I’m not sure if The Grizzled is supposed to be fun or not, but it isn’t. Being someone that largely prefers games that are fun to games that are not fun, this puts me somewhat in opposition to it. Let me clarify that this has nothing to do with its morose WWI theme or attempt at evoking the abject despair of trench warfare. When I say “fun” I suppose what I’m really saying is “enjoyable” or “interesting”. In this sense, undeniably horrific films such as Idi i smotri or Schindler’s List are still experiences that I would qualify as “fun”. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that The Grizzled is unenjoyable and uninteresting. Rather, it is clumsy, confusing, and a failure at every level in immersing you in its theme.
The Grizzled‘s rulebook begins with an “Intention Note” which illustrates the designers’ goal with the game: essentially, to emphasize the personal struggle of WWI soldiers to emotionally endure its hardship by forging intense bonds with their compatriots. Unfortunately to me, this note reads like an attempt at preempting criticism because the designers knew their game wasn’t very good. Then again, I am a cynical sort and tend to see examples of this sort of creative insincerity pretty much everywhere. What I can say for certain is that any rulebook that includes sentences like “At the same level as literature and cinema, games are a cultural medium which is undeniably participative.” is impossible to take seriously. What a clumsy sentence. What does it even mean? Games are at the same level as literature and cinema in what way? That they are as culturally important as literature and cinema? That they can achieve the same level of expressiveness and aesthetic complexity? Furthermore, in what way are literature and cinema on the same level? Even if you disregard that mess, we also have games are a “cultural medium” (whatever that is) that is “undeniably participative”. What? Are you just saying that you participate in a game when you play it? Why even bother saying something so obvious? Ugh, what a headache. Anyhow, the reason I’m harping on this one sentence is that I find it to be a perfect microcosm of the game itself: a meager attempt at profundity betrayed by its complete lack of depth, nuance, or insight.
Okay, let me actually talk about the game now instead of acting like I’m grading an art theory essay. The Grizzled is a cooperative card game taking place in the trenches of WWI. Much like the great war, it is a game of attrition. Two decks of cards are placed in the center of the table. At the bottom of one deck is a “Peace” card, at the bottom of the other is a “Monument” card. The goal of the game is to get to the Peace card and empty out all players’ hands before the Monument card is uncovered. To do this, players go on a series of “Missions”. At the beginning of each mission, the leader announces an Intensity level (typical between 1 and 5) and deals that many cards from the Peace pile to each player. Players then take turns playing cards and hoping for the best. Cards come in 2 categories: “Threats” and “Hard Knocks”. Threats come in six different varieties and are placed in the center of the table when played. Three matching threats immediately ends the mission in failure. Some threat cards also trigger “Traps” that force a random card draw which may add additional threats, acting as a push-your-luck mechanism when the going gets tough (which is practically always). The other category, Hard Knocks, are persistent negative effects that players take on themselves which have all sorts of obnoxious effects that make completing missions harder.
Aside from playing cards, players have three other options: 1) using their single-use good luck charm to discard a threat from the center of the table, 2) spending a speech token (acquired by mission leaders at the end of their missions) to announce a threat type of choice and allow all other players to discard a threat of that type from their hand, or 3) withdrawing and secretly selecting a “Support” tile from their supply to indicate which player they are giving their moral support to that round. A mission is completed “successfully” when all players have withdrawn (which doesn’t really make sense). If a mission is successful, all threats played to the center of the table are discarded. But if a mission ends in failure, all played threats get shuffled back into the Peace pile — which is a disaster pretty much impossible to recover from most of the time. Either way, players then reveal their played support tiles and if a single player gets more support than any other they get a bonus of either getting their good luck charm back or removing two of their hard knocks. If any player has 4 or more hard knocks at this point in the game, it results in an immediate loss. Players then count the cards still remaining in their hands, and transfer this number of cards from the Monument pile to the Peace pile, bringing them that much closer to defeat. Then another mission begins with a new leader.
The mechanics in The Grizzled do not mesh well together and the game feels very arbitrary and disjointed as a result. Between the random card draws from traps, speech tokens that are basically Go Fish, pointless hidden information like the support tiles (hidden information in co-op games almost always creates an unavoidable “try not to cheat” conundrum), and negative effects from Hard Knocks that constrain player choice and introduce even more randomization, anything resembling legitimate player agency is effectively choked from the design. Your turns largely play themselves: play a threat card if it’s safe to do so, otherwise play a hard knock, otherwise retreat. There is some consideration to be had around utilizing good luck charms and speech tokens, but nothing that really requires much tactical thought. Winning or losing the game feels largely the same and there’s not much you can really do to perform well outside of not doing obviously idiotic things like playing a trap when you are maxed out on all threat types. I suppose you could do some probability calculations by tracking how many of each threat type have been discarded to maximize the potential of your speech tokens or minimize the risk of a trap, but that is far from enough to make for a compelling game.
“The soldiers of WWI didn’t have agency in the war either! That’s the whole point of the game! You can’t fault a game for accurately reflecting its subject matter!” I hear you cry. Sorry, but comparing the emotional distress endured by the participants of The Great War to trying to stop three things from matching in a card game is beyond ludicrous. We are not trapped in the trenches of Central Europe; the hopelessness and boredom you feel during a game of The Grizzled can be easily remedied by playing something good. A game should be enjoyable and interesting, no matter the theme. It should be “fun”. Game designers must attempt to find the proper genre and mechanics to be as expressive of their subject as possible while still creating an appropriately enjoyable social atmosphere for its players. In the case of The Grizzled, I think the obvious choice would be a tabletop RPG as it is ostensibly more interested in the personal aspect of warfare than the more rigidly defined military component. A quote on the topic of board games from the aforementioned “Intention Note” reads: “There are no subjects it can’t broach,” and I agree. I love The Grizzled‘s theme and its nostalgic artwork by the late French cartoonist Tignous (tragically killed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre), but the game itself is a disservice to its inspiration. There may be no subjects that games can’t broach, but there are plenty that simple, crummy card games are guaranteed to fail to.
The Grizzled gets a rating of TWO out of FIVE, indicating it is NOT RECOMMENDED.