I tried to make a great Coup pun in the title, I really tried. It’s so close, the “view” in review sounds kinda like Coup. But it’s not close enough, I just couldn’t make it work. I feel like i’ve failed as a review. It would have been so cool if I suceede… wait a second, cool and Coup can become Coupl. You’re welcome. And you know what else you should be thanking me for? Brining the game Coup to your attention.

Because Coup is one of the best games i’ve played, and it’s $10(less if you find it on sale). That’s one of the cheapest (good) games you can find on the market. It’s also really quite simple, the main thing you need to learn is all the powers of the cards. I actually really like it when games do this because you can start playing with just a few rules and learn the rest of the rules you need to know from the cards you draw. And because it’s so simple to explain, I will explain the whole game.

Each player gets two cards and two nebulous money things (we’ll just call them NMTs). This is all the setup you need and then you can start playing. And those two cards you got, you’ll never draw another card for the whole rest of the game. Then on you’re turn you can take a basic action or a character card specific action.

The basic actions are: taking a 1 NMT income, taking a 2 NMT action called foreign aid, Or staging a Coup (hey that’s the name of the game), in which you pay 7 NMTs to force someone to discard one of their cards. Then their are each of the character card actions which give you the really good powers: the duke can let you take 3 NMTs, but can be blocked by another duke. The captain can let you steal two coins from another player, but can be blocked by another captain or an ambassador. The ambassador can take two cards from the deck and replace itself with one. The assassin can, for 3 NMTs can “assassinate” another player forcing another player to discard a card, but can be blocked by the contessa. The contessa blocks assassinations, that’s all she does, no really that’s all she does.

That’s almost all the rules, there is one more piece of spice to add to the soup that is Coup, and it’s a delicious creamy spice that makes the meal. And that spice is the challenge mechanic. You see, you can play any character card even if you don’t have it. But if someone calls you out on not having the card, you are forced to reveal the card. If you told the truth you’re given a new card to replace that one and you’re opponent is forced to discard a card, but if you were the liar then you are forced to discard a card. Lose all your cards from any means, and you’re outta the game. Ok, ok, I know not everyone likes player elimination, it can end up having a player doing nothing well the other players play out the rest of the game. But in coup a game is 5 to 10 minutes, so it really isn’t a problem.

The challenge mechanic turns a very basic card game into a beautiful box of bluffing. If you don’t like lying to you’re friends, this game will make you love it. There’s something magical about the moment between when a player challenges and a player reveals whether they were right or not, it’s a tense moment every single player at the table can feel, even if they aren’t directly involved in the conflict. And though the game is small it can still be fun for hardcore board game players. I recommend Coup to anyone, it’s a great game for a reasonable price and it’s deceptively easy to make a pun out of.