By Bantam Planet. Designed by Ike Bruncardi.
You may have seen me drooling over this one, like a teenager watching that scene with Megan Fox for the first time lifting the hood of the car in the Transformers (2007) film, for a while now. So, here is the review after much play online. Will Bantam West make you as hype as the video game Red Dead Redemption did and fill your games room with epic stories in a forgotten world, or will it leave you with disappointing Blazing Saddles (like that night out where I agreed to eat the curry with a spice level aptly named "lads night out")?
There are many different ways you can play Bantam West. You can start with nothing and slowly build yourself up or you can choose to start an "Expedited Game", which I loved, where all players start with a horse (chosen randomly) that increases movement capabilities and a special field maxed out in one of the 4 main types of craft. This expedited mode allows for faster gameplay due to greatly improved movement and the skills allow for greater benefits in the field. Players can be nasty to each or choose to allow one another to live peacefully. It truly is an open ended experience. Either way you choose to play one thing you can guarantee is the smiles on the faces of every playing. I have never played a game that was not ridiculously fun and each time we played new stories emerged that were unique and interesting.
For a full breakdown of gameplay in more detail see my preview attached here:
At the start of the game each player is tasked with achieving an agreed upon number of notoriety points. You can play a short game for 5 points or extend the game to anywhere up to 15 points. So you could be looking at a 45 minute game or you could be looking at a 5 hour game, the choice really is yours!! Great for people who sometimes only have a free hour but on other days can dedicate a whole afternoon to a session. Expansive adventure or quick shoot out at The O.K. Corral. The choice is yours!
The components for the physical game look excellent from the pictures I have seen and the artwork on all the game components is also fantastic. The cards have easy to follow images that make sense and quickly become easy to use. You can tell that the designer Ike has thought about this a lot, tested it a tonne and changed things when they did not work. He has not been afraid of taking the scalpel to areas of the game that needed removing or for asking for feedback on areas where he thinks improvements are needed. This has led to a hugely rewarding game that excited at the mere thought of another playthrough.
The only downside that I can see is that there is a lot to learn but, once you do it is so worthwhile. I can't wait to dive deeper in to the world of Bantam West.
Final score: 9/10
Overview: "Fun story building game where each play through is going to be different and all players will come out with a smile on their faces. Do you want to be a dirty sun of a gun and burn down some of your friends huts or do you want to avoid confrontation whilst building up a nice sum of money and hoping that nobody else tries to hold you up at gunpoint. I love, love, love this game and can't wait to get my own physical copy. If you like Red Dead Redemption and you don't buy this then you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror. I am all-in on the campaign and if that doesn't convince you I don't know what will."
NOTE - I played on Tabletopia so I expect my final score for the physical copy to rise to 9.5 or 10 when it arrives. Thanks to Ike for playing with me and allowing me early access to the game for this review. Super excited for this to release.
Bantam West is currently on Kickstarter and smashing the targets. At time of releasing this review the game is way over 500% funded and for good reason. Go get it whilst you can:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bantamplanet/bantam-west