by Craig Groff-Folsom
Burgle Bros 2: The Casino Capers arrived this week, so I decided to give it a shot. There will be spoilers, but first, some background:
After hearing some talk about
Burgle Bros., I began to search for a way to track down a copy. When the Burgle Bros 2 Kickstarter came along, it was the perfect opportunity to get the original shipped early while I also waited for the sequel. In the meantime, I became hooked on the app.
The physical copy of the first game arrived, and I was excited to teach my friends. While I enjoyed playing it, it never quite seemed to get requested or praised by anyone else. I considered playing solo but there’s definitely a level of fiddliness (which I’ve discussed here before) that kind of dissuades a solo play for me.
While the sequel’s production dragged on due to the pandemic, I didn’t pay close attention to the changes other than it’s set at the casino. When it showed up this week, reading the physical rulebook was my first experience with the actual changes. Surprise! The sequel is a campaign game!
I set up the board (complete with the elevated second floor) and headed in with the Acrobat and the Rigger. We were able to crack the safe, and its contents... well, here’s where the spoiler comes in.
(I wrote a little, but there’s also a picture inside of the endgame. Click at your own risk.)
[o]Heist Two is (cue The Price is Right announcer voice) A NEW CAR!!!
Okay, maybe not a “new” car. But it’s a car! And you get to drive it around the casino! At least, that’s what supposed to happen. Not only was the Rigger stuck with the Bouncer, moving inside the car wasn’t going to be productive thanks to the ludicrously bad layout of rooms near the safe.
Needing a way to lose some heat, I headed to the lounges and the pools on the first floor. Lots of random effects occurred, until the Rigger decided to cannonball into the pool. The Bouncer came running and both of my characters were caught red-handed while the second floor Bouncer secured the car.
[/o]
Betrayal at House on the Hill has been one of my favorite games ever since I mail-ordered a first edition copy when it was released almost 20 years ago. However, part of loving Betrayal is accepting the game’s obvious limitations. Sometimes the house isn’t going to be constructed properly for the haunt. Maybe the traitor has an impossible task. Maybe the heroes have no chance instead. You won’t know until you discover the haunt.
Burgle Bros 2 has the same energy. The engine of the Burgle Bros series is adjusted slightly. Bouncers feel mostly the same as security guards from the original, and the room tiles feel just as familiar. There are still some subtle differences and overall it feels mostly like a slight improvement. The addition of a Betrayal-esque twist when the safe opens provides one of nine random endgames (unless you’re playing the campaign, in which case they unfold in order). My specific heist, sadly, fell into the edge case of being simply unwinnable from the start.
The interesting thing here, to me at least, is that Burgle Bros 2 isn’t strictly a re-iteration or enhancement of the original. Here are two games that use similar mechanics for the bulk of the game, but the endgame will unfold differently based on which game you’ve chosen to play. Some people will gravitate to one over the other, and that’s probably going to lead to lukewarm reviews for the sequel. With the game market the way it is, I don’t see a lot of people rushing out to buy Burgle Bros 2 if they weren’t drawn in by the original.
The good part of this, of course, is that my copy of the original doesn’t feel obsolete. Well, it doesn’t feel MORE obsolete than it already did. When I want that original experience, I’ll just need to bite the bullet on the fiddly factor and set up that version.
As something of a post-script, I really don’t want to discuss the hot topic, but Burgle Bros 2 is an ambitious project. The elevated second floor didn’t turn out EXACTLY the way many of us were viewing it. The Game Trayz storage is fine, I guess, but it still feels a bit cluttered in the box. The rulebook doesn’t really explain what to do with character stickers, which is a holdover issue from the original. Trying to organize what comes in the box is a bit of a challenge and requires some improvisation, which of course causes problems when it comes to getting into players’ hands. There’s plenty written elsewhere about it. For my money, it’s fine. Let’s not pretend that this is the only Kickstarter campaign that took a risk and didn’t stick the landings perfectly. The box is still functional, albeit imperfect. And the casino looks nice next to the office building.
See you tomorrow.
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