Dabong Review

I put the batteries into our brand new automatic card shuffler and loaded up the copy of Dabong we won at C2E2 and prepared to go to town. Right off the bat Sarah noticed the one year time limit per turn rule fell in love.

The rules are funny and whimsical, and you probably know them all already. Basic game play consists of playing cards that match the color or suit of the previous card. There are draw 2's, reverses and skips, you can play straights and flushes, you can even shoot the moon. There is a caveat or two as to how these special hands can be played but they all make sense. The rules are basically descriptions of special hands you can play broken down by how unorthodox they might seem. We had little problem with incorporating the entire rule set right off the bat however.

Dabong plays easy and still retains a bit of strategy. The hands one can play feel like special attacks and are very satisfying. The rules avoid the discouraging "draw cards until you can play one" rule, which feels weird but welcome.

I don't think this could be a regular 2 player game for us. The hands go by way too fast and there really isn't an attempt to play different strategies. Also I can't get over the fact that while Dabong borrows rules from so many other games it can't be used to play those other games like a deck of cards can. I do like it much better than card games though. I see this best played in a setting with three of more people who just finished a grueling game like Runescape and just want to have a little fun before going home.

The automatic card shuffler is cheap, loud, and the quality of the shuffle is dubious. However seeing as Sarah can't shuffle worth a damn it's a welcome addition to the table.

To purchase Dabong contact John at Astute Games.