Introduction
Unstable Unicorns, developed by Unstable Game, is a competitive multi-player card game in which players race to collect 6 or 7 unicorns total to win. While the game is often short to medium length, it is possible for games to take hours. The game’s target audience are younger players or young adults. It is a party game, though, there is less social interaction built into the game itself. Rather, it serves as a way to pass the time, while also being engaging.
In Unstable Unicorns, the very mechanism meant to keep players engaged, the ability for all players to maintain power symmetry even towards the end of the game, accomplishes the opposite, disengaging all players when it draws out the game and allows underdogs to prevent other players from making real progress. This results in making players who fit the achiever archetype unhappy with the lack of progress, while also failing to serve the joker archetype due to the density of dynamic game rules that require consistent attention to follow. In contrast, our game Mooney Ranch uses initial symmetry and a fixed gameplay time to allow asymmetry to grow while maintaining simplicity in the rules, satisfying both archetypes.
Analysis
Unlike games such as Uno, where the base game rules are simple and can be modded easily, cards in Unstable Unicorns have very specific abilities and benefits. These include some cards returning to hand when destroyed, can destroy other cards, can shuffle the deck, and more. These abilities are typically written on the card in order to improve gameplay. This keeps players engaged but makes it difficult to engage in a shallow manner with the game. It requires focus, and thus, takes significant attention and energy as the game continues.
Unstable Unicorns instead appeals to the collector player type, as the game allows you to stockpile unicorns with unique powers in your “stable”. Arguably, it tries to appeal to the achiever, as you continue to grow your stable. However, while the game has the appearance of growing asymmetry as players gain new abilities, the high probability that an individual player can block others from winning creating a surprising symmetry.
In the game of Unstable Unicorns I played, the game duration was quite long. Over time, parts of the game began to wear down. When the discard pile emptied after yet another shuffle, one player reflected, “this is awful”. Furthermore, the game complexity made the length unpleasant. One player later remarked “I swear the game is peak when you have people who know what they are doing” after a full round where many players spent 20-30 seconds considering their move.
The Unstable Unicorns game can appear unequal at times. About 30 minutes in, two players had 4 unicorns, one had 3 unicorns, one had 2 unicorns, two had 1 unicorn, and one had 0 unicorns. The power difference was noticeable, and yet, the downgrade cards made players with a high number of unicorns more equal to the other players. Since players could target others with downgrades, there was never someone very far in the lead. At one point, one player even said “I am trying to make the game grad on as long as possible”. The game allows losing players to prevent everyone else from winning. This, combined with the amount of attention required to play the game, means the achiever player type who would have been happy otherwise instead is unable to progress in a fulfilling manner.
This contributed to a game where both the time stretched and excitement waned. In contrast, Mooney Ranch has a fixed play time in that it ends once all cards are drawn and no cards can be put back. Furthermore, we also found from playtesting that it was intuitive, and players understood it within 5 minutes. Mooney Ranch also appeals to the Achiever and Collector player archetypes, as you collect cows and achieve a larger ranch. The Joker player is much more satisfied on Mooney Ranch than Unstable Unicorns. Through these mechanics, Mooney Ranch is built to achieve what Unstable Unicorns fails to do: Keep the game light and prevent it from dragging on.
