GOSU is an excellent card game that plays like a CCG, but requires nothing but what is in the box.
The game has both direct and indirect conflict between players, and is essentially about building your tableau of cards, which represent your army.
The tableau is a 5 × 3 grid, 5 cards across and 3 cards high. Starting out empty, you can play different goblins to fill your tableau. Level 1 goblins, the “Bakutos”, go in the bottom row – some of them have effects that happen instantly when played, others occur when activated and others when mutated. Level 2 goblins, Heroes, are all unique cards and bring powerful effects to the table and then the Leader, Level 3 goblins, generally bring overall effects that can affect both player such as alternate winning conditions.
The idea is to get three victory points from winning the great battles that occur after each round. The winner is person who has the highest valued goblin army. However, winning has its disadvantages, as it only incites the losing goblins to fight harder and gain extra bonuses!
The game is simple yet deep, and not only involves managing your own tableau, but also your own hand of cards and your opponents. Play too many goblins, or the wrong ones at the wrong time, and you'll end up with no cards left for that round, having to pass. Mutate too many goblins, and likewise, you'll be out of cards quick. However, if you save all your cards, your opponent can easily amass a large army that you'll find difficult to catch up with.
The rules are simple (each turn a player can do one thing – play a card, activate a card, mutate a card or spend an activation token to take a card).
Some card effects allow you to destroy cards from the opponents tableau, trap cards, rendering them useless for the rest of the round and the great battle, draw cards, or make your opponent discard cards.
The goblins come from 5 different “races”, represented by colours, and each has a different focus – Alpha Goblins (Green) are about strength and gaining strength from your existing goblins, allowing you to draw more cards over time. Dark Goblins (Black) are about trapping opponents cards and zombie mutation (meaning you can mutate into a goblin that has already been discarded). Meka Goblins (Blueish) have a lot of machinery and can give some great victory point bonuses, Fire Goblins (Red) are all about destroying cards and the last group are the White Goblins (can't remember their name sorry) who have a lot of abilities to draw cards and rearrange tableaus.
If you like CCG's but find the investment to be offputting, GOSU is the game for you.
The artwork is excellent, the theme is well done and really integrates with the game, and the game is quick and fast with two players. While the game can play up to four, I cannot review the game for more than two players.