Designer: Wilfried & Marie Fort
Artist: Oksana Dmitrienko & Anastasia Voropina
Publisher: Cryptozoic Entertainment
BoardHoarders Weight Complexity: 2/6
Wallet is a quick playing group card game that scales up to 7 players making it an excellent filler style party game for larger playgroups.
Claim your identity quickly from the 'Wallet' or you could find yourself implemented in aiding the Big Boss escape.
Players have been invited to the hottest party in town. Everything seemed fine till rumours of a police raid caused the mysterious host to flee the scene in his swanky private helicopter. Suddenly everyone's character is under scrutiny. Why exactly are you at this party anyway?
Thankfully your host dropped his wallet in all the chaos and it seems he may have just provided you with a ticket outta there..
In Wallet assuming the right ID may just let you ‘cash in’ and make the most of this odd party situation ………. and you’ve been to some weird parties.
In case it isn’t already clear, know the whole package fits in said ‘Wallet’ making it extremely portable.
Summary
A game of Wallet will last 3 rounds. Total. Card play will be immediately familiar to most players with the majority of plays involving exchanging cards in turn order using a combination of 4 pre-set actions. After each round players will each have a chance to prove their identity
Draw a card, Play a card, Buy a card or finally Flip a card. Nice and easy…What can go wrong?
Gameplay
Your goal is to collect a hand of cards that all work together providing you with a bona fide identity and hopefully scoring you a cash reward on the side.
As you might expect, the Wallet itself forms a sort of draw deck with players rummaging through its contents on each turn. This works great with the theme of the game as players desperately dive into the wallet in an attempt to make a run for freedom. Meanwhile tension is ever mounting as more and more timer cards are flipped..
3 of Wallets main actions involve the games main feature – drawing or placing cards in the quirky Wallet
Along with the standard actions, round to round each player will have some variable player powers that can give you some real advantages in either drawing new cards or flipping the rules in your favour for that round.
Round length is tracked with 6 thematic hourglass cards. As they are flipped they show more of the game's cool art style. Some hard-nosed detectives rushing to the rooftop to put the screws on...
The timer cards provide the real tension in the game. You know one is guaranteed to flip once all players have played an action. But you can sometimes see a player willingly flip a timer card as an action. All of a sudden you may have to just make a fist of it with your current hand as the round quickly draws to an end. This can often lead to much laughter as the rush strategy backfires on a player that has underestimated the opposition. After all, no one wants to come under the suspicion of the Chief of Police and all innocents will have a chance of winning those precious victory coins. Speaking of victory conditions, these are all clearly explained in the easy to understand rulebook.
After the 3rd and final round of play all victory coins are revealed, counted and the winner is declared and offered their freedom!
Conclusion
Fans of lighter Filler, Party or Social games will find a lot to enjoy in Wallet. The physical wallet gives the game a unique feel and it’s great that the whole thing packs up into it for taking 'Wallet' just about anywhere..
Wallet truly adds something different to any games collection. Buy Wallet