Review: Wanted Stormtrooper

Introducción

Get your hands on the most wanted Stormtroopers! At this point in galactic history, some Stormtroopers have gone rogue and deserted. We must track them down to return them to the army’s ranks!

This is how Wanted Stormtrooper is presented to us, a design by Kaya Miyano (Panda Panda, Trio). First published in 2022 as Wanted Wombats by Mob+ in a Japanese version. Mercurio is in charge of this edition. The illustrations are done by Shepperton Design Studios.

It is published in Spanish by Mercurio (the game is completely language-independent except for the rulebook). It allows for games of 2 to 5 players, with a minimum suggested age of 6 years and an approximate duration of 15 minutes. The retail price is €9.95. A copy of Mercurio’s Spanish version was used for this review.

Importante: si ya conoces el juego y/o sólo te interesa mi opinión sobre el mismo, puedes pasar directamente al apartado de Opinión. Los apartados Contenido y Mecánica están destinados especialmente a aquellos que no conocen el juego y prefieren hacerse una idea general de cómo funciona.

Ir a la Opinión Personal

Contenido

Inside a one-piece cardstock box measuring 6.5×9×1 cm (a small rectangular box equivalent to a Magic-type card deck), we find the following components:

• 32 Cards (62.5×88 mm):
  • 30 Game Cards
  • 2 Rule Cards

Mecánica

Wanted Stormtrooper is a push-your-luck game in which players take on the role of bounty hunters to capture fugitive stormtroopers. At the start of the game, the deck of cards is shuffled and placed in the center of the table. After this, players alternate turns clockwise. On each turn, the active player must try to guess the reward of the top card of the deck before revealing it. If they guess correctly, they add the card to their temporary pool and must decide between stopping to permanently secure those earnings in their bank or continuing to risk guessing another card; if they continue and fail, they will lose everything accumulated in that turn. Once the player stops or fails, the turn passes to the next player. The first player to accumulate 15,000 dollars or more in their bank is declared the winner.

Conceptos Básicos

The only components in this game are the Stormtrooper Cards. These show portraits of fugitive stormtroopers, each associated with a specific reward for their capture, which can be 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, or 10,000 dollars. Players must try to guess the value of these cards in order to collect them. Revealing a 10,000-dollar card without managing to claim it will result in shuffling the deck again.

That’s all there is to it.

Preparación de la Partida

• The card deck is thoroughly shuffled.
• The deck is placed face down in the center of the table, within reach of all players.
• A starting player is randomly chosen to begin the first turn.

We are ready to start!

Desarrollo de la Partida

A game of Wanted Stormtrooper takes place over an indeterminate number of turns alternated by the players.

On their turn, the active player must perform the following steps in order:

• Guess the Reward. The player tries to guess the cash value of the stormtrooper on the next card in the deck (choosing between $1,000, $3,000, $5,000, or $10,000).
• Reveal the Card. The top card from the central deck is drawn to check the result:
  • If they guessed correctly: they place the card temporarily in front of them in their provisional bank. Now the player must decide whether to continue (returning to the first step) or stop, securing the cards obtained this turn (transferring them from the provisional bank to their permanent bank), ending their turn.
  • If they guessed incorrectly: they place the card in the discard pile next to the deck. The player’s turn ends immediately and passes to the next player clockwise.

After this, the turn passes to the next player.

The following cases must be taken into account:

• Trio Bonus. If a player manages to accumulate 3 $1,000 stormtrooper cards in their permanent bank, they take on a combined value of $5,000 instead of the usual $3,000.
• Golden Stormtrooper Failure. When any player fails to guess a $10,000 stormtrooper, that card is not sent to the discard pile. Instead, it is shuffled together with all the discards and the rest of the deck to form the draw deck once again.
• Deck Depletion. As soon as there is only 1 card left available in the central deck, all cards from the discard pile are taken, combined with that last card, and shuffled together to form a new deck. The game continues immediately from the same point where it was interrupted.

Fin de la Partida

The game ends immediately after the turn in which a player manages to accumulate $15,000 or more, declaring them the winner.

Opinión Personal

In recent years, the board gaming scene has witnessed the unstoppable rise of minimalist-style Eastern games; small boxes arriving from Japan or Taiwan that, with a handful of cards and mechanics stripped of artifice, achieve a surprising psychological depth.

Following this design philosophy where less is more, we get Wanted Stormtrooper, originally published as Wanted Wombats. A design with which Kaya Miyano brings us a proposal that is as simple as it gets. Let’s see if it has enough substance or remains just a gaming curiosity.

The premise of Wanted Stormtrooper is as old as the hills. A deck of cards with associated values from which players will reveal cards. On each turn, the active player must try to guess the value of the card at the top of the deck. If they succeed, the player gets the card. Otherwise, their turn ends and the card is placed in the discard pile.

If the player guessed correctly, they now have the opportunity to risk what they have won to get a bigger bounty, or stop to consolidate what they have obtained. If they decide to risk it, they proceed the same way again. This goes on until they decide to stop or blow it. In short, it’s your classic push-your-luck mechanic.

The question many of you might be asking yourselves right now is: why would a player take a risk when guessing even a single card is already an achievement? Well, because Wanted Stormtrooper is a race, as the winner will be the one who manages to gather a total value of at least 15,000 dollars in cards.

In the deck, we find cards with values of 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000. Obviously, there are far more 1,000 cards than 10,000 ones, which is why the 1,000 cards have a special bonus for every trio of them that a player consolidates. But the temptation to get a bigger loot right off the bat is very high.

The statistical play that the design offers us is also interesting, since as cards are revealed, they remain visible, altering the odds of a certain value being the next to be drawn. Trying to guess a card on the first turn—where drawing a 1,000 card is highly likely—is not the same as doing so when a good number of cards with this value are already visible.

It is surprising how a proposal so simple at first glance manages to generate so much tension among players, especially as gaps begin to open up between them. Thus, those who fall behind will feel even more compelled to aim for higher figures to close that gap as quickly as possible, with all the risk that entails.

I love the personal tension generated right in the moment before a card is revealed. The pessimistic “self” will choose to call out the most probable number, while the optimistic “self” will tempt the player to say the magic number of 10,000. In the end, you choose one and exactly what the other suggested ends up happening, triggering a pang of frustration.

In this way, a microgame of just over thirty cards that could easily have been part of Button Shy’s wallet games ends up working quite effectively. It is true that it remains an unpretentious hobby game, but it is perfect to carry in your pocket and pull out during any downtime anywhere.

In terms of scalability, the game works perfectly in any configuration, as each player is really fighting more against the game, luck, and statistics than against the other players—who only raise the bar by creeping closer to the target amount. Obviously, the more players there are, the more fun it generates, because there are more competitors messing up and guessing correctly like clairvoyants.

Regarding replayability, it is one of those examples that, without needing grand displays, asymmetric elements, and/or variable setups, creates the urge to play back-to-back games. Furthermore, as already mentioned, it is a portable game that can be brought out on occasions where most games wouldn’t fit.

It is true that it is a peculiar design that works under specific circumstances. And in that context, there are designs with more depth, such as Cheeky Monkey (here is its tocho-review), Can’t Stop (here is its tocho-review), or Flip 7 (here is its tocho-review). But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is quite effective at what it does.

Let’s move on to the production. The edition that Mercurio has released on the market is an example of how to build appeal with a small deck of cards. These boast a spectacular card stock weight, with a smooth texture but embossed details on both the front and back, and magnificent snap. The two cards that serve as the rulebook make everything very clear, complete with examples.

As for the artistic design, we find a pop-art and cartoonish style with great visual impact, heavily influenced by contemporary comics and vector illustration, featuring flat and saturated colors for the backgrounds that contrast with the black and white of the Imperial troopers. It is worth highlighting the humorous tone of the “Wanted” posters, with comical poses that ironically satirize the famous (and ineffective) marksmanship of the Imperial Stormtrooper. Through thick lines and clean contours, the illustrations manage to reinterpret a global pop culture icon with a fresh, casual, minimalist, and highly attractive look.

And let’s wrap this up. Wanted Stormtrooper is a minimalist design that combines an elementary statistical deduction system with a straightforward and accessible push-your-luck race. The implicit probability calculation as cards are revealed, the constant temptation to risk accumulated loot to reach the goal, and the delightful psychological dilemma between prudence and greed allow for tension-filled turns. Although we are looking at a light and unpretentious pastime, its frantic pace, how easy it is to absorb the rules, and that funny frustration when failing make it a sufficiently effective piece of entertainment. For all these reasons, I give it a…