The box (inside and out), the cards, even the mini comic inside by the Oatmeal explaining just the amazing colour receptiveness of the Mantis Shrimp, is an explosion of colour. Only living players can win the game, but dead players now get to keep the cards in their hands when they explode. Scoring subtly isn’t a bad idea either, especially if a group of players are just stealing back and forth. Second, if a player Steals successfully on their turn, they may take another turn immediately after. If the character color matches any of the cards already in your tableau, move all characters of that color into your score pile.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. If you have chosen to steal and your opponent does have cards that match the colour revealed, you take them from their area into yours (don’t score them yet! After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. This means that you can Steal multiple times in a row, or you can chain a Steal into a Score (and potentially lock in the cards that you stole). And so you start seeing more and more games emerge in a really interesting space, as they try to court both audiences, to some degree.

Scoring in Mantis is a great feeling – a real “Yesss” moment if you have built up a solid collection of a colour and your rainbow comes through for you. And we will take Mantis because it’s a great little competitive card game that anybody can pick up and play.

A guaranteed Steal is most useful when you can get a lot of cards away from a player in the lead, but even being able to take something isn’t too bad. Dicebreaker is owned by Gamer Network Limited, a ReedPop company and subsidiary of Reed Exhibitions Limited. Gamer Network Limited, Gateway House, 28 The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1DN, United Kingdom, registered under company number 03882481. Poetry for Neanderthals is a competitive word-guessing game where you can only give clues by speaking in single syllables.Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. The key to its strength, however, is the backs of the cards; by smartly limiting the pool of possible colors the card can be, player expectations can be set (and played with), leading to more player investment in the game itself. I’ve seen that work well for a lot of folks; it’s the kind of box that pops on the shelf and catches the eye, and the cards look really good, from a graphic design standpoint, too. Based on The Oatmeal’s viral comic, Mantis is an easy-to-learn, quick-to-play card game for both families and adults. Your goal is to get 10 Mantis Shrimp cards into your Score pile, and you’ll need to steal a few if you want to get there.