I was fairly keen to try out this new title from Dancing Egg Plant games who, under their previous guise (Diet Evil Games) had produced the fun and chaotic Nobody But Us Chickens. The fact the game was designed by Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum also helped this get to the table pretty easily.
The idea of the game is about making yourself popular at work, both with the boss and your co-workers. On each turn a card is auctioned off, rewarding the successful bidder with Brownie Points or Kudos. However, paired with this beneficial card will be a Suspicion card - win one and you get the other. Also, you bid with Boss or Co-Worker Favour cards and the winning bid of favours gets stored up for the end of the game. Once all the cards have been auctioned off, all the Brownie Points you have collected count as VPs. In addition, if you have the fewest Boss Favours and/or Co-Worker Favours, you are rewarded with bonus VPs according to the number of Kudos points you have collected. However, if you have the most Favours in each or both type, you deduct the number of Suspicion points you have accumulated.
This was an interesting exercise in balancing the bids you were making with what others had already bid. You definitely don't want your Suspicion Cards counting against you, as John will be able to testify. He managed to accumulate 23 Brownie Points (more than any of the other players) but had the most Boss Favours and the most Co-Worker Favours, losing him 30 points and leaving him with a net minus 7 points. Nige managed to misjudge the number of Favours I had collected and allowed me to gain 14 Kudos points from the Boss. This enabled me to tie for the win with Mark K, much to the distress of Nige. I quite liked the game but it was a bit dry and this was reflected in the relatively mediocre ratings.
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