The Hunger Review

I recently reviewed a zombie game and gave a stat that at the time of writing there were over 1,500 zombie games listed on BoardGameGeek. Well I wondered how many games featured vampires there as well, so when I searched, BGG has officially 333 vampire games. That’s crazy. Vampires are way cooler than zombies. And to be honest, ever since I saw the box art for The Hunger I was immediately intrigued. Having Richard Garfield’s name on it only intensified my interest, so when I was able to snag a copy, I did. I have waited a while to review it, but I couldn’t tell you why.

The Hunger is a slick many-mechanic card game for two to six players. In it, players are racing against time (the sun) to trek from the castle in the middle of town all the way to the Labyrinth to collect a Rose, and then race all the way back to the safety of the castle. Al0ng the way, the players may stop to hunt some humans, pick up missions, and collect treasures, but the clock is always ticking and you certainly don’t want to be out after dawn.

To setup, place the board somewhere you can reach it. Beside it set out the Hunt Track that will be populated with human cards to be hunted. Place out three of these humans along the leftmost column of the track, and the mooneeple on Turn 1 of the Turn Track atop. Per the rules, place out the appropriate number of missions on the board, the hunt cards at the Tavern, the treasure tokens on the appropriate icons, and the Rose cards at the Labyrinth. Each player chooses a character and shuffles its respective six-card deck. Players also set out their Vampire token and Score tokens, draw three cards from their deck and the game may begin!

The Hunger is played over 15 turns, no more and no less. Initially, the first player is they who have drawn cards whose total Speed value (top left corner) is the lowest. Future turns player order is decided by distance from the starting Castle. Furthest Vampire away goes first. Turns are mostly consisted of three main phases: Activate Effects, Move & Hunt, End of Turn. The active player will place out their three cards in hand in order to Activate Effects on the card bottoms. This could include drawing more cards or discarding cards from the Playing Area. Drawing cards may be helpful or hurtful, depending on cards the player has previously hunted, and discarding cards from the Playing Area can negate some negative effects from previously hunted cards.

Next, the player will add up all the Speed values showing on their cards from their hand and any cards that may be a Permanent card that stays in play from turn to turn. Using this Speed number, the player will decide how many they would like to spend to Move across the board, and to use to Hunt humans from the Hunt Track. Moving is simple: move the Vampire token on the board up to the full value of Speed, and if the Vampire token stops on a space with a board effect, it triggers that effect. These effects include chests (take the treasure token there), crypts (choose any of the missions there), wells (allows the player to make two Hunts this turn, but the second Hunt is done on the 1-value Hunt Track column), and other effects. Any leftover Speed that wasn’t used for movement can be used to Hunt humans from the Hunt Track.

Each human card on the Hunt track will be worth 3, 2, or 1 Speed. However, from turn to turn these cards will move one column to the right thus decreasing their purchase power and creating a pile of cards on the 1-value column. These cards can be Hunted as a group for just one Speed. The player spends the leftover Speed from movement to Hunt these humans, adding them to their discard pile. Some cards will have certain keywords printed on them, such as Permanent or Spicy, and may end up going straight to the Playing Area instead of the discard pile. Upon acquiring any card from the Hunt Track, the player scores the number of VP equal to the printed value in the blood drop on the upper right hand corner of the card.

Once the player has Hunted or Moved as much as they are able, they must complete the End of Turn phase. The active player will flip their Vampire token on the board to the resting side, discard all cards from the Playing Area to discard pile (except for Permanent cards), and activate any End of Turn effects from certain cards played. Finally, draw three cards from their personal deck to prepare for their next turn. When ALL players have finished their turns, they will move the mooneeple one space to the right to keep track of what turn number it is, flip all Vampire tokens to the ready side, move all unHunted cards one column to the right on the Hunt Track, and draw three new cards to be added to the 3-value column of the Hunt Track. The next turn may now be played by the player furthest from the Castle.

Play continues in this fashion until the end of the 15th turn. All Vampires who have returned to the castle are safe, and all who have not are now ashes (in Elder mode – we don’t play like babies). Safe players will now count up their points from their cards and any completed missions (including the two public missions from setup). The Vampire with the most VP wins!

Components. This game is a butt-ton of cards and mission tokens. The cards are all great, the cardboard and wooden bits are all great as well. The art style is INCREDIBLE and right up my alley – not gory and gross. I only have one real complaint about the components in this one, and I actually have a good reason for it as well. The board is glossy. WHYYYYYYY? The cards aren’t glossy. Heck the rulebook isn’t glossy either! But the board, where pieces will be moved and slid are constantly being gloss-checked by the board. Just make it matte, man! That would make for a darn near perfect set of components. It’s a small issue, but an issue for me nonetheless.

That said, I am supremely impressed by this game. It’s a race game shrouded in deck building, contract fulfillment, hand management, open drafting, and set collection. I stress this because every time a new player comes to the table to play this, they forget that the main objective is to get out, have some fun in the town, THEN GET BACK BEFORE THE END OF THE 15th TURN! If you spend 10 turns getting to the Labyrinth because you want a`Rose card, you’re gonna have to book it so hard back. The Rose cards – not entirely worth it, in my opinion. Yeah they give you five points immediately, and some will give you one or two points every turn, but the amount of effort it takes to trek all the way there and all the way back may not be the most efficient use of time.

Hunting humans has never been more fun! I so love that the title of the game is The Hunger, when you really don’t eat/drink all that often. Yes, you “hunt” the humans, and I guess that means that you feed on them when you recruit them, but there is far less consumption than I was initially anticipating, and that’s a great thing. I feel in a few years I may be able to play this with one of my children because it’s not visceral and gratuitous. Yes, you can “digest” humans, but they never fully leave, they just don’t clog up your hand anymore. 10 points to Transylvania!

I am currently going through a major culling of my game collection. It has been incredibly difficult. Which games do I keep, which do I ship off? Well I will tell you now that The Hunger will never be leaving my collection. The theme, art, mechanics, and stress are all at peak levels for me and what I need in my collection. With more plays I can see this ascending the ranks, but right now it is not within my Top 10 Games of All Time. Yet, anyway. Purple Phoenix Games does award The Hunger with its prestigious Golden Feather Award for earning a perfect score from us. Well deserved! I only fear one thing – I know I have to sleeve these cards, but I don’t have an extra million sleeves. Guess I’ll sleeve it in chunks. Pick up a copy ASAP and play it for yourself! Stock seems to be okay as of today’s date. Now to get me a copy of that expansion…