Puzzle Strike Review

Puzzle Strike describes itself as "a game for 2, 3, or 4 players with a lot of back-and-forth craziness and wild combos. It's played with chips instead of cards because they're easier to shuffle."

Designed and self-published by David Sirlin (of "Playing to Win" fame), Puzzle Strike gets the bulk of its inspiration from two sources -- the "deck building" game Dominion, and the arcade game from the 90s, Puzzle Fighter.

Despite its inspirations, Puzzle Strike actually feels like a unique beast all on its own. There is truly no game like it.

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A Brief Overview of What Gameplay in Puzzle Strike is Like

Puzzle Strike is a game of direct confrontation -- you start the game by picking a unique "character", and then depending on the character you pick, you get a starting "deck" (in this case, a bag full of chips) of 10 chips.

Using "money" chips, you can buy new chips from the "bank" that will eventually go into your bag. You can buy chips that will give you additional money, chips that will allow you to break the rules in specific ways, or chips that will directly get you closer to winning.

Your goal is to be the last player left alive. Players are eliminated from the game when their "gem pile" is over its maximum limit at the end of their turn.

If you've played "puzzle" video games with falling blocks like Tetris, Dr. Mario, or Puzzle Fighter, you will have a clear frame of reference for understanding this concept. Each player has a "gem pile" that is like your side of the screen in a puzzle game. As the game goes on, this gem pile gradually fills up (at a steady rate of one gem per turn). To make matters worse, your opponent can send his gems to your pile, making his pile smaller while making yours larger!

Do not fear, though, for there is an innovative comeback mechanism included! The closer you are to death, the more chips you get to draw each turn. This creates an interesting juggling act where it is hard to tell who is actually in the lead. The person with the higher gem pile might be about to die, or he might be drawing a sinister amount of chips and getting ready to make his one big move...

Component Quality -- What Exactly Do You Get in Puzzle Strike?

When you first buy Puzzle Strike, it comes with several sheets of high quality cardboard chips to punch out. They are THICK and feel REALLY nice to punch. Once you've punched the chips, there is a thick plastic tray that holds all of the chips in designated places, seperating each chip for you. Really neat.

You also get 4 drawstring bags made out of some sort of felt material. They don't feel all that soft or comfortable to the touch, and they have this sort of weird anti-gravity stiffness to them. Still, they are an attractive color, and occasionally get "oohs" and "aahs" from passerbys while you are playing. They also get the job done -- the bottom of each bag is well rounded and good for "shuffling" the chips. Just shake em up while using your hand to mix 'em a little. It's fun -- to me, its much more satisfying than shuffling the thick, resistant, cheap cards usually found in tabletop games.

You also get a short, colorful rulebook that is clear and to the point. It even has one page "quick start" rules for those who just want to jump into things.

The Gameplay in Detail - Skip This Section if You Don't Care to Read Details

First of all, allow me to cover some of the different types of chips in Puzzle Strike. And before I start, allow me to apologize for the quality of these pictures -- the chips are a bit blurry and small here, but they look perfectly clear in real life and are easy to read.

Gem

This is a "Gem." It is an important chip because it lets you buy the rest of the chips in the game. There are gems with a value of 1, 2, 3 and 4. You start the game with six 1-gems in your bag.

Gems also serve a different purpose: they make up your "gem pile", a seperate playing area that is essentially your lifebar. When your gem pile has overflowed, you lose the game.

Gems that are in your gem pile are not useable as money, and vice versa. To interact with your gem pile, you will have to use a Crash Gem.

Crash Gem

A Crash Gem is a bread and butter chip in Puzzle Strike. When you use a Crash Gem, you get to "crash" (send) any single gem in your gem pile to your opponent. You can also use a Crash Gem to "counter" your opponents Crash Gem, sending a defensive gem at their offensive gem.

As a bonus, that little +$1 symbol at the bottom of the chip means that when you Crash a gem, you get one extra money to spend!

Combine

A Combine is another bread and butter chip in Puzzle Strike that you will likely see almost every game. It allows you to "combine" two different chips in your gem pile, the sum of the combined gems resulting in one bigger gem. For example, if you combine two 1-gems, they become a single "2 gem."

Why would you want to do that? To get bigger gems to send to your opponent and fill up their pile while reducing your own more quickly, of course!

You do not begin the game with any Combines; they must be purchased from the bank.

Puzzle Chips

First of all, I apologize for the scans above -- the actual chips text and images are extremely clear in the actual set.

24 different puzzle chips come with the game. Only two are pictured above for illustrative purposes. You never start the game with any puzzle chips.

Furthermore, only 10 different Puzzle Chips are available in each game of Puzzle Strike to help keep each game fresh and feeling different.

Puzzle chips either give you the power to do something you normally couldn't do, or break the games rules in one or several ways.

Puzzle chips have different colors indicated by their banner. Each colored category of puzzle chip fits a different "theme."

Brown chips typically help you build your deck or draw more chips, but do not directly hurt your opponent.

Red chips are "attacks", and attempt to disrupt your opponent. Take that!

Blue chips are "reactions" to attack (red) chips. They can be played in response, out of turn, whenever an opponent plays a red.

Purple chips have some sort of affect on your gem pile, such as the Crash and Combine chips detailed above.

Let's take the above pictured "One of Each" as an example. This brown bannered chip's symbols mean the following:

• The arrow allows you to take an extra action this turn
• The piggy bank allows you to keep a chip in your hand and save it until next turn (normally all chips you have are discarded at the end of your turn, more later)
• The green +$1 gives you one extra "money" to spend when you buy something this turn.
• The circular symbol allows you to draw an extra chip.

Now lets take a look at the other chip, "Really Annoying." This chip is colored both red and blue, meaning it can be used as either an attack or as a reaction to someone else's attack. This chip allows you to place a "wound" chip in an opponent (or opponents) bag(s).

Wound Chip

A wound is (typically) useless! It serves only to clog up your deck! These chips are bad.

Puzzle Strike's Most Interesting Feature: Asymmetric Characters

Character Chip

At the start of the game, you get to choose between ten different "characters." Each character gets to begin the game with his 3 unique moves that no other character can ever use.

Each character has its own little "theme" going for it. There is Lum, the Gambling Panda bear, who relies on high risk/high reward strategies. There is Jaina, the reckless warrior, who starts the game with extremely destructive (and even self destructive!) attacks. And then there is Max Geiger, the precise watchmaker who has control over time itself -- he can fetch things from his discard pile and use them again and again!

This game would probably be interesting enough even without the asymmetric characters, but the characters are what make it uniquely Puzzle Strike. It is just so much to figure out how each character works. Depending on what character you are and what character you are facing, the chips you will want to buy and the strategies you will want to use completely change!

What Your Turn Looks Like

Turns in Puzzle Strike are generally pretty quick. At the start of your turn, you must "ante" a 1 gem from the bank and put it into your gem pile. You are then allowed to play one "action" from your hand.

After deciding which chip you want to play (if the chip you play gives you additional actions, you are allowed to play more than one) you move on to the buy phase. Each chip in the bank has a cost associated with it. You must buy at least one chip. If you cannot afford to buy anything, you have to buy a Wound, so be careful!

Chips you buy go into your discard pile for later use. After you buy, you are in the "clean up" phase -- all chips that were used are discarded. All chips in your hand are discarded. You then draw a new hand of chips by reaching into your bag. When your bag runs out of chips, you take your discard pile into your bag, and shake it up.

Play proceeds in this manner, with players gradually buying new chips to make their "deck/bag" stronger. A player is eliminated when they end their turn and their gem pile grows to a value of 10 or more!

Playing Time, Demographics, Etc

Puzzle Strike is typically quick to play with players who know what they are doing. A game can easily be played in 20 minutes, although set up can feel a little long adding at least five minutes to that figure.

Still, Puzzle Strike has a distinct "rematch!" quality to it -- it is likely that you and your opponent(s) will want to play again and again, making the setup more than worth it.

This game can be enjoyed by a wide audience as it is easy to pick up and understand, yet there is enough depth and subtle strategy to keep serious adult players around for a long time.

The game plays best with 2 players. This is almost unanimously agreed upon by all Puzzle Strike players, including myself. 3 and 4 player is also fun, although the added wait before your turn in 4 player can make it feel less so than 2 or 3.

Recap Time: Positives and Negatives about the Puzzle Strike board (card? chip?) game:

If you need a copy of the Puzzle Strike rules, they are here: Puzzle Strike Rules

Check below for my final verdict on Puzzle Strike!

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