Art Rescue Team – we need your help! The White Hand Corporation is at it again, stealing valuable piece of art from all across the world. We need you to put a stop to it. Travel to all the locations they have been spotted and recover the stolen art so we can bring it back to where it belongs. Use your resources wisely and make sure you communicate effectively. We’re counting on you!

What Is It?

Cooperative – Players work together to accomplish their mission

Resource Management – Players share 3 types of resources (and can use hearts as wild resources, if they run out of something they need). They must effectively manage what they have to play mission cards, move around the board, modify dice rolls when fighting, and purchase ally dice to assist in fights

Limited Communication – When players are deciding what mission cards to play each round, they can not show each other their options, they can only show the back of the cards (clues), and try to communicate their needs to others

Set Collection – Players collect sets of clues on mission cards they play to put art pieces out on the board

Dice Rolling – Players roll dice to fight agents in order to remove them from the board so that they may collect art pieces

Scenario – There are 6 maps to choose from, each with slightly different rules to change up the game

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 6 Players – I like it best at 3 personally; I think that has the best balance for how involved I feel like I can be, plus it doesn’t overwhelm the board with agents from all the missions played at once
  • Ages 12 & Up / Light to Mid-Weight Gamers – Pretty streamlined rules, but definitely need to communicate and strategize as a time
  • Fans of cooperative games, resource management, and planning out moves/turns
  • Players who don’t mind the luck of dice rolls

Variants

SOLO – This let’s the player have more health, play 2 of 3 drawn mission cards, and have an ally piece just to bring along for fights (ally can’t fight alone) or to collect art. – This works well overall. Very slight adjustments to some rules, but nothing huge, so it’s very smooth. It feels a bit puzzley, which can be fun. I personally prefer the multiplayer because I enjoy bouncing strategy ideas off of each other.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art; very clean board layouts
  • Components – Nice quality; I like all the resources
  • Rules – Very clear/well-written; LOVE the tabbed rulebook
  • Variety – Love all the different maps and how the rules change the game on each one
  • Smooth game flow
  • Rounds are quick
  • I like that there are multiple ways to mitigate your dice rolls for fights
  • The resource management makes for a nice overall puzzle

CONS

  • The luck factor can be frustrating at time. A lot of bad card pulls and/or dice rolls can just make for a bad game
  • Theme – Didn’t really feel the theme shine through with the gameplay

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought it was an interesting game. I’ll admit, I thought the first map (Japan) was boring, but as I played through the rest of the maps with their various rule changes, I really liked what those added to the game.

You definitely have to be able to communicate effectively with your team about what you want/need for mission cards. You also have to be able to plan out movement/fights, and not let the board be overrun by agents.

If you enjoy cooperative games, and like card-play and resource management with good variability, this is definitely worth checking out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designers – Florian Sirieix, Benoit Turpin
Artist – Vincent Dutrait
Publisher – The Op Games
MSRP – $42.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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