A Cure for What Ails You Game Review (prepublished version)

Please Note: This review of the demo/prototype game might change slightly based on the success of the Kickstarter campaign. The game is being reviewed on the components and the rules provided with the understanding that “what you see is not what you might get” when the game is published. If you like what you read and want to learn more, we encourage you to visit the game’s web page or the Kickstarter campaign.

The Basics:

• For ages 14 and up
• For 2 to 4 players
• Variable Game Play Length

Geek Skills:

• Active Listening & Communication
• Counting & Math
• Logical & Critical Decision Making
• Reading
• Pattern/Color Matching
• Strategy & Tactics
• Risk vs. Reward
• Cooperative & Team Play
• Hand/Resource Management

Learning Curve:

• Child – Hard
• Adult – Moderate

Theme & Narrative:

• Practice 1800s medicine using questionable means to save as many people as possible from an untimely death

Endorsements:

• Child Geek mixed!
• Parent Geek approved!
• Gamer Geek approved!

Overview

Medicine in the 1800s was a loosely defined and highly rudimentary practice of dangerous chemical components, ignorance of the human body, and a lot of guesswork. This was when medical professionals were still trying to figure out how best to serve, and charlatans easily duped the sick with promises of quick cures and miracles. It’s here, at this time, that the players find themselves setting up shop in New Orleans, Louisiana. The population is extensive, and there are graveyards right outside the backdoor. There are plenty of opportunities to practice medicine and the quick con. Just ensure your questionable approach to healing doesn’t put too many patients six feet under.

A Cure for What Ails  You, designed by Jerry Moncrief and to be published by Risible Games, will reportedly be comprised of 111 Patient cards, 120 Ingredient cards, 45 Severity tokens, 50 Administration cards, four Purge tokens, one standard 20-sided die, five re-roll tokens, one Progression tile,  four Role Action cards (for reference), four Role guides (for even deeper reference), four Role boards, a relatively large number of tokens that represent the role’s different ability, and three different types of Reward currency (Money, Clout, and Faith). As this is a review of a prepublished game, I cannot comment on the game’s component quality. I can confidently say that the game’s demo version was exceptionally well crafted and sturdy, with excellent artwork throughout. Indeed, it felt almost like a fully published game.

Setting Up Your Medical Practices

To set up the game, complete the following steps.

First, have each player select one of the four roles available. This can be done by randomly selecting one of the four Role cards or allowing players to learn more about how each role uses their unique abilities. The Role guides are handy as they provide deeper details and fun examples of how each role interacts with the game and the player’s opponents.

It’s noted that A Cure for What Ails You advertises itself as asymmetrical, meaning that no one role or unique ability is duplicated. This is, game-play-wise, true. However, none of the four roles we played were ever found to be deficient or overpowering. Different approaches, all unique and highly thematic, with the same goal: healing the sick as fast as possible.

Who are these practitioners of medicine?

• The Charlatan allows players to take significant risks that can pay off, including making items with questionable medical properties that their opponents can purchase.
• The Hoodoo Root Doctor straddles the natural world of medicine and superstition. They can create ingredients from almost anything and access conjuration through their Mojo Bag.
• The Pharmacist is the chemist and can mix and max ingredients to fine-tune medicines to meet their patient’s needs as well as keep them alive longer than they would typically through drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, and morphine.
• The Voodoo Mambo is a faith healer who can tap into the world of the supernatural, augmenting the medicines found in this world through belief and ceremony to the Rainbow Serpent.

Once each player has selected their role, provide them with their Role board, tokens, Rule guide, and a Purge, Re-Roll, and starting reward tokens. Have each player organize their “Role area,” which is a fancy way of saying their “playing space.” Which, I should add, you’ll need a good deal of. A Cure for What Ails  You requires a slightly larger than standard table space to accompany all of the cards, tokens, and boards. In other words, you won’t be playing this game on a foldout card table unless said foldout is comically large.

Second, take the Ingredient and Administration cards, shuffle, and deal them out. All players start with a random number of each card, and then they can draw a few more based on what they see and think they need. Both sets of cards will have a draw deck and—based on the players—a number of both types drawn and placed in a row, visible and available to any player who wants to pick them up.

The Ingredient cards represent different herbs, powders, metals, and other materials that can relieve a patient’s infliction. Each Ingredient card represents two components, but only one can be used when addressing a medical need. The vital information to remember is the type of substance (the name of the ingredient), color, and root family.

The Administration cards are not as complicated and represent the carrier in which the medicines are delivered. These include, but are not limited to, powders, wax, and injections.

Third, build out the Patient deck. This is done by determining the game’s difficulty (basic, intermediate, or advanced), organizing the Patient cards into their respective Wave values (four in total), and then stacking them per their Wave order value. Players pick their first Patients from Wave One to cure or accidentally kill.

That’s it for game setup, although the rule book provides much more helpful detail. Determine who will be the first player and start healing!

Practicing Medicine

A Cure for What Ails You is played in Cycles, Rounds, and Turns, with no limit to the number of Cycles in a single game, but the Rounds and Turns are determined by the number of players. A single Cycle will include four Rounds. A single Round consists of each player taking a turn four times. A helpful Progression dial is available to assist in keeping track.

On a player’s turn, they can select one action but perform it as often as possible. The available actions are summarized here:

• Card Actions
  • You can purchase an Ingredient or Administration card by paying one Reward token (Money, Clout, or Faith) or purchasing something from the Charlatan.
  • Exchange Administration and Ingredient cards by discarding two of any card to collect one other card (there is no hand size limit in the game)
  • Purge the visible cards to draw new ones for all players to see
• Patient Actions
  • Triage one of the face-up (and still living) Patients from the Community Row (where all Patients start) and welcome them into the player’s Waiting Room. Based on the difficulty of the gameplay, the number of Patients in a player’s waiting room is limited.
  • Cure a Patient in the player’s waiting room by collecting all the necessary ingredients and then rolling a die to see if the result heals or hurts.
  • Perform a Dark Act (unique per role) that allows the player to further their role’s medical knowledge by working on the recently dead.
• Role-Specific Actions
  • Use an ability noted on the player’s Role board (all of which is heavily dependent on what the role is)
  • Craft unique items based on the player’s Role
  • Subtitute unique items based on the player’s Role

After the player takes their turn, the next player takes their turn. Once all the players have taken a single turn, the Progression dial is moved to the next highest value to signify the next round. After four rounds, the cycle is complete, and the cards are refreshed. Patients not yet cured get worse (by taking a Severity token), and players get additional Resource cards. The Progression dial is then passed to the next player in the turn order sequence, who becomes the first player in the new cycle.

Cures and Cadavers

When a player has collected all the Resources – or substituted as much as possible – they can attempt to cure a Patient in their Waiting Room. Emphasis here on “attempt.” The player takes the 2o-sided die, rolls it, and hopes for the best. Any number value above 11 will cure the Patient; anything less will either cause them to get worse or flat-out kill them. Players can do things during the game to improve the chances of their Patients living through the day, but medicine back in the 1800s wasn’t known for its accuracy. This is especially true when being practiced by individuals who have highly questionable medical backgrounds. Still, if they cure the Patient, they collect points and valuable rewards at the end of the game. Specifically financial gain, respect in the community, and a growing level of trust in their ability to heal.

The alternative is the living become the diseased. This is possible if any Patient collects their fourth Severity token or the player rolls very poorly and kills their Patient. Dead Patients are sent to the player’s Morgue and later the Graveyard, but they are still helpful.

The Dark Side of Medical Science

Death in A Cure for What Ails  You is the unfortunate end for the sick Patient but a golden opportunity for the player. Each player’s role has a unique Dark Act ability that allows them to use the corpses in their basement. Yes, it will defile the body, but this is for science! It’s questionable science, but we didn’t get where we are now with all of our medical knowledge because we were squeamish. The recently dead can unlock potent abilities that can be leveraged to heal others quickly. The downside here – other than having to use a dead body – is that all the living Patients will get sicker because the players are working on the decomposed rather than the unhealthy people in their waiting room.

Closing Time

A Cure for What Ails You can end one of two ways.

If the number of Patients who are dead is greater than twice the number of players, the game ends immediately, and everyone loses. For example, the game ends if you play with three so-called doctors and the total number of dead clientele is seven or higher.

Not a great ending.

If the players can cure any Patient in the Fourth Wave, the game concludes at the end of the current Cycle. Players then count their points. Every player will earn five victory points per Patient they cured. Based on the player’s role, points are scored differently for Rewards. For example, the Voodoo Mambo Role scores three victory points per Faith Reward token, and the Pharmacist scores three victory points per Clout Reward token.

After all the players calculate their final score, the player with the most victory points wins the game.

Game Variants

As mentioned, A Cure for What Ails You has player-selected difficulty levels. Increasing the difficulty adds more Patients to cure or kill, and the game is more prolonged. Losing the game as a whole is a certainty if everyone does not manage the flow of Patients to some degree. To offset the difficulty, additional Role-specific abilities become available. Of course, nothing stops players from taking advantage of all the Role-specific abilities if they so choose, regardless of the difficulty setting.

To learn more about A Cure for What Ails  You, visit the game’s website or the Kickstarter campaign.

Final Word

The suggested minimum age value for this game is accurate. It’s not because A Cure for What Ails You is game-play-wise challenging. Indeed, the Child Geeks found the game very straightforward regarding its approach. However, it’s how one approaches it that can be difficult. With many options available to the players during their turn, it was easy for our younger and less experienced players to second guess themselves too often and take much longer than expected to decide. The older Child Geeks also experienced this but to a lesser degree. One Child Geek said, “I like the game and found it challenging. I couldn’t cure my people fast enough, which was frustrating, but at least I made sure we didn’t all lose, either.” Another Child Geek said, “Complicate but fun. I liked the dark humor and all the different abilities.” When, at last, the Child Geeks could take a moment to rest after a long day of healing and digging up graves, they took a vote. The results clearly showed that the joy of the game quickly evaporated for the younger and less experienced players. For the older Child Geeks, it was a good time. The result was a mixed body bag at best.

The Parent Geeks did not have the same struggles as the Child Geeks but did find the game to be no less challenging. For the Parent Geeks, a group that plays casual games within an hour or so, the biggest complaint we heard was the time it took to finish a game. One Parent Geek said, “I liked the game and love the concept. Finishing can take longer than expected, but I was never bored or feeling left out. A challenging game I would play again as soon as I have the time.” Another Parent Geek said, “Loved it: lots to do and many ways to win. You could spend half the game building up your Role abilities and the other half attempting to cure others. You need to take risks, bend the practices of lawful medicine, and hope for the best.  The game had me laughing, and I loved it.” When the last patient was cleared, the Parent Geeks took a vote, and all agreed that the game was the right prescription for fun.

The Gamer Geeks were overjoyed, finding the game’s depth of strategy and tactical variability to be not only enjoyable but downright morbidly entertaining. One Gamer Geek said, “You can see the game unfolding before you, react to how your opponents are doing their business, and attempt to steal patients before they get snapped up. But even then, playing as aggressively as you like, you still have to watch out for the endgame for all. You cannot be cutthroat, but you should be aggressive. This was a great game.” Another Gamer Geek said, “Pure fun. I was engrossed from the start, confused as hell, and happy as a maniac when the game ended. Did I win? No. Did I care? No. I want to play again.” When the graveyard was full of mistakes and lost causes, the Gamer Geeks took a vote, and all agreed that A Cure for What Ails You was worth playing repeatedly.

Oh, boy, did I enjoy the game. The dark humor plays like a background song you cannot get enough of but don’t pay much attention to. The game mechanics are easy to grasp and took me a long time to “really understand,” giving me plenty of opportunities to explore and experiment. The different Roles are unique in their approach and gameplay, providing replayability and the chance to practice various strategies and tactics. In short, I was hooked and remained hooked from the first game to the last.

Of great importance to many of you, dear readers, is the answer to the question, “Was the game fun?” Yes, it was. This was especially true for my wife, a full-time Gamer Geek, Mother, and professional medical doctor. Her favorite role was as a Pharmacist, and she adored how accurate many medical terms and ingredients were. In her own words, “These folks did their research.” One aspect of the game she immensely enjoyed was the intelligence behind the game’s design. Everything available to her and observed by others was actionable, helpful, and powerful. All the players needed to figure out was the proper order and execution of their medical approach. The light in her eyes when she “got the game” was brilliant and distracting. Mostly because I knew then I was going to lose. She’s that good, and I’m just that bad.

Some areas of the game would benefit from a bit of house cleaning. For example, some of the rules could be tightened up. A few rule explanations opened the door for interpretation too wide, but the gameplay was never hindered. The cards, save the Patient cards, would benefit from being the same size to make it easier to hold in the player’s hand. The Patient cards, especially after Wave One, get busy with all the information they contain. This caused many players to take second and sometimes third looks to ensure they captured all the details. Finally, the tokens, like the cards, would benefit if they were all the same size for easier use on the Role boards.

A Cure for What Ails You was a great time at our family gaming table. Lots of laughs, grumbles, “Oh, no’s!” when the dice didn’t cooperate, and “Hell, yeah’s” when things worked out. There were always “yuck” and “gross” comments when a player dug in the morgue or graveyard, but everyone was happy to do the dirty work to get the great benefits. The game entertained and engaged equally, and enjoyment was the result. Play A Cure for What Ails You the first moment you can. To quote my wife, “It’s what the doctor ordered.”

This game was given to Father Geek as a review copy. Father Geek was not paid, bribed, wined, dined, or threatened in vain hopes of influencing this review. Such is the statuesque and legendary integrity of Father Geek.