beat 4 Games, etc.
The winner of VGC will be the person that scored the most points during the 5-week competition.
Pros, Cons and Final Thoughts on Video Game Champion
Pros
- Holy Cow! The “Theming” come out here! This is supposed to the the 1990’s but I went through my video game phase in the 1970s and 1980s as a kid. And it was pretty much this dead-on. Only my games were Intellivision, Sega and NES cartridges. There was no Internet. And you didn’t download games. You could buy games, but sometimes it was better to simply rent a game and see if it was any good.
- Good drafting and worker placement game – You have to try to plan your moves the best you can. Do you need money? Or do you need a strategy guide? Or do you need to rent a game before your opponent does?
- Great quality and artwork – The cards have a really good feel to them, and the artwork in phenomenal. The game really captures the essence of the video games of the 1990’s.
- Plays up to 5 players – Nice for groups that play with 5 people.
Cons
- This game is a table hog – As much as I love this game, I can’t deny that you need a large table to play this game. And with 5 players, some players will have to stand up to take their turns.
- Analysis Paralysis (AP) – AP can come into play here. There are a lot of choices in VGC, like: what tile to take; what action to take; what game to rent; what game to buy; what magazine to buy; play a game or beat a game; what bonus achievement to go after, etc.
- Looks Intimidating – I’m being honest here. I don’t think VGC is really that hard to learn or teach, but it looks intimidating. VGC has a whole lot of symbolism when you first look at it, but after a few turns it all comes together. One person in the group must learn this game very well beforehand. It would be hard to learn on the fly. There are a lot of great videos on YouTube and a very good Rulebook included. The rulebook is 20 pages long so that can be intimidating too. 😉
- Take that – There can be little bit of “take that” in Video Game Champion. During the the game, the Achievement cards will be fought over intensely. If someone sees a magazine another person needs to win an achievement card, they might buy it first to stop them. This can happen at the video game store as well. A gamer might need to play one more Action title to win an achievement card, so another gamer might rent that game just to stop them. It might be just good, winning gameplay, but some players might not appreciate it.
Final Thoughts
I love Video Game Champion. If I have 90 minutes to play, you can count me in any time! I love the look and the gameplay. My kids and friends love the theme too. But my wife is not a gamer, and she is totally “meh” on this one. She did not grow up renting or playing games. The theme does not appeal to her whatsoever.
I’m coming in at 4.5 outta 5.0 on this Video Game Champion. I love the theme, and the gameplay is tight. People really don’t know who is winning until the very end, so you will feel competitive the entirety of the game.