Quick Impressions: Bang!

It had been a few years since I'd last played Spaghetti Western: the Card Game (not the official subtitle), but in a weekend full of gaming that also included San Juan and tons of Ascension, Bang! was a great way to end with a... high note.

Bang is absolutely, positively, not a strategy game. Instead, it's a "social engineering" game probably most similar to Mafia in that each player has a secret role, balancing the need to accomplish his game goal with his desire to remain hidden in that role. The "good guys," the Sheriff and Deputies, win when the Sheriff is alive at the end of the game. The "bad guys," the Outlaws, win when the Sheriff dies. And the Renegade wins when he outlasts everyone else.

The "game" in Bang! isn't one of optimization decisions and strategic development like you'd see in a classic Euro game. Instead, it's almost a "purer" game dictated by game theory and trying to determine the correct relationships among a group of (presumably) rational actors. There's plenty of chance in Bang!--lots of card-drawing and a random assignment of a "character" that grants you a small special ability--but it's nearly impossible to construct a strategy around any of them. The cards are instead tools to help you survive and to take down your enemies, once you've figured out in the real game exactly who your enemies are. For such a high-variance game, surprisingly seldom is Bang! decided by luck alone; more often, the game is won by whoever had the keenest social insight and stuck to their role the best.

As is pretty obvious from the artwork and other production value, Bang! is a lighthearted game, as might be expected from a card game set in the Wild West that's about shooting your friends. At least half of the fun in Bang! comes from the silliness of having to say phrases like "I'm banging Ryan," and most of the rest is in affecting terrible Italian accents and reading the game rules and card text aloud. Add in a dash of political incorrectness (let's just say the "Indians" card doesn't exactly refer to the subcontinent) and you've got a nicely hilarious theme to mitigate what could otherwise be pretty serious psychological warfare.

Bang! works best as a party game where all the players are comfortable enough with each other not to be offended when the bullets start flying. It shines in games with enough players (six or more seems best) to make the position-based mechanics mean something. And though the run time can vary widely with what cards are drawn, at an average of 30 or 40 minutes, it's easy to get in multiple games so everyone can experience being on both sides of the law.

4-7 players (best with 6+), 30-45 minutes, $20 at a game shop or $19 on Amazon.