Gubs

In Gubs you are rival chieftains, trying to create the greatest and most powerful Gub colony. You will have to be wary as you tread the treacherous path to victory; traps, hazards and awful events lie in wait for your Gub citizens, on top of that your hard-earned Gubs may be lured off to another rival colony if not protected.

Gubs is fun little card game that can be played in about twenty minutes.  In it you are trying to collect the most Gubs before you draw the G, U and B card in any order. Each turn you draw a card and then play as many as you want. These cards could do one of many things but one type you might draw is a Gub card. Gub cards are, in the end, the things that will win you the game, but there is always the question of when to play it. If you put down an unprotected gub, then it will undoubtedly be trapped, lured or killed by the time it comes back to your go. However, the end of the game could come at any time, and maybe it would be better to risk it and hope the finish is just a few draws away.

Now I hear all you inquisitive people shout, "How do you protect your Gubs from all the bad things that can happen to them?" Well, what you need to save your Gubs from the untimely end that a unprotected one has, is barricades. Barricades can be played on top of a Gub and protect it from almost all the cards in the game and will hopefully help that Gub survive.

There are many ways to hinder your friends in this game but the best example of these are hazard cards. These, depending on what they are, let you lure other peoples Gubs to your colony or destroy all the  barricades (which will mean that by the time the poor person you played the card on gets to react, half their Gubs are gone).

The first thing that I would say about this game is that my sister and I were absolutely obsessed with this when we were younger. For a bit at primary school we used to play a game of Gubs a day and as we used to say, "A game of Gubs a day, keeps the doctors away." I think that is the only game that has ever has that kind of affect on us, and I have played quite a few games in my time.

One of the good things about Gubs is that careful planning and tactics do pay off, but luck is still a big part of it. This means that younger children have a chance against their adult counterparts, and will beat them almost as much as the adults win.

This game could easily fit in a small plastic pouch so if you are going on holiday this would be neat and inconspicuous, letting you waste as little space in your bag as possible. However you do need a table to play it on so if you are looking for something to do on the train then this might not be the ideal game for you and I would suggest you to look at Oddball Aeronauts - which I have reviewed here.

Overall I would give this game a 8/10 and absolutely recommend it for children at primary school age.