Lose yourself in the magical world of retail
ADVENTURE MART
Designer: Sam Taylor | Publisher: HUB Games
Given our current global predicament, many of our usual distractions are unavailable – dining out, socialising, retail therapy. Fortunately, we can always look to the tabletop for a taste of harmless consumerist escapism.
In this fantastical land of anthropomorphic adventurers, literal pop-up shops magically materialise at the feet of those in need, ready to serve the growing queues of adventurers with an imaginative range of wares. Up to four competing store managers will rush to line their shelves with the finest necessities as they attempt to attract the most customers and boost their net worth. After five days, the stores will pack up as swiftly as they appeared, but not before crowning the player with the most profit as Manager of the Week!
In Adventure Mart, running your store – or engaging in what the designers refer to as ‘adventurecapitalism’ – involves a breezy but original mix of deck building and auction mechanics. In each of the five rounds, players will take turns either spending gold in the Depot Area to acquire new Stock, Fixtures, and Staff, or starting a sale with a customer. Once all of the adventurers from the town have been served, play proceeds to the next day, beginning with the next Daily Bulletin which adds theme whilst making subtle changes to how each round plays out.
In typical deck building fashion, each player will start out with the same deck of nine cards. Throughout the game these decks will become bolstered by more valuable stock cards. Each adventurer that comes to town will have a preference for the type of goods they wish to purchase, made up of a mixture of Martial, Magic and Exotic. The player who initiated the sale will put forward an opening offer in the form of a number of cards matching that adventurer’s desired stock types. After tallying up the other players will then choose to either pass or beat the offer, with the winner of the auction receiving gold before discarding their cards.
Now, a successful store manager won’t usually thrust all their stock upon a startled adventurer. Not only would that be wasteful in regard to their dwindling deck, but also their stock’s potential for profit. Whilst each stock card does have a gold value, it will only retain that value for as long as it takes for the customer’s purse to empty. Some adventurers may be willing to spend up to ten gold but anything exceeding that is essentially given away. Aside from being nicely thematic, this rule also affords Adventure Mart a lot of potential for strategic planning and even a hint of bluffing. It plays out relatively fairly too, as there are no penalties for losing an auction, giving players a chance to succeed next time. Fixture and Staff cards also open up a level of strategic personalisation to players’ stores. More than just playful nods to anyone familiar with the convenience store workplace, cards like ‘Aether Slush Fountain’ and ‘Worker of Nights’ open up clear cut strategies through discounts to certain stock types and interruptions to opponents’ sales.
The deck building genre is a crowded market nowadays, with each release seemingly requiring justification.
Oftentimes, this thirst for uniqueness results in complex or bloated experiences likely to deter casual gamers or newcomers. Adventure Mart manages to avoid this largely by keeping things simple. There isn’t an overwhelming amount of card interactions here, just enough to keep things running slickly and smoothly, paired with an addictively clever mash-up of auction mechanics and deck building.
CHAD WILKINSON
WE SAY
With its charming and relatable theme, solid interaction, and a tight balance of familiar and innovative mechanics, Adventure Mart is the perfect step up from other gateway deck builders.
WHATS IN THE BOX
◗ 185 Cards
◗ 13 Tokens
◗ 60 Coin tokens
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED VALLEY OF THE KINGS…
Like Adventure Mart, Valley of the Kings manages to provide so much excitement with so few components. It also doesn’t hurt that they both admirably succeed at spicing up their solid deck building foundations with other innovative mechanics.