These souls are ripe for the taking, but will you be able to collect more than all the other reapers? Reap to move around the soul spaces, sweep the ones that you don’t want off of the grid to mess up the other reapers, and keep as many souls as you can in order to be the best! Let’s check it out.

What Is It?

Simultaneous Action Planning – Players will start each round with a Reaper card behind their screen and 3 skull tokens. They’ll use their tokens to choose how many times they want to do the reap, sweep, and/or keep actions. Reap lets them move their reaper meeple to an adjacent soul in the grid (one spot per skull). Sweep lets them discard an adjacent soul and replace it with one from the deck (one replace per skull).

Bidding – The keep action is a bid to collect all of the connected souls of the same color as the one a player’s reaper meeple is on. Their bid combines with any soul bonuses on their reaper card, and it is possible to collect souls with only a bonus and not spending skulls on the keep action itself.

Grid Movement – The shared board is a 3×3 grid of soul cards that players will move around. The can only move diagonally if that symbol is on their reaper card.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 4 Players – Works well at any count. At 2 the grid is more open and it can be easier to avoid each other and bid on different colored souls. At 3-4 it gets much tighter and you may have to focus more on outbidding others and not relaying solely on your keep bonuses
  • Ages 10 & Up / Light Gamers – Small ruleset, quick turns, good for those new to gaming, or who just want a game that’s easy to get to the table and dive right into
  • Players who like action planning and don’t mind not knowing what opponents might do, and a bit of luck

PROS

  • Aesthetics – I absolutely adore this art! I think the watercolor souls are great, and the unique reapers are so cute!
  • Components – Overall nice quality; I think the little reapers and skulls are super cute
  • Rules – Well-written, easy to learn from
  • Set-up is quick and easy
  • Variability – 70 reaper cards, but you only see a few each game, so you’re bound to see new ones every time!
  • Players quickly and smoothly; doesn’t overstay its’ welcome
  • I like that you can potentially “keep” soul cards with only bonuses, so it really opens up your options for allocating your skulls each round, if you think your bonus is a good enough bid

CONS

  • Luck – Players get a random reaper each round, so you might get one with 2 “points” of bonuses while someone else gets one with 4
    • Also, when sweeping to replace nearby souls, you might draw 2 of the same soul and not have choice, or just draw something that didn’t help you
  • Players choose actions simultaneously behind their screens, so they won’t know what everyone is doing until it is all planned. It can sometimes feel like you lack control if you try to plan for something, but then others undo what you’ve done, or just mess up your plans, so it’s important to be aware of that so you don’t get too frustrated

Final Thoughts

I was immediately drawn to the game based on the look, obviously, and will continue to go on about how much I like it forever. I am a spooky gal all year round and love anything with grim reapers, but especially if they’re this adorable. If you like the art, it’s worth playing just to get a good look at all the unique reaper cards, if you ask me.

Beyond that, the game is super simple and light, and makes for a nice filler/starter game on game night. There’s light strategy in choosing your actions and trying to plan around what you think your opponents might go for, but even the action planning doesn’t take long.

Sometimes you may feel like you lack control at times, or that you’ve fallen victim to some bad luck, but since the game is so light and quick, it doesn’t ever feel that bad, and it’s super easy to reset and play another game. If you dig the theming, and you’re looking for a cute, light experience, check it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Jason Anarchy
Artists – Kelly Bastow, Gaelen Adric Izatt Galloway III
Publisher – Jason Anarchy Games
MSRP – $34.99
Website

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

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