Never before have I cursed my adult-sized sausage fingers. When my lad and I played Tear-able Quest the other night, that is all I did. He had a significant advantage, being smaller and more nimble in the finger department. That being said, I used my other skills to level the playing field and tear my way to the odd victory or two..
Tear-able Quest is a very unique game; it has you tearing up sheets of icons to satisfy various quests and slay monsters or bosses. It is a lot more difficult than you first think and a lot of fun if you have smaller family members. On top of this, it's all against the clock, which, let’s be honest, makes nothing easier.
The Setup
The very small footprint of Tear-able Quest can be set up in under a minute. Dish out a sheet to each player, set up the monster deck and pick a boss. If you are feeling saucy, you can also shuffle and prepare the bonus deck but more on that later. Tear-able Quest is set up in no time at all and is very rules-light, which is good for titles like this.
Icons, Monsters and Quests
Your sheet is chock-full of icons. These include weapon icons, monster icons and even boss icons. You must use these icons to fulfil various criteria on the monster and boss cards. How you get these icons though, and the few little wrinkles attached to the game's main mechanism make it, at times, quite tricky. It's a very quirky, unique title, and I am all for it.
You must tear out these icons, in one go, without ruining the icons or having any other icons present on the piece. Plus, you know for a fact the icons you need are nowhere near each other. Each monster and boss card has conditions with points gained, the harder the icon set, the more points you will get. For example, the slime monster card, you will get one point for a book weapon icon and a slime icon but if you want to push the boat out, you can go all the way up to five points for a book and three slime icons. It all depends how much time you want to spend and how easy you can link these icons together.
Do you for for bigger points with an increased amount of chances of ruining your work? Or do you go safe and get little, yet safe, missions completed? With each round being two minutes in length, managing what to tear and how ‘big’ you want to go is the key to winning or losing. As time ticks down, it makes your tears harder and harder as you can see the time disappearing and you are trying your hardest not to ruin what you have so far.
Treasure and Curses
On the back of your sheet there are other icons to be aware of. There are treasure chests, coins and curses. Treasure chests and coins, if fully intact on the back of your submitted tears, will earn you two or one point bonuses, respectively. Curses on the other hand will take two points off you, even if they are partially present. Every time I had a great piece ripped off my sheet, you could guarantee it would have a sliver of a curse on the back. AAAARRGGGGHHHH!
This system, not only encourages you to make bigger, riskier tears but also adds danger and has you constantly flipping the sheet while tearing or holding it up to the light to plan your route. It adds just enough spice to keep you guessing and trying to eek out a few extra precious points.
Bonus Cards
If all that shenanigans is not enough for you, you can throw in the deck of bosus objectives. These add a further objective to try and aim for, or they slightly tweak the rules of the game. While I think this may be a bit too much for your first game or so, or even too much for younger kids they do add stuff for older players and they can just be ignored if you so wish. You can add them if there's a nice mix of ages and experience in the game group, without worrying too much.
The End
After three two-minute rounds you tot up the scores and see who wins. As the rounds go on, things get more and more difficult, as you have less of a sheet to tear and an ever decreasing amount of icons to grab. With different monsters and objectives each round, the game has a real ramping up feeling in both tension and difficulty. I even found it difficult in the first round to be fair, I never realized how amuzingly bad I was at tearing out small objects.
The Components
Tear-able Quest is a very small, cheap box. It has very few components but what is in there is very well made and designed. The rules are brief but well written and the graphic design is clear. I adore the fact it all looks like it was drawn by a school-child, it has a whimsical, cartoony presentation that really fits the style and mechanics beautifully.
Final Thoughts
Tear-able Quest looks and plays like a kids game. That, however, does not make it a bad game. I had such a fun time ripping up paper with my kids. There is great skill-leveller between kids and adults in this game as adults have bigger fingers. Tearing out small icons is harder with bigger hands and this really helps kids keep up.
The art fits the mechanics and theme, the components are good for the price and it’s lovely small box. Tear-able Quest may not be anywhere near my favourite games but it is so unique, so different and everyone, I mean everyone, can get involved.
Right, I am off to tear out some skeletons, really slowly while shouting at my man-hands for being uncontrollable. See you next time!
