Review: Silver

Designer: Ted Alspach
Artist: Andrey Gordeev, Taylor Bogle
Publisher: Bézier Games
Category: Set Collection, Memory
Players: 2-4
Price: $24.95 Amazon.com

Silver is a memory card game in Bézier Games Werewolf universe. In this game, players try to earn the lowest score by strategically switching cards in their tableaus with cards from the deck or draw pile. The challenge comes from remembering which cards are where, while simultaneously trying to determine what cards opponents are holding.

Review

The One Night Ultimate series is about as good as party games get. I have lauded this series at great length before, so I won’t reinvent the wheel, but suffice it to say it’s amazing. Silver is a new card game in the Werewolf universe, featuring familiar characters like the Seer, the Robber, the Villager, and the ever-unsettling Exposer.

The game consists of a deck of cards numbered 0 to 13, a score pad, and a silver amulet token. The numbers on the cards are their point values, but in this game, points are bad.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled and each player receives a row of 5, face-down. The deck is placed in the middle and its top card is flipped up to begin a discard pile. The amulet token begins next to the deck/discard area, in front of a randomly-chosen player.

Before the first round begins, each player secretly looks at 2 of their own cards.

At its core, Silver is a memory game, so it’s important for players to keep track of their own cards (and others’, if possible!). The goal of the game is to have the lowest overall score.

Players perform 1 of 3 actions on their turn:

• Draw the top card of the deck
• Draw the top card of the discard pile
• Call for a vote

Most commonly, players will take a card on their turn. If a player draws a card from the deck, he may either discard it – some cards grant a special action when discarded – or exchange it for any number of cards from his tableau. He may also exchange cards with the card atop the discard pile. The caveat for exchanging is that all cards taken from the tableau must be the same (e.g. all 5’s, all 8’s, etc.).

Since cards generally remain face-down, players must choose which cards they wish to exchange before revealing them. To do this, they slide the chosen cards upward on their tableau to indicate that they have been selected, and then reveal them.

In this example, the player chose 2 cards to exchange with the top discard. Both were both revealed to be the same number, so he is allowed to complete the exchange.

Had the chosen cards NOT matched, the player would have had to return them to his tableau, along with the card from the middle. (Again, players are shooting for the lowest score, so having to take extra cards is bad.)

If a player has 4 or fewer cards in his tableau, he may call for a vote on his turn, instead of drawing/exchanging. When someone does this, each other player gets 1 final turn, and then everyone’s scores are tallied for the round.

Scores are simply the sum of the cards remaining in each tableau. However, if the person who called for the vote has the lowest score, he earns 0 points (the best possible outcome), but if he does not, he earns the sum of his cards plus 10 points (a terrible outcome).

The silver amulet token will change hands a few times throughout the game, given to the player with the lowest score each round. The player who possesses it may place it on a card in their tableau, signifying that the card may not be viewed by anyone (including its owner) for the remainder of the round.

At the end of the 4th round, the player with the lowest total score wins!

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As much as I love Bézier Games’ products, Silver did not do it for me. I did not find it laugh-inducing like the One Night Ultimate games, nor did I find it strategic enough to hold my interest like Whistle Stop or Favor of the Pharaoh. When it comes to memory games, players are usually inherently good or inherently bad at them, depending upon how their brains work. In my opinion, this makes it tough for players to “get better” at memory games if they struggle with them, which can make them very polarizing.

Of course, Silver is not devoid of strategy. The card abilities offer subtle decisions, but the overall experience feels like it amounts to “Draw a card, figure out what to do with it, and call for a vote when your gut tells you to.”

I will say that the game looks very nice. The box is excellently designed, with an insert made to accommodate multiple Silver sets, with or without sleeved cards. (Other publishers should take note and do this more often.) The card art is great, the iconography is intuitive, and the amulet token is a nice touch. On the whole, an awesome production.

It’s worth mentioning that there is a free app version of Silver, so if it’s a game you are interested in, you can “try before you buy.” Personally, though, I’ll stick with One Night Ultimate.

A review copy was provided by Bézier Games.