Ahhh, the Ardeche, famous for its majestic rivers, wonderful scenery and murderous innkeepers. In the Bloody Inn, you will take the role of one of the deranged proprietor, try to entice as many travellers to your inn, robe them, kill them and dispose of the body before any constables might catch you.
This card game features tableau/engine builder mechanics, in which you will have to kill guests from your inn, bury them in order to pick pocket their money and eventually come on top by being the wealthiest murderous innkeeper. Still haven’t closed the web browser? Good, we are going to get along just fine.
Game setup and flow
The fast setup makes this a treat of a game to bring to the table. All you have to do is give each player 2 peasant cards, they will be you partners in crime, place the board in the middle of the game and then make sure each player receives 10 francs. You never know when you might need to bribe somebody to help you with an unconventional spring cleaning chore. After that just create a deck of travellers based on number of players and duration of the game you would like (short or long game), give everyone a key token in their color and you are ready to begin. Oh, one last thing, each player takes a player AID card which acts as a barn, a perfect place to bury a body.
During a turn, the first player will welcome guests in the rooms of the Bloody Inn. In turns each player will then be able to do one of the following: bribe a guest and make him part of your merry bunch of murderers, build an annex, kill a quest so you pocket their belongings – they will not need them where they are going after all and finally you can bury a corpse. After each player takes two actions the end of the round triggers when there is a police investigation – if any police man survives the night, they will look for unburied bodies. The surviving travellers leave and then the accomplices need to get paid- every accomplish has bills to pay after all.
The Good
The artwork stands out for this game as a nice mix between Egon Schiele and Picasso styles. If you are a fan of either of these painters, I am certain you will enjoy the way this game looks. Albeit the design is a bit dark and morbid but I think it does the theme justice.
At its core, The Bloody Inn is a card game which mixes engine building, hand management and tableau building mechanics. Do I need to say more in terms of replayability? Having 70 travellers’ cards spread out over 28 type of cards means you will not go through the list of all possible engine out there.
Unlike other tableau builders, cough …. cough … I am looking at you Ark Nova, the play time is short, not quite a filler but still short enough. The box promises a 45 to 60 minutes play session and I am happy to say this time around the box is not lying. The Bloody Inn is perfect for those instances where you finished playing something heavy and although you are tired you are not ready to go home (just one more game mom!!!!).
The Bad
I would be remiss however if I wouldn’t mention some of the games weaker attributes, so these aren’t faulty features per se rather characteristics some might not enjoy.
Hand management and tableau building are central to the game—so of course, player interaction is kept to a polite minimum. We wouldn’t want player to bother each other during the game now, would we? Snarky comment aside the only player interaction in the game is when you send a guest to an opponent’s room just to murder him, one turn later. So if you are looking for something where players get in each other’s face, this might not be the game for you.
Conclusion
With a unique and fun theme (I know don’t judge me), short time frame and interesting artwork The Bloody Inn is a quick pick up for anybody that would enjoy a light engine/tableau builder.
