Quick Look: GAME NAME…
Designer: Ian Allen, Glenn Cochon
Artists: Ivan Zigaran
Publisher: Gameflo
Year Published: Currently a Kickstart campaign, expected to deliver this year
No. of Players: 2
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: Average of 30 minutes.
Find more info on Kickstarter.com
From the Publisher:
PickUp is a fast-paced basketball deck-building game that will wow you with it’s authentic basketball gameplay and 40+ visually stunning characters! The game puts you in the roles of GM, coach, and player, interweaving chance and strategy. In an exciting head-to-head showdown, each team starts with the same roster of players. Teams can then use their players on the court or trade them for better, more specialized players to build out their roster.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided the prototype copy of PickUp: Fast-paced Basketball Card Game. The opinions expressed in the review are completely my own.
Review:
Overview:
Rules & Setup:
In a standard game of PickUp, you win by being the first team to score 40 points. Each team starts with 5 cards – (3) Rookies and (2) Veterans.
Shuffle the 5 cards and place them face down to form your Lineup. Each round, you’ll draw the first 3 cards in your Lineup and can place those cards on the 3v3 court.
The teams use a common Trade Deck made of unique players to improve their teams. The top five cards are turned face up and used as a shared Trade Block. You can add a card from the Trade Block to your team by trading in your players on the court. The cards you add and trade with go straight to your Bench.
You can trade for 40 players as they make their way unto the Trade Block. Each card has key attributes, and the player value let’s you know how the card compares to the rest of the deck. You can also trade for a Front Office Deal Card.
When your Lineup is out of cards, shuffle your Bench and it will become your new Lineup. This way you can use all the new cards you picked up from the Trade Block.
End your turn by choosing a player on the court to shoot with and rolling the dice. If the roll matches one of the shooting players’ Shot Zones, then the shot counts and the defender is sent to the Bench. But be careful, if the shot misses, then the shooter is sent to the Bench.
Scoring is the shooter’s Offensive Rating minus the opponent’s Defensive Rating so make sure to get your players into the right positions on the court!
Theme and Mechanics:
Basketball and Deck-Building + dice rolling, what more can I say?
Gameplay:
Let me preface this portion by saying I only played this game with my 12 year old son who I just introduced to the sport of Basketball last week and my 7 year old daughter.
If you’ve played any deck-building games then the concept of using your cards to trade for new players and deal cards comes rather naturally. So that was good. Know where and when to place your Lineup and having your opponents Lineup was a bit dicey to me. Minus when exactly this is done, I felt I had a good grasp on it by the time I was ready to meet my 7 year old daughter for a Pickup game of Basketball. I guess I’ll need a little bit of clarification from the publishers on this point.
Shooting came next. This is where the dice come into play. depending upon which player is shooting you have to roll certain #’s in order to score. If you remember to use your players special abilities this is where strategy can come into play as there are certain players in which
you can shoot with another player if someone misses or keep shooting until you miss if your 1st roll was a seven. This was a good thing for me when I played my son as it lead to my victory. But, it almost lead to my demise with my daughter.
Rules/Things we consistently forgot to do:
We kept forgetting to return the deal cards to their spot on the table after using them. We weren’t sure who got to place their cards 1st, I think this would depend upon turn order, but I’m not certain.
Artwork and Components:
Note: I played with a prototype of the game, things could change. If you know me, you know that I’m not a fan of tuck-boxes. The cards felt to be of very good material. I would LOVE to see a neoprene mat be available through the Kickstarter or for purchase after as I’m a sucker for them. The art seemed pretty good on most of the cards. It kept my daughter buying cards for well over 15 minutes or so it seemed…
The Good:
I enjoyed seeing the different players and their special abilities.
The Other:
Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I only played with 2 kids, but that rolling 7’s your 1st shot and getting to shoot until you missed seemed a bit overpowering to me.
Final Thoughts:
I’m still just as ecstatic that they combined 2 of my loves into one thing. I can’t wait to get it to the table against my wife (Even though she’ll cream me) and other gamers, especially some who might be basketball fans like myself! If I hadn’t been given a prototype to review and knew I’d love it like I do, we’d be backing it on Kickstarter!
If you’ve ever been to a live basketball game not on the tabletop you’ve probably noticed that the digital scoreboard displayed the team’s impressive score, electrifying the crowd with every point earned.
Players Who Like: Deck-Building, and Basketball should give it a try!
PickUp: Fast-paced Basketball Card Game will be live on KICKSTARTER until Fri, May 28 2021 9:00 AM PDT, and has surpassed it’s funding goal of $20,000.
Find out more at HERE.
Lake Leafty – Owner
Lake was a pharmacy tech in just about every facet you can think of including as a veteran of the United States Air Force. He’s also a husband to his wonderful wife with whom he has been blessed to be the father of 5 great children. Due to circumstances beyond his control he got thrown into the world of Tabletop gaming. As an overachiever he couldn’t just sit there quietly playing games. So he started podcasting about games in May of 2017. Ever since then has been slowly trying to grow his evil regime starting with The Giveaway Geek and now EBG.
See Lake’s reviews and interviews HERE.
