Tabletop Tuesday: Unstable Unicorns

Hey all, Sam and David here today.

Welcome back to Tabletop Tuesday; we have missed you! So, some of you might have noticed that last week we had a Video Game review on Tuesday instead of a Tabletop review/discussion. That was purely my (Sam’s) fault. Our work and sleep schedules were thrown out of whack a bit and I didn’t even realize that we missed our usual post until like 8pm on Tuesday. Thankfully, David jumped in and wrote up his thoughts on Diablo IV so far.

I didn’t get distracted and forgetful this week though, so we do have another Tabletop Card Game to talk about with you today. We’re getting really excited because we’re just a few weeks away from Gen Con now. We have our badges, I have my tickets to a bunch of panels I plan to go to, our hotel is all booked, and we’re starting to look at vendors and figure out which booths we absolutely *have* to visit. Don’t worry, we’ll have a Gen Con Plans post up in a couple weeks so we can talk about everything.

Obviously, since we’re getting in a Gen Con mood, we’re definitely in the mood to talk about all kinds of Tabletop Games as well…board games, card games, dice games, and TTRPGs…it’s all fair game here on Tabletop Tuesday. Some weeks we’ll sort of review a game that we’ve played, and other weeks we’ll talk about gaming accessories that have been useful for leveling up our gaming experience.

Let’s jump into today’s game!

Build a Unicorn Army. Betray Your Friends. Unicorns are Your Friends Now.Unstable Unicorns is a strategic card game that will destroy your friendships but in a good way.The game was one of Kickstarter’s top 100 most backed projects of all time and has sold over a million copies worldwide.Unstable Unicorns won the 2019 People’s Choice Award for Toy of the Year.

Build a Unicorn Army. Betray your friends. Unicorns are your friends now.

Unstable Unicorns is a strategic card game about everyone’s two favorite things: Destruction & Unicorns. The goal of Unstable Unicorns is to be the first person to collect seven Unicorns in your play area, also known as your Stable. Use Magic, Instant, Upgrade, and Downgrade cards to hinder your opponents’ progress and destroy their Unicorns. But beware — each player has all of these tools at their disposal as well, and you may just find your plans foiled by a well-played “Neigh!” card. Get ready to destroy your friendships…but in a good way.

In 2017, Unstable Unicorns became one of the top 100 most backed Kickstarter projects of all time, and in 2019, the game won the People’s Choice Award for Toy of the Year. We are super proud to have created a game that allows people to share meaningful experiences while actively working to screw each other over.

Build a Unicorn Army

The goal of Unstable Unicorns is simple: be the first player to collect 7 Unicorns. Where things get tricky is when you realize your opponents are trying to do the same thing while working to destroy you.

Play Upgrades and Downgrades

You can also play Upgrade cards to beef up your defenses against your opponents, and you can play Downgrade cards to halt their progress (and probably infuriate them).

Use Your Magic

Your magic cards have powerful one-time use effects that can help tip the odds in your favor. Some give you benefits like extra cards, while others are utterly destructive to other players.

Stop Other Players With a Neigh!

Not so fast! Neigh cards can be played instantly to prevent someone else from playing a card. Keep these tucked up your sleeve until the perfect opportunity to foil your opponents!

Our Thoughts

We’ve played this game quite a few times now, and it is great. We do recommend playing this with at least 4 players. Yes, the rules say you can play with 2-8, but with two people it limits your options for targeting with Downgrades and Neighs, and so it’s not as much fun (we also recommend this for games like Munchkin, because any game that has backstabbing as a game mechanic needs to be played with more than two people, even when the rules say you can play with two).

The artwork is adorable, as is expected from Unstable Games. You may recognize the artwork from TeeTurtle shirts, and that’s because it’s the same company. The both of us have a large number of TeeTurtle shirts but only two of their games so far (Unstable Unicorns and Happy Little Dinosaurs)…we need to get the others (Casting Shadows, Tic Tac K.O., Here to Slay, and Wrong Party). Perhaps that will be something to look into at Gen Con.

These games are all pretty easy to play, and mostly involve each player trying to help themselves get closer to victory while making things harder for their opponents.

So obviously, if you’re playing a game like this, you need to make sure you’re playing with the right group of people…if someone is going to get worked up and upset because someone else played a downgrade on them that messed up their plans and such….either this game isn’t right for them, or they need to not get so worked up about things.

When you’re with the right gaming group, then even losing can be a fun experience. It’s really fun to have someone setting up this really epic play that’s going to seriously benefit them and then tossing down a “Neigh!” card to stop it. Honestly, it’s pretty much always hilarious (although maybe not for the person being Neighed).

Oh, and as can be seen in the image above, there are expansions for this game that give more unicorns, more upgrades and downgrades, and more magic to make the game even more ridiculous and fun.

Also, we should point out that there actually is a NSFW edition, for those who don’t mind their games being a little more *adult*.

We actually need to play this one again sometime soon; it’s been a little while. But it is a fun game, easy to learn the rules, and easy to just start playing.

Well, that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. We appreciate you all so much, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.