If the potential to assist players in committing suicide by cop was the primary factor in the assessment of board games, Ca$h ‘N Guns would be the greatest ever made. Alas that is not the case, so I am compelled to express the depths of which I despise the embarrassment of its experience. This is a game that’s appeal hinges entirely on a single flimsy gimmick: pointing foam guns at each other. There is nothing else to say about it. If you think pointing foam guns at your friends for a half hour sounds like a hoot, you will probably like Ca$h ‘N Guns. Personally, I think it sounds like hell (apparently not always though, something made me buy the game after all…). Maybe if the game built around this gimmick wasn’t shamefully rudimentary and uninteresting I’d feel differently, but I mean of course it is — this is a game about pointing foam guns at each other. Ca$h ‘N Guns is a high concept, low effort flub that fails in every way to be expressive of its theme and has so little going for it I’m surprised it even exists, much less has a second edition.
The first time my friends and I played Ca$h ‘N Guns was such a dismal experience I’m reluctant to drudge up its memory. Every single person at the table loathed it; we didn’t even finish the game. To this date, it’s one of the most viscerally negative reactions to a new game I’ve seen. But why? What about it is so bad? The bargain bin funny paper artwork is atrocious, sure, but you can hardly blame such a reaction on poor illustrations. So I dedicated a little thought to it, and it now seems to me that the reasons for my group’s mutual repulsion are two-fold. One, the decisions in the game are essentially meaningless. And two, sitting around a table pointing foam guns at people is an unfathomably lame way to spend an evening. Permit me to get mathematical for a moment, so I can take these two variables and easily define this problem as an equation: Meaninglessness + Lameness = Existential Misery.
Okay, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves (and perhaps a bit dramatic). We haven’t even talked about the game’s system or mechanics yet. Ca$h ‘N Guns is a party game of sorts played over a series of identical rounds. At the beginning of these rounds, random loot cards are drawn from a deck and laid face up in the center of the table so everyone knows what’s at stake. Players then secretly select whether or not they are going to be firing their gun by playing either a “Click” or a “Bang!” card face down in front of them. This decision is meaningless because neither option helps or hurts the player choosing it. Shooting someone else does not stop them from shooting you. The most strategy you could possibly glean from this decision is to play a “Bang!” if you are planning on shooting whoever you think is winning.
Next, the player currently acting as “The Godfather” — a contested-over player role with certain advantages — counts to three and everyone aims their gun at the opponent of their choosing. This is also meaningless because you have no idea who anyone else is going to go after, and even if you did there’s no reason to target anyone specifically because there’s no advantage to you regardless of who you choose. Again, you could go after who you think is winning, but that’s about it. Even if it DID matter who you went after, “The Godfather” can force one player per round to change targets. Of course, it doesn’t matter who the player then changes to; as previously stated, this decision is meaningless.
Hopefully whoever “The Godfather” is likes counting to three because now they must do so again; this time players have the chance to bow out of the round by lowering their gun so they don’t get shot. Afterward, all players still aiming at their targets reveal the cards they played earlier. If they played a “Click”, nothing happens. If they played a “Bang!”, their target is removed from the round and takes a wound. Three wounds and you are eliminated from the game, which sucks (though let it be known, I am not nearly as against player elimination as many other reviewers). As mentioned earlier, all cards trigger simultaneously. Two players aiming at each other that both play a “Bang!” both get shot.
Finally, the players left standing divvy up the loot by choosing cards from the center of the table one a time, starting with “The Godfather.” Prizes include cash, diamonds, paintings, first aid kits to heal wounds, additional “Bang!” cards, and the ability to become “The Godfather”. There is a pitiable attempt at set collection here with the diamond and painting cards, but there’s essentially no way to strategize around it. You have so little control over what loot you end up getting, I don’t even know why they bothered. Probably to create the illusion that at least one player choice matters. Anyway, after the loot is all gone new cards are drawn and another round begins. The player with the most money at the end of the 8th round wins.
Hopefully by this point it’s clear why Ca$h ‘N Guns got the initial reaction from my group that it did. We did eventually play it a second time and manage to finish. Everybody still loathed it. We tried using the optional player powers at some point as well. I don’t know how, but it made the game even worse. Truth be told, the only time I’ve had even the slightest amount of fun with this game is when we played it with squirt guns filled with liquor. Of course, the homoerotic thrill of blasting whiskey down my friends’ throats was thousands of times more entertaining than the game itself.
The real tragedy behind Ca$h ‘N Guns is its complete misuse of a great theme. A game about Mexican standoffs should be tense, tactical, and have a proper narrative. There should be trading, stealing, negotiations, alliances, betrayals, hidden information, press your luck mechanics, something that taps into the suspense and drama of such a theme. What do we have instead? A wannabe party game with 8 identical rounds of chaotic monotony. Take away the dumb foam guns and no one would think twice about such a forgettable design. There is more fun to be had buying a crappy Nerf pistol and walking around your apartment for a half hour firing suction-cup darts at random objects. At least then the shame of time poorly wasted would be private and not shared between 4-8 people.
Ca$h ‘N Guns gets a rating of ONE out of FIVE, indicating it is WORTHLESS.