Capsule Collector
They used to be more a common sight in corner shops and arcades but you still occasionally come across capsule toy dispensers: coin-operated machines that dispense a random toy inside a plastic capsule. They invariably have a glass top in which you can see all the tempting toys on offer but you don't know which one you'll get until you insert your coin, turn the lever and open the sealed capsule that emerges. That's the background to Korea Boardgames' Capsule Collector, designed by Joohyun, where the 2–4 players are collecting capsule cards for the points values of the toys on their flip side. You're drafting capsule cards and placing them out in a 4 x 4 grid. The game ends when any player fills their grid but players only score for the capsules in their grid that have been flipped to reveal the value of the toy 'inside'.
The prominent number on every capsule (8–18) is not its scoring value, it's the number of toys there are in that colour. Within every numbered colour set there will always be three toys value 5 and five at value 3 but all the others will have a value of 1. That means that with a capsule numbered 8, you're guaranteed to get a toy value 3 or 5 but in, for example, a capsule numbered 16 you have only a 50% chance of getting a toy worth more than 1.
Capsules are shuffled and initially four are placed out in a market display, number side up, for players to draft; two more are added at the start of every player's turn. You draft all of any one number and you put them in your 4 x 4 grid. The number of capsules you take determines which action you take from the five tiles above the market display. These variously allow you to flip a capsule in your grid, switch the position of tiles in your grid, flip all the adjacent capsules of the same number in a row and column and take another turn. Instead of taking your tile action you can collect a wooden mallet token that you can use at the end to 'open' (flip) a capsule. We were puzzled by the mallets; what sort of monster would use a hammer to smash open a plastic capsule?
Capsule Collector is a light easy-to-play drafting game. You have to place capsule cards in your grid in the order in which you draft them so players need to weigh up not just the number of capsule cards they can draw and the probability of them being of high value but also the position they'll sit in in the grid and the tile action that can be applied so that your capsules get flipped and so will score. That's more than you are usually juggling in push-your-luck games but it still shouldn't cause anyone any AP ('analysis paralysis'): all our plays of Capsule Collector at Board's Eye View have come in at around 10-20 minutes (5 minutes per player).
There are no solo rules in the box but we reckon you could easily play Capsule Collector as a solitaire game, trying to maximise your best score.
