Coup is designed to be a short, simple game of bluffing and conspiracy. Each player has two hidden characters with special abilities and using these abilities, attempts to remove the characters the other player's control. And, since nobody knows who your characters are, you can bluff and act as if you are any character at any time. Of course, if you get caught, things won't work out so well. At no point in the game will you every know which character's the other player's hold and every play is a gamble. They call this kind of game a "social deduction" game as it is somewhat possible to infer who might be what character based on how they (and everybody else) is playing.
The games tend to go quickly and I enjoyed them, even though I lost most of the time. And you can't beat the feeling of lying through your teeth and getting away with it. The worst part of the game is that players are eliminated one at a time; if you're the first to lose in a six-player game, you'll have a bit of sitting to do. Not too long, though, as the games are over in about 15 minutes, usually.
Space Cadets Dice Duel is a follow-on game to the original Space Cadets, a cooperative game. In that game, each player has a role on the ship and to contribute to the success of the mission, he/she must complete his/her own mini-game. Space Cadets Dice Duel is similar in that each player has their own role but rather than a mini-game each rolls a special set of dice and rather than all working on one team cooperatively, two teams play against each other.
There are lots of dice and lots of rolling. There are no turns per-se and the only cost to an unfavorable roll is that the dice end up being rolled again. Each team ends up with multiple players rolling their dice simultaneously in an attempt to position their ship into advantageous firing positions or avoiding and preventing their opponent from doing the same. The game is almost literally non-stop; when our pilot took a break mid-game to grab a snack, we were sitting ducks just hoping the other team wouldn't be able to get their act together.
I was attracted to this game because it seemed like it might be simple enough for many non-board-gamers to understand and exciting enough for them to enjoy. I haven't been able to really test it in such a scenario but I will say my more strategic and nerdy board game group did enjoy it. We picked it up quickly and the we were able to play three games in about 90 minutes. Its more of a tactical game than strategic but we got good enough in a short amount of time that we got past the dice-rolling random-ness and were trying to execute specific movements and attacks. I suspect it will make a repeat appearance at game night.
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