Board Gaming - Mottainai (Sat/Sun?)

[Dracos]

I think the poor card design and 'Every Card that gets to one of the two 'win' locations introduces a new rule for EVERYBODY' makes it innately harder to teach than it should be.  The cards draw their focus to the big win rules by the way they are laid out, and really for the overwhelming majority of cards used in any run of the game, those don't matter or come up at all.  The most common card value was covered by a tiny unclear bit of text on the side, which meant I was constantly referencing the 'what do these cards do' writeup that merc did, because staring at the card usually didn't help.  I think the card art occupies a really unfortunate amount of space on every card that could be better used to deliver the critical actions and separately isolate the 'big rule' it offers.

Games where rules change as the game plays can be hard, but unlike most deck builders, this one also had rules that affected everyone.  "You can do this for all tasks, unless that player has played this card!"  "Ties are resolved as so, unless that player has that card!"  So you end up reason to pay close attention to every card that gets out there, not just for strategic purposes, but for 'hey did this change the rules we are playing the game by?'  That kind of stuff is hard to teach innately, or so I think.