Jabba’s Palace is a simple game to pick up, easy to put down once it’s finished, and a guaranteed repeat when you just want to have fun with a new group of gamers. While the simplicity might turn off some hardcore card gamers, it’s a game built for everyone.
Having traversed the Lord of the Rings world last week, we received the Jabba’s Palace card game for review. The card game took our expected complication of strategic card games and went the opposite direction. It’s a quick-hitter gaming experience that is built to work best for larger groups.
Let’s dig right into it.
Jabba’s joint is hopping
Jabba’s Palace is where simplicity meets replayability. My wife and I started learning this game at 11:00 pm last night. We started playing the game at 11:10 pm. We had a firm understanding of all the ins/outs by 11:15 pm. That’s as simple as can be when it comes to physical card games that you can pick up and go with, and we certainly went with it.
Jabba’s Palace starts out with a 19-card deck, where you place a card face down, three cards face up, and draw a single card at the get-go. The single card is the actual card you play, though it comes in a variety of flavors. There is also a single Agenda card that lies separately and pretty much sets the rules for victory in the game. There are multiple Agenda cards and they’re just narrative paths that give you some variety when you replay the game. For example, the game we played had an Agenda card that simply laid out an agenda of having the most tokens by the end of the round. If you gain the most tokens, you win the game. Ah, there are tokens you get too, which are awarded to you for successfully winning a round of the game. If you’re the last person standing at the end of the round, you get a token. Not terrible, right? Gosh, super easy. The Agenda cards are just that simple to understand and get into.
Once the agenda is set, the game gets going. Cards are handed out to players and the first turn is taken. The first player must draw a card, decide between the two cards in their hand, lay one down, and then use it. The action on the card could be something that affects the other players or just outright boots them from the round. The goal of the round is to eliminate other players and be the last one standing. That makes sense given the context of Jabba’s Palace in the Star Wars world. It’s a very corrupt place.
As for the cards, they come in a variety of characters, which are categorized as either Rebels or residents of Jabba’s Palace. While the categorized groups are simple labels for future strategies the players can play, such as putting down a card that says whoever has a Jabba’s Palace card below the number 4 (each card has a number attached to it) is automatically out of the round, the action on each card is simple and direct in its execution as it is related to the character. For example, the Boba Fett card will hunt down and expose another player’s card because that’s what bounty hunters do! If you use Fett, you can take a player’s card and essentially make it unplayable. I love that about the game, and it makes it a bit more vicious.
The variety of the cards offered is limited, but the cards themselves are interesting strategic pieces that make the game far more thoughtful in its execution and delivery.
Less cards, more speed
Going back to the comment about 19 cards in the deck, the reason for the low number of cards is to keep the game quick. While it took my wife and me about 30 minutes to play through an entire game, we figured out that the more people you have, the quicker the rounds would go, and the thicker the strategy would become (and probably the meaner a player’s intentions would be). The cards are clear and pointed in what they do, so putting together a logical flowchart in one’s head to take down fellow players would be easy-peasy and cognitively engaging with more people.
As for different ways to win the game, which play into the decision-making process of when and how to use cards, the winning player is based on the largest number of tokens. As mentioned previously, you get tokens for each round you win. Depending on how many players are playing, a certain winning number of tokens win the game. For example, when two players are gaming, whoever gets six tokens first is the overall winner. That token amount gets lower and lower when more players are added.
Taking all the above into consideration, you can have multiple winners if there is a tie. Generally, I would only want one winner, but this is a positive spin where people are just having fun and not taking this game incredibly seriously. This is what Jabba’s Palace is about, where everything is quick, concise, and ready to play again once the game is concluded. I like that a lot about this game and it works when it comes to revisiting it repeatedly. It definitely makes it far less mean too.
Let’s get this wrapped!
Conclusion
Jabba’s Palace is a simple game to pick up, easy to put down once it’s finished, and a guaranteed repeat when you just want to have fun with a new group of gamers. While the simplicity might turn off some hardcore card gamers, it’s a game built for everyone.
