Gnoming A Round

What’s smaller than a game of golf? Mini-golf, of course. What’s small than that? Gnome-sized mini-golf! That’s the story behind Gnome A Round. Rowan, a restless gnome, built a mini-golf course at Stottingham Shire.

The game is reasonably straightforward. Each player starts with a 3×3 grid of face-down cards in front of them, flipping two faceup to start. On each player’s turn, they start by drawing a new card from either the draw pile or either of the two discard piles. If they want to keep it, they may replace any face-up or face-down card in their grid. Finally, they discard the card they drew, if they didn’t choose to keep it, or the card they replaced if they did keep it. The exception to this is if they replace a face-down card and that (now-previously) face-down Positive value card that matches another Positive value card already revealed (including the one just played. When that happens they may choose to use that matching card to replace another card in their grid. If they replace another facedown card and that card ALSO matches another revealed Positive card, they can do this again. This is called Bouncing. You can never Bounce a Negative, Hazard, or Mulligan card, but there is no limit to the number of times you can bounce matching Positive Cards.

When any player replaces their last face-down card, the other player each gets one final turn, before all facedown cards are flipped over where they were. Do this for three rounds and move on to scoring.

Positive Cards that are in a matching set of three identical cards in a vertical or horizontal row are worth Negative points equal to their face value. Negative Cards are always worth their face value and Positive Cards not in a set of three are worth their face value. Mulligan Cards are worth always 0 points but can be used to complete a set. If you get stuck with a Hazard Card in your grid at the end it is worth a +10 point penalty. If the first player out has the lowest score they are awarded a -5 point bonus, if they are not the lowest they get a +5 penalty. Remember, the theme here is golf, so the lowest score wins.

Gnoming A Round is a fun little game. The golf theme didn’t really hit home for me. Wait, that’s the wrong metaphor… The golf theme didn’t really hit a hole in 1 for me… No, actually the wrong metaphor works better since my point is the theme isn’t there. I get it, nine cards represent nine holes, lowest score wins. But that’s really where it ends. The art is wonderful, and yes, the gnomes ARE playing mini-golf in ridiculous situations. But honestly, you might have to stop and look before you realize that. That having been said, I’m not sure I care. The game is FUN and the fact that it doesn’t lean on the theme as a crutch is legitimately a good thing. The only other criticism I have is that the instructions only state that the game ends after three rounds at the end of the very first overview. It doesn’t say it anywhere else, including the End of Game section. Other than that it’s great.

You can find Grandpa Beck’s Games online at www.grandpabecksgames.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/GrandpaBecksGames.