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Kill the Overlord Review

by on August 3, 2014
 

Kill the Overlord is a fast paced card game that borrows heavily from the likes of Hot Potato and Pass the Bomb, but one that adds enough fresh ideas to make things interesting.

The premise is that an Overlord is attempting to put down any plots against them by sending out their executioner. Luckily, said executioner can be easily distracted, starting off a chain where you pass on the death sentence until it takes out the Overlord themself, or all of their subjects.

In game terms this means that each player starts off as one of eight roles – from a servant, up to a captain and through to the Overlord themself. Depending on how many players are involved – between four and eight – the choice of roles may change, with the Overlord the only one required for every game. Each role has a rank, one to eight, and a special ability.

Plot cards are then dealt out to each player, two at first with a hand limit of four. The players then receive some coins, depending on the role they have taken, and the setup is complete.

A round starts off with the Overlord passing the execution order to another player. Said player then uses a plot card, resolving the effect it has on the game. For example, the “Capitalize” card passes on the execution order to the player two seats to the left or right of your position, then allows you to take two gold from the treasury. Then the next player plays a card and the game moves on. If you’re unable to play a card then you’re executed, and are given the lowest execution token, with the round continuing until the Overlord has been executed or is the only one left standing. The latter scenario ends the game, with the current Overlord the winner, but if they are executed things are shaken up for the next round.

Firstly, the roles are swapped by a simple but remarkably clever system. The remaining “active players” – those who haven’t been executed – take turns drawing new roles from the executed pile, depending on their current card’s rank, before adding their old role into the pile. This is followed by the executed players drawing in order of lowest execution token. It sounds confusing, but it makes total sense, with the Overlord of one round dropping to the lowest position in the next, and other players swapping fairly evenly.

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It’s important to swap these roles each round as each character generates a different amount of gold, and the other win condition is holding the Overlord card and 40 gold at the same time.

Different types of card liven things up a little bit. The majority are shield cards, and play out as the example above, but there are also book cards. These can only be used if you have no shield cards left, and still cause you to be executed, but they can take out an opponent with you, or cause a random swap of role cards for the next round.

There are also “Retaliate” cards, which you can leap in with to block another players shield card, forcing them to use another, and a “Plead Guilty” card that takes the punishment upon yourself to spare another player.

The crux of Kill the Overlord is teamwork – at least in the early game. Taking out the Overlord is the aim of each round, as the role does hold the most power. But later in the game you’ll find yourself ganging up on whoever’s winning, pushing them out of a round early to prevent them becoming the Overlord for the next round. The cards themselves look great, with some awesome artwork on display, and each role card has two sides, a male and a female version. It’s purely aesthetic, but a nice touch nonetheless.

The inclusion of eight expansion cards is an equally nice surprise. A stretch goal for the original Kickstarter, they replace the eight basic roles rank-for-rank, and have different special abilities to bring to the game.

Downsides are few but persistent. Kill the Overlord is definitely better with more players rather than fewer, as all Hot Potato games are. The problem is that there are so many tokens to be exchanged during an average round that you can’t sit too far apart – you’ll be leaning over to pass coins and the Execution card itself so much it can become annoying.

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VERDICT: Overall, Kill the Overlord is a fun, quick-paced card game that’s well worth your time if you’ve got three friends to play with. It may be a little confusing at first, but you will have – as I did – that moment where it all clicks into place, and suddenly the surprising tactical depth that lurks within Kill the Overlord comes to the fore.