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Freak Shop box art
2016 Ranked #7,292

Freak Shop

A tactical trading card game in which mansion owners swap horrors to build the most frightening collection. Fair trades grow quantity, while good deals improve value and scoring objectives guide each exchange.

Card Game Set Collection Trading

Players

2-5

Play time

15-30 min

Age

8+

Complexity

1.31/5

Rating

6.55

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.1/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Game description from the publisher: The tourist season is fast approaching. As a mansion owner, you've come to the Freak Shop to stock your mansion with the horrors that will guarantee that your visitors have a most unforgettable stay!

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Game description from the publisher: The tourist season is fast approaching. As a mansion owner, you've come to the Freak Shop to stock your mansion with the horrors that will guarantee that your visitors have a most unforgettable stay! Freak Shop is a short and simple tactical card game for 2 to 5 players that relies on a tricky trade mechanism. All cards in the game represent the frightening things, with values going from 1 to 10, that any real good freaky mansion owner must have in their collection. Players begin with four cards in their mansion (personal area), and cards are available in the Freak Shop (common zone at the center of the table). Each player's aim is to have their mansion worth the most fear points when the Freak Shop closes, with points coming from a combination of three randomly chosen objectives. To achieve this, they try to make the best trades between cards currently in their mansion and cards available in the Shop so that their collection grows in both quantity and value, while also best fitting the objectives. On your turn, you make one single trade between cards currently in your mansion and cards available in the Shop. To do that, you have the choice between two options: Sell at the fair price => Trade any number of cards totaling a given value for any number of cards worth exactly the same total value. Get a good deal => Exchange a series of cards of one single value with a series of the same number of cards of another single value. Throughout a game of Freak Shop, you try to take the best trade opportunities each turn to first make your mansion grow, then ensure that you can end with the collection worth the most points. Good deals help to get higher value cards, and fair price trades help to get more cards in your mansion. As everything is about trades, a central strategic point is to determine which cards are better used for optimizing new trades instead of being kept for scoring!

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Editions

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
3–5
Play time
15–30 min
Age
8+
Complexity
1.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Henri Kermarrec

Artists

1
Miguel Coimbra

Publishers

3
Catch Up Games DMZ Games Fabrika Igr

Linked items

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