Seven Dragons (Looney Labs Games)
Seven Dragons: a Review in Seven Parts:
Artist Larry Elmore posing with an uncut sheet of Seven Dragons cards
Introduction: For the last couple days I have been playing the Seven Dragons card game from Looney Labs. The first thing when the game is dealt out for long time D&D players is that you have a feeling that you’ve come home. The artwork of the game is done by Larry Elmore a well-known artist for such brands like D&D, and other fantasy games like Defender of the Realm a game form Eagle games (A game I will be playing a lot in the coming weeks). Seven Dragons is a redoing of the game Aquarius from Looney Labs that came out in 1998 with some minor rule changes.
Play: The Goal of the game is to get a continuous link of seven touching pictures of one of the main five colored dragons.You are first dealt a goal card that secretly tells you what your color is for the game. Play consists of being dealt three cards. At the start of your turn you draw and play one card a round.
Dragon cards: The deck consists of seven colorful drawings of seven different dragons. Five that are goal colors like the: Red Dragon, Black Dragon, Blue Dragon, Green Dragon, and the Black Dragon. These Dragons are grouped in pictures on the cards in: One, two, three and four panels. You get to draw an extra card for each different color match beyond the first one. Then there are two other Dragons. The Sliver Dragon is the start card that starts off the game as a wild card in the middle of the table, and can be any color and quickly changes as players will dictate its color based on what action cards that are played. The final Dragon is the Rainbow Dragon which is the only one true wild card and there is only one of these in the deck.
Action Cards: There are five action cards and they consist of: Trade Hands, Trade goals, Move a Card, Rotate Goals, and Zap a card. These are the cards that generate strategy in the game as you can change different elements in the game toward your favor.
The Good: The Art is engaging, and dragons are certainly a theme that will capture the imagination of a lot of people. The game is versatile enough to please small kids, causal gamers, and even the heavy strategy gamer that likes a little challenge. It is compact and quick to teach, and players quickly got into the logic of how this domino like game plays and reveled in quickly understanding the game enough to develop some good strategy. There were some surprises at the end of some games as people do manage to sneak out a win if their opponents are not paying close attention.
The Bad: There isn’t much bad here. It is a simple game that would be pleasing from an early age to full grown gamers. One minor flaw is when your hand gets filled with too many actions cards and you’re already winning the game, and you feel like you can’t do anything as not upset your inevitable win. You end up playing action cards that change the Silver Dragons color, but usually this is upsetting because you’re altering the path of the current game.
Conclusion: If you’re looking for a fun family game or entry way game for non-gamers this is a good buy. I would say this game wouldn’t hold well for the main event for your hardcore strategy gamers, but it could make a darn satisfying filler for the evening! I give this game a 7/10.
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