SHUG Preview: A Chaotic Quest with a Unique Style

Embark on a chaotic and unusual quest to befriend monsters and find the elusive Shug! Or maybe just kill a king.

Currently on Kickstarter, SHUG is a board-game-meets-party game that plays in 30-90 minutes and is designed for 1-6 players.

Gameplay

In SHUG, players explore a whimsical fantasy kingdom by rolling dice to move across the board, collecting treasures, encountering monsters, and sometimes befriending them as companions. The goal is to either slay the mighty king or find the legendary Shug and bring it back to the tavern in the center of the board.

The board shows a fantasy kingdom divided into spaces. Players start the game on the village space. On a player's turn, he draws a treasure card (there is a hand limit of three cards). Some cards are items that you can equip, up to a total of three cards equipped at the same time, or played as actions or reactions to other cards.

After drawing a treasure card, the player rolls the two dice and may move spaces equal to their combined total. The player can move in any direction on a path space and can even go back over the same spaces on a turn. Once per turn, if he passes an inn, he can cancel out any remaining movement points and reroll the dice; or, if he rolls doubles, he may reroll after completing his movement. If a player passes a space marked with an X, he can draw a treasure card. There are tunnels on the board that let players travel between them. When passing a fire space, the player draws a chaos card. Chaos cards are either one-time effects or remain in play until a new one is drawn — these cards generally introduce new rules or change the circumstances in some unique way.

Whenever a player moves onto a space off the path, he loses any remaining movement points, draws a monster card, and must resolve it.  Every monster card has a strength number. If the player's attack value is equal to or higher than this number, he slays the monster and draws a certain number of treasure cards as indicated by the card. A player's attack value is determined by the strength of his equipment and companions. Companions are monsters that the player has befriended.

Each monster card lists an interactive action that the player must complete or a requirement he must meet to befriend the monster and turn it into his companion. Some monsters will also have special abilities, in addition to their attack value, that they will grant the player when acting as a companion. A player can have up to three companions at a time.

There are also rune tokens scattered around the board. These are kept face-down when placed. When a player reaches one of these tokens, he flips it over. As long as it's not the king, he gains the Legend card associated with that rune. These are powerful allies that help players on their quest. When the king is drawn, the rune token is flipped back to face-down, and the player moves instantly to the king's meeple, where he must battle it. The king has 100 health.

When, on his turn, a player moves to a square next to another player, he may choose to duel him. Also, a player may not pass through a space with another player, unless that player gives permission. In a duel, whoever has the highest attack power wins, and both players may play as many cards as they wish. The winner may choose one of the following options: to steal all legends, or companions, or items, or cards in hand from the loser. He may also choose to either swap squares with him, or to kill him.

If a player dies either from a duel, monster, or king, his player piece is returned to the village, loses any legends he has collected, and discards his hand of treasure cards. Additionally, the king kills all a player's companions as well.

Victory can come by defeating the king or delivering the Shug to the tavern — but the real fun is in the chaotic journey along the way.

Review

SHUG feels like a happy meeting point between a classic board game with some of the more frustrating features tweaked to be more enjoyable, a light party game, and a creative art style. It is a roll-and-move game, but since you can literally move onto nearly every space, you can always trigger a monster encounter on your turn. There are also additional fun spots to move towards, so the roll-and-move play doesn’t become frustrating or leave you feeling stuck.

The befriending mechanic really sets the tone for this game — it’s supposed to be fun, lighthearted, and not taken too seriously. Players might have to name 10 spices in 30 seconds to make a monster their friend, or, by chance, have to be wearing an outfit of the right color. This is quite fun, and we enjoyed this element of the game a lot.

As a party game/board game hybrid, bad luck can see you sent back to the start, with death sometimes occurring unexpectedly (after all, you have no idea what strength monster card you’re about to draw) but we didn’t find that this frustrated us too much. It was easy to regain strength and to move around the board.

There are some fun elements of player interaction that come to the forefront more at the higher player counts. With more players on the board, players are more often going to be blocking one another and have to ask for permission or choose to duel

Component quality is great. Even playing with a preview copy, we were very impressed by the look and feel of many of the components. The artwork is very unique, which definitely sets the tone of the game. It might be a little divisive for players, with some loving it, and some disliking it, as it’s very much its own style and is so different from the majority of games. The story of the game is also fun, and the game just feels quite unique.

There are some more adult cards and artwork in the game. Nothing that crosses even close into R-rated territory, but parents would probably want to review the game beforehand. Younger children would probably also find some of the artwork frightening.

SHUG is a fun blend of genres that results in a fun, light game with enjoyable twists of fate and its own unique look. Check it out on Kickstarter.

Pros: Fun player interaction, moving around the board is enjoyable, the befriending mechanic is really fun

Cons: Some of the artwork is a little more on the mature side

Disclosure: This is a paid preview of an unpublished prototype of this game, which is subject to change prior to publication.