Review: OMG (Oh My Gods!)

 

Once upon a time, there were 12 mighty gods living atop of mythical mount Olympus: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes and either Hestia, or Dionysus. Zeus was the ruler of all. Relationships between the twelve gods were always tense and some of them even wanted to overthrow Zeus and become the one and only King. Zeus, apparently decided that a fighting contest would be held in order to decide who is the mightiest god and the most suitable to rule Olympus. All gods would be able to use their special skills to prevail in this contest. Well, at least that is the story behind the new card game coming from Greece, titled OMG (Oh My Gods!).

OMG is a card game designed by a new designer, George Christofidis who has collaborated with artist Tony Tzanoukakis, responsible for the card art. OMG can be played by two to six players and lasts about 20 minutes. Its only components are cards. The board game market is actually full of such little card games, packaged in small boxes and costing about 10$, so the competition to face is great. Let's see if OMG is up for the challenge.

OMG's rules are remarkably simple. At the start of the game all cards are shuffled and each player is dealt six cards. The rest of the cards form a deck from which players will be drawing cards during the game. Each card depicts a god and also has a number and a color. The card may also have the god's special ability or not. Cards can have four possible colors: blue, red, green and black and four numbers, 1 to 4. Designers have provided for color-blind people and have included a small symbol on the bottom right of each card, related to its color: red is represented by a fire symbol, green by a leaf, black by thunder and blue by waves.

Players are taking part in the fighting contest that Zeus announced by helping the gods strike blows to one another. The goal of OMG is simple: be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand. Each player during his turn, must play a card face up, on top of the last face-up card at the center of the table. In order to strike a blow, the card played must match either the number or the god of the last played card. If that is the case, then it's the next player's turn. If neither the number nor the god is matched, then the player takes a penalty and must draw some extra cards, their number depending on numbers on the two cards (the one played and the one already at the table). If the two cards have the same color, the penalty is equal to the difference of the two numbers. If the color is different, the penalty is equal to the difference of the two numbers plus one.

If the card played has an ability on it, then after checking for a penalty, the active player gets to perform the special ability of the god. Special abilities may enable the player to get rid of cards, force other players to draw cards or make a player skip his next turn.

The game is as simple as that, so let's see how it scores in our usual scoring categories:

Components:

As I said before, the game's components are only cards. The artist's approach to the theme of the twelve Greek gods is a very light and fun one. Each god is depicted in a comic way, emphasizing on his general known characteristics. For example, Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, appears as Miss Olympus, admiring herself in the mirror while Poseidon, god of the sea, holds a trident which is bitten by a naughty-looking fish and Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths and craftsmen, stands before his anvil having accidentally hammered a finger. The cards have beautiful colors and they are fun to look at and play with. They are made of quality cardboard and should best be sleeved due to shuffling. One problem about that is that the little box that hosts the game includes a paper insert and in the middle of it there is space for the cards to be placed in. However, when the cards get sleeved, they don't fit anymore in this space and you must get rid of the insert so to accommodate them all in the box. This way, on the other hand, the cards are spread all around the box and get pretty messed up.

Inside the game's box, a small rulebook can also be found that fulfils its role of explaining the simple rules of the game, has some examples of play and meticulously describes all the gods' abilities with clarifications on points that may be unclear. A small description for each god and his/her main characteristics is also there, which is a very good idea and enhances the theme of the game, although not really related to the actual gods' abilities. 7/10

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