Fugitive – A quick and fun 2-player card game

Imagine for a moment you’re a Fugitive on the run.

(Of course, not that you would do anything to warrant being imprisoned. That’s why we’re imagining, eh.)

And your buddy, sibling, cousin, parent, or spouse is the Marshal trying to hunt you down.

How would you stay one step ahead of the Marshal so you could get away for good?

In the upcoming card game, Fugitive, by Tim Fowers, you’ll get the chance to figure it out.

Or you can take on the role of Marshal and use your wits, and timely card draws, to uncover the Fugitive’s hideouts and catch him/her once and for all.

We’ll cut right to the chase (pun intended) — Fugitive is a quick and fun 2-player card game that keeps both players on their toes.

See for yourself in Caleb’s video review of Fugitive.

Can the whole family enjoy Fugitive?

As you can see in Caleb’s video review, Fugitive is a very straight-forward family card game.

The game play is very simple.

If you’re the Fugitive, you draw cards and play them as Hideouts in order to escape. If you’re the Marshal, you draw cards to get more information to uncover the Fugitive’s hideouts.

In either case, the game play is as easy as drawing a card and evaluating the numbers.

Yet, as easy as the game play mechanism of drawing and playing or guessing a card is, there’s enough thinking in Fugitive to keep both players’ minds working the whole game.

And when one game ends, you’ll want to jump right back in and play it again.

 

Our first experiences playing Fugitive

When I explained the Fugitive game rules to my first opponent, Jaden, he didn’t seem too impressed. His response wasn’t full of eager anticipation to play. Instead, it was more of, “Ok, dad, if you insist, I’ll give up 10 minutes of my time to humor you.”

He reluctantly took on the role of the Marshal trying to hunt me down. After I made my escape, he quickly challenged me to play again. After all, he now understood the game better and was sure he’d discover my hideouts in time to stop me.

But to his surprise, I escaped once again.

Now he was really invested in the game and challenged me to a third match. I offered to switch roles, but he insisted on being the Marshal again because he was determined to catch me.

Let’s just say it didn’t end well for Jaden. He was close on my trail the whole time, but in the end I got away.

By this time, Caleb had wandered into the room and noting the determination on Jaden’s face was anxious to give the game a shot himself.

So once again, Marshal Jaden began the hunt for a Fugitive on the run.

This time, you could see all the tension leave his body as he cornered and captured the Fugitive.

Now he was ready to play the role of the Fugitive and try escaping Caleb’s clutches.

Rather than recount more details of our matches, suffice it to say we’ve played Fugitive a bunch over the last few weeks. And every play is a battle of wits — exactly what we love in 2-player games.

 

What we enjoy about Fugitive

There are 3 main reasons we love playing Fugitive.

1. The first is that both players are engaged in the game thinking through their options. Each side has their own unique things to think through in order to make optimal moves.

The Fugitive is constantly thinking through which cards to play as hideouts, when to sprint, which cards to use in a sprint, which stack of cards to draw from, and how to fake out the Marshal.

The Marshal is constantly evaluating what the Fugitive is doing — which piles he’s drawing from, when he’s sprinting, and when he chooses not to play a hideout — to determine what numbers to guess as well as when to attempt to guess more than one hideout.

It makes for a bit of fun tension in thinking through the options.

2. The second thing we love is that the game is a challenge regardless which role you play.

In most 2-player games, players are trying to complete the same objective and the challenge is seeing who can accomplish it first.

But in this card game, the Fugitive and the Marshal have completely different and opposing objectives. Yet, neither side has a definitive advantage.

Which makes it fun to go head-to-head and then switch roles.

3. The third main reason we love Fugitive is that there’s an element of luck through the card draws.

Pure strategy games are fun to enjoy now and then. They’re a true head-to-head match of abilities. However, they’re also most fun between players of equal experience. And in a family setting, that’s sometimes hard to come by.

Thus, games with elements of luck are more engaging for family play. Luck has a way of mixing out the outcome enough to keep games interesting between players of different levels. It also makes repeated plays much more interesting.

While there are a number of other things we also enjoy about Fugitive, those are the main reasons we give Fugitive a strong endorsement. It’s a simple, quick, yet engaging 2-player card game that’s great for family play.

If you’d like to get a copy of Fugitive, head on over to the Fugitive Kickstarter campaign page and get in on the action.

It’s also worth noting that the final game card artwork will look different than you see in our review. The version we have is a prototype.

We think the artwork designs shown on the Kickstarter page are fantastic. The style is awesome and we can hardly wait to get a copy of the final product when it’s ready.