A first look at "MetaCheckers"

Took me a week to get around to posting this, so I apologize for that. Last weekend down at one of the local shops, Mythic Games, I got a chance to talk with a couple of local game designers, Dan Hundycz from DPH Games and Ed Bond from DreamGames. DPH Games are the ones behind "Cache Me if You Can!", "Psychological Warfare", "Flip the Bird" now knows as "Cats", their upcoming "Legacy at Sea" and more. I got to play an early prototype of Legacy at Sea a while back and it was very interesting to hear how far it has progressed and see some of the changes. More to come about Dan and DPH games when I get a chance to play the new version in the coming weeks as well as getting to do a review and an interview about the game soon.

DreamGames is a much newer local startup that is working on their first game MetaCheckers. I got ot play a few rounds of this with the designer Ed Bond while I was there and it was interesting. MetaCheckers is a mashup of Checkers and Chess with some other things thrown in the mix as well. For our first game, we only used the bare basics, a cloth checkerboard, and 16 wooden checkers (one with a kind engraved on it). The game is played by rolling a custom die that has icons representing various Chess pieces on it as well as a standard d6. Depending on what you roll, you get to move any one of your pieces accordingly and for those that can normally move a variable amount (Queen, Bishop, or Rook) you can move up to the number that you rolled. While it sounds pretty simple, it adds a very interesting twist to the normal games. This leaves the strategy bits from Chess, but at the same time adds a bit of random unpredictability. Now, any piece can move as any type depending on what you roll for the turn. that alone made for some very fun, on the fly tactical decisions.

To take things to the next level, Ed introduced another custom die called the "Kangaroo" die for our second game. If you roll a 6 on the d6 you can choose to keep your roll and use it as normal, or abandon it in favor of rolling the Kangaroo die. Some of the various outcomes are the "Joker" which lets you move an enemy piece as it if were your own, the "Princess" who allows you to move like a queen, but take multiple enemies along your path, and more. These special rules seem like a lot to take in at first, but after a couple gmaes they aren't so bad.

For our last game, we tried an alternate setup idea, using two of the game boards and overlapping the corners to make an hourglass shaped play area. Because of the increase in board size, we rolled 2d6 for our movement. This game proved be be an interesting twist as the shape of the board forced a bottleneck in the middle and changed strategies as to how to get through without leaving yourself exposed. Ed also showed off some early concepts for a modular board design that is still in the works that will allow players to build their own custom layouts.

Overall the base game alone without any of the special things is a fun and rather quick game. I can see it being used as a filler between other big games on a game night or while waiting for people to arrive. Definitely a fun little diversion and worth checking out if you are into that sort of game. The downside is that the game is a bit expensive for what you get. High production costs unfortunately get passed along to the buyer which makes it feel a bit more pricey that it should for what the game is. If the costs can be reduced and the MSRP dropped to a more reasonable level for the average gamer, I think there is definitely potential here. MetaCheckers is currently available from the DreamGames website as well as several shops in the local area if you are interested in checking it out.