Terry Pratchett Discworld: Ankh Morpork Board Game

A card-based strategy board game for 2-4 players set in the (here beautifully illustrated) comic fantasy city of Ankh-Morpork. Simple and quite fast (45-90 mins) to play, but very strategically deep and varied due to the different (and secret) win condition each player is dealt at the beginning of the game. For example, your condition may be you only win by spreading your minions widely; the other goals are amassing money, or controlling a proportion of the city,* or simply stalling or causing trouble. So there is an element of social deduction, but unlike Werewolf style games you do not win by guessing your opponents' identities.**So far so good, but it gets better! It works just as well with 2 players as with 4. Further, each of the over a hundred central cards are different, often very silly and fun with their abilities, which adds lots of variety. Moreover, on every play those of us who are Discworld fans continue to enjoy the many references, but those we've played with who know nothing about it do not suffer from a feeling of missing out, and can understand the game perfectly well. Ultimately, play is very fluid with all the mechanics working so well, it would be easy not to notice all the strategy going on underneath the beautiful surface. But Ankh-Morpork does indeed have the best balance of strategic complexity to ease of any game I'm aware of. As such, it's fantastic that Discworld creator Terry Pratchett lived to see his work celebrated by this high class product.* Given that you can own property that in areas you don't control, it seems strange that you can't have a secret identity who wins through building property rather than controlling areas, so there's space to improve the game there.** Although I think you could make a house rule where you could gamble something on guessing correctly.

I pride myself on having a number of intelligent and devious friends. This is good because this is a game designed for intelligent and devious people. Discworld fan or not this game is a tense hour of fun. Playing towards a goal that is unique to each player and known only to the player themselves you and your opponents must fight for control of the City of Ankh Morpork. Using cards drawn from your hand you must build, buy, steal and assassinate your way to victory using your cunning and guile to outwit your friends. This is a simple to learn but hard to master board game where victory is never assured. Calamities such as fire or earthquake can either devastate your strategy or suddenly propel you from last place to victory in a single move. The joy of play is the sheer unpredictable nature of the game coupled with the challenge of not letting your opponents know exactly what your win conditions are. Watching five of your buildings burn down is hard enough but letting out an audible groan of disgust is almost guaranteed to give away the fact that you're playing as Lord Rust and cause your opponents to quickly block you from rebuilding. Similarly doing nothing at all is a safe strategy but will soon indicate that Commander Vimes is in play patiently waiting for the cards to run out so he wins. All said and done this is an exciting game to play with a few friends, uproariously funny at times and frustratingly cruel at others.

The Terry Pratchett Discworld: Ankh Morpork Board Game is, quite simply, a must have for any Discworld fan. The artwork is fantastic and fits with artwork from the more recent Discworld novels like Going Postal, Making Money, Raising Steam, and Thud. The characters (Commander Vimes, Lord Vetinari, Rincewind etc) and locations (Dolly Sisters, Unreal Estate etc) are all faithfully taken from Discword lore. The events are typically fantastical like a dragon or an explosion.In terms of gameplay, it plays like nothing I’ve ever encountered. Usually, all players have the same conditions of victory. For example, in Cluedo you’re all trying to solve the murder and in Monopoly you’re all trying to build the most assets. However, with this game you’re conditions of victory differ depending on the character you play as. This brilliantly represents the colourful diversity of Ankh Morpork.

This is a hilarious game that has our whole family in stitches. You do not have to be familiar with the Terry Pratchett universe to enjoy this game, as it just comes across as quirky and random, but it does add an extra level if you have knowledge of the novels. In this game you all have different secret objectives, and work against eachother trying to figure out what other people are playing towards and sabotage their victory. It is so much fun and can get VERY silly. Thoroughly enjoy this game and would recommend for game night.

This game takes a while to wrap your head around but once you do it's one of the most absorbing and fun board games I've played. It doesn't matter whether you're a Terry Pratchett fan or not, you'll find this game great fun to play. Each player is aiming for a different (secret) goal which means there's plenty of deceit among the players, making for a tension-filled hour or so that is hugely satisfying if you win! The replay ability is brilliant too - no two games will be the same as you'll get a different goal to aim for every time, whether it's being the richest or owning the most land, for example.I can't wait to get this game out again to play over Christmas - it's always a big hit in our house!

I just don't 'get' the Discworld books but someone else in the family loves them - so we bought this for Christmas for about £26.00 (shop around if it's showing at more on Amazon - because today - just 3 weeks later - they've got it at £56 !!) and I really enjoy the game. It takes 1 or 2 goes to understand it - but it's shorter and more interesting than monopoly and each time we play it it's different according to the cards drawn at the start - so far it hasn't been repetitive at all and, unlike Monopoly, there's no horrible equivalent of Park Lane and Mayfair to ruin it for everyone else!