Last week, you were among the upper echelon of international intelligence agents. You had power, prestige, women (or men, if your tastes run that way)…and you had a cause. Then, without warning, without a word of explanation, you were dismissed. Disbanded. Now, the top special agents from around the world have become mercenaries, forming mercurial factions and, without a country or agency to fight for, turning on each other.
This is the world of The Agents, a fast-playing card game for 2-5 players designed and published by Saar Shai, based in Israel. In 2013, Shai ran a Kickstarter campaign to publish the first print run of The Agents, garnering $275k of support from over 6,700 backers. While the easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master game was met with general accolades, there were a few wrinkles to iron out, both on the rules and manufacturing fronts, resulting in The Agents Return, a second Kickstarter campaign that is equally accessible to both returning and new players. The Agents Return includes Mark II versions of The Agents rules, cards and expansions, making the gameplay even faster and smoother; 3 new expansions; and a bevy of extras, such as plastic miniatures and art prints. It’s designed to be fully compatible with the original print run, so returning backers can get just the new materials for a relatively low price, while new backers are being offered a second chance to buy into the original game, with almost all of the exclusives, stretch goals and add-ons from the original campaign making a reappearance.
Saar Shai was generous enough to supply NerdSpan with a review copy of the original Agents Kickstarter edition and a copy of the Mark II rules. Before I begin the formal review, however, there’s some mission-critical information I have to brief you on….
BRIEFING #1: Due to a mix-up with the postal service, and these components being shipped from out-of-country, my review copy of The Agents arrived only a couple of days ago. Consequently, this review is by necessity an “early take” on the game, after only 6 plays.
BRIEFING #2: For the same reasons, even though The Agents supports 2-5 players, this review only covers The Agents as a 2-player game and only using the new, revised ruleset, though I will reference the original rules in a couple of places.
With that out of the way, I can launch straight into telling you how awesome the new Agents is (belated spoiler warning).
The Agents is a “double-edged card game.” What this means is that this 15-40 minute game has more backstabbing, betrayal, double-, triple- and quadruple-crossing than a crate full of Revolver Ocelots. Yet, despite the in-your-face, highly interactive nature of the gameplay, it went down great with my non-gamer spouse, to the point that she requested it be put into regular rotation.
Let’s look at this “double-edged” mechanic in a little more detail, since it’s the crux of the gameplay. Throughout the game, you recruit (draw), deploy (play) and otherwise manipulate a variety of Agents, each represented by a card, as shown above. While this isn’t an unusual mechanic, the twist is that each Agent in your hand is implicitly working for both you and your opponent(s). When you put an Agent into play, you always get a choice of whether to play it for points or for its special ability. If you play it for points, your opponent gets immediate and lasting access to the Agent’s special ability; if you play if for the ability, your opponent gets the points! There are two types of Agents: Faction Agents are played to a Faction, which you share with the player to your immediate left or right (in a 2-player game, both players share the same 2 Factions). They remain in play, providing a steady trickle of points and access to their ability for the long term, while Free Agents are not played to a Faction and offer a quick boost of points and a one-time-use ability.
Before I go any further, let me just talk about how crazy clever this mechanic is, both thematically and mechanically. Thematically, the Agents are offering you their services while providing information (“Intelligence Points,” or IP) on your operation to your opponents. The first player to 50 IPs wins the game, so here, as in the real world of special intelligence, information is king. However, when an Agent’s services can involve killing, turning, or even retiring other operatives, it can be worth keeping them employed even when you know they’re leaking secrets to the enemy! Mechanically, it adds tactical depth to a game that can be explained in less than 60 seconds, making each move a tough decision without adding any unnecessary complications to the rules. And because it’s impossible to take an action for yourself without helping the other player(s) in the process, it keeps games tight, even among players of varying experience levels.
The cards themselves add depth to this simple mechanic. All Agents’ abilities play off of one of 8 commands: KILL, TURN, MOVE, EXTRACT, REVIVE, STEAL, RETIRE or DRAW. Most of these are self-explanatory, but there are a few that require a closer look. When an Agent in the field is Killed, its card is flipped face-down–it remains in play, but no longer provides its points or ability to either player. An Extracted Agent is removed from play and added to the hand of the player who Extracted it; a Retired Agent is sent to the discard pile instead. Finally, a Turned agent is rotated 180 degrees so that its “loyalty” is reversed–if it was giving you points before, you get its ability now, and vice versa. Mastery of all 8 of these commands is necessary to overcome the natural balancing of the double-edged mechanic and eke out a victory.
Finally, there are the Missions, a separate deck of cards that award points on a consistent basis as long as their condition remains fulfilled. These Missions are the true tipping point of an otherwise too-well-balanced game, and you will want to use all of the abilities at your disposal to ensure that you can consistently claim their rewards. The mission parameters can vary wildly, from Code of Honor, which pays out if all living Agents in a Faction are oriented with their ability facing toward you (i.e. none of them are secretly feeding you intel); Meet Your Match, which you get if the Agents in a Faction are providing the same amount of IP to both players; to Bloodbath, which rewards you for having 2 or more dead Agents next to each other in one Faction. Because each player will be working to fulfill their own (sometimes conflicting) Missions applying to shared Factions, having access to the command abilities of the Agents to Move, Turn, Kill and Revive other Agents can be vital…but is it better than a direct and steady source of IPs?
There’s no free draw in the game–as one of your 2 actions on each turn, you may “buy” new Agents and/or Missions, up to 2 of each, for 1 IP per Agent and 2 IPs per Mission (the relaxed costs and limits of this action are one of big changes in the Mark II rules, resulting in a faster, more free-flowing game). The game ends the moment that one player reaches 50 IPs, so the situational question of when to buy new Agents and when to knuckle down and hold onto your points is huge. In another major change, the game ends immediately when a player has 50 IPs, rather than granting everybody an equal number of turns once somebody hits 40. To balance this out, players are granted starting IPs based on their position in turn order. Based on our limited plays, this seems to favor the 1st player in a 2-player game; more often than not, the winning player will have gotten 1 more turn than the opposing player, who only has a 1-IP “handicap” to make up for it. This is less likely to be an issue with 3+ players, and it didn’t bother us much–you can alternate first player and consider it extra prestigious for the non-starting player to win–but it did seem slightly unbalanced, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the designer ends up tweaking these starting IP values with lower player counts.
Although my time with the game was limited, I did get to try out all 4 of the original Kickstarter’s expansion decks, plus the limited-edition “Spoofspansion” (featuring famous spies such as Archer, Austin Powers, Condorman and Solid Snake) and the 2 mini-expansions, Commanders and Black Ops. Most of these expansions offer simple variability–Special Agents and Spoofs increase the Agents card pool and add new abilities, but don’t significantly change the mechanics, while Black Ops and Mission: Critical do the same for the Missions card pool. I found the latter to be near-essential, mainly because they fill gaps in the Missions deck and introduce complementary versions of existing Missions, so the same conditions can pay off both for you and your opponent. Commanders gives each player a special ability that lasts for the whole game, such as reduced cost for buying new cards or a beefed-up starting hand. Secret Agents is my favorite of the original 4: it introduces a new type of Agent who provide points if they’re in your hand and their condition is met after the game ends, meaning you can win even if another player triggered the end-of-game sequence. However, they also take up valuable space in your hand for an uncertain payoff. Finally, Partners introduces another new card type: Partner Agents, who are “attached” to a Faction Agent in play and provide special abilities that manipulate that Agent throughout the game, such as granting IP whenever the Agent’s ability is used (even by another player) or preventing anybody from Turning, Extracting, Killing, Moving or Retiring the partnered Agent.
While I didn’t have a chance to try any of the expansions more than once or twice, I don’t think you’d be disappointed by any of them. If I had to pick the “best” expansion, I’d suggest getting Mission: Critical (which includes Black Ops in its Mark II iteration) first, followed by either Special Agents (for those who want more of a good thing) or Secret Agents (for those who don’t mind shaking up the core dynamics). Partners is a good complement to any of the above expansions, but would be my last pick to buy on its own.
This is the type of game I love to review: one that can be understood and taught by anyone, with a low sticker price ($20 or less) and even lower playing time (all of our 2-player games were done in less than 30 minutes, with one even being completed in 10), but with enough meat on its bones to satisfy hardcore gamers. All of the complexity is in the play, not in the rules, which were intuitive enough for us to get it before our first play was done. Seriously, is there an easier sell than this? Like Boss Monster, The Agents has ridiculously wide appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike.
Like every special agent worth his or her salt, these Agents don’t just get the mission done; they look great while doing so. That’s thanks to the art by Danny Morison. Each Agent, Mission, and Safe House is accompanied by a stylish comics-style illustration; while playing, I was reminded of XIII (more the video game than the original comic), Frank Miller and Tim Sale; there are also weaker parallels to Borderlands and Killer 7–you can tell I’m more of a gamer than a comics nerd. Whatever the inspiration, the art is definitely a selling point of the game, and it’s no wonder that the game’s publishers are offering high-quality art prints as one of the add-ons. Seriously, I order you to perform surveillance on these beauties:
I don’t normally spend a lot of time talking about a game’s physical components, but man, these agents are smooth. I lost count of the number of times I stopped playing or setting up the game just to exclaim, “These cards are perfect!” That’s because, as the result of a stretch goal for the game’s original Kickstarter campaign last year, The Agents contains about 120 “4mm durable, waterproof, tear-proof and non-scratch polypropylene” cards. Aside from sounding like a description of James Bond tech, there’s no way to describe how great these plastic cards feel in your hand. They’re extremely flexible, yet snap right back into place without a bend or crease, and they’re also slightly slippery, allowing them to infiltrate any location (such as a deck of cards) silently and efficiently. These features, taken together, make these the most shuffleable cards you can imagine. If you’ve got the moxy, you can even pull off elaborate moves straight out of Casino Royale. On the flip side, their textured surface helps keep the piles from sliding everywhere whenever the table gets bumped, though you’ll still need to be slightly more careful than usual, especially when mixing several expansions into the Agents deck…just pretend that the card table is rigged with unstable explosives! Finally, they’re sturdy enough to withstand years of play before showing any visible wear and tear.
Seriously, these cards are perfect! If I have one complaint, it’s that there is some color variation among the card backs in the copy I received. It’s not enough to “mark” any specific cards, but when you fan the cards out in your hand, there’s a non-uniform look to them. There was also a well-documented issue in the first print run that resulted in tiny plastic nibs being left behind on the card edges, due to the process by which they were cut from the plastic sheet. In my opinion, it’s not even an issue, and I have gamer’s OCD. From what I’ve read, however, people who were bothered by it were able to sand off the nibs with no ill effect to their cards, but you shouldn’t even need to do that–one of the perks of the Mark II campaign is “upgraded component quality, packaging and shipping methods” that should diminish or eliminate both of these manufacturing flaws.
In case you couldn’t tell, I fully endorse The Agents…though I will deny any knowledge of their activities if the mission goes sour. Some people might question the need for a second Kickstarter after only a year, but, only having played with the Mark II rules, I can still see how the changes have resulted in an even quicker, more accessible and more balanced game–and to properly implement the new rules, it’s clear that some cards will have to be tweaked, hence the new campaign. It’s great for folks like you or I, who missed out on the first campaign and are getting a chance to start out with the best version of the game, with improved manufacturing, quicker rules and sturdier boxes for the expansions; it’s also great for return backers, who can get only what they need for a handful of dollars. No matter which camp you fall into, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with any aspect of The Agents, from its deceptively simple mechanics to its built-to-last components and stylish art.
Well, I’ve given you all the intel you need. The clock is ticking…this is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Make the Agency proud.
Pledge for The Agents Return before time runs out on Wednesday, May 21!
