My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way has made a name for himself in the comic book industry with The Umbrella Academy. An Eisner-award winning comic book, The Umbrella Academy has since been adapted into a hit Netflix series, which just recently premiered its second season to critical acclaim. With so much hype surrounding The Umbrella Academy, Studio71 Games has decided to strike while the iron is hot, teaming up with Dark Horse Comics to produce The Umbrella Academy Card Game.
The Umbrella Academy Card Game is currently being funded on Kickstarter, and fans can click here to visit the page. At the time of this writing, The Umbrella Academy Card Game Kickstarter has amassed nearly $300,000 against a $30,000 funding goal, so it has exceeded expectations, to say the least. The Umbrella Academy Card Game Kickstarter page is live until August 28, but some fans of the series may be unsure if they should pledge any money to the project.
After spending some time playing The Umbrella Academy Card Game, it’s safe to say that it’s a good investment for big-time fans of the franchise. The Umbrella Academy Card Game, based on the comics as opposed to the Umbrella Academy Netflix series, is all about utilizing the titular siblings in a battle against memorable villains to prevent the end of the world. This is accomplished by taking turns playing attack cards, with the goal being to place attack cards with higher values than the villains players are going up against.
The Umbrella Academy Card Game is an entirely cooperative card game experience, though it can be played solo if one so wishes. Players are encouraged to talk to each other to develop strategies to defeat all of the Umbrella Academy villains on the field. This includes determining which cards to play when, as well as which characters should take the brunt of the damage. All of the cards look great, adorned with comic book-accurate art, and the minute-to-minute gameplay is plenty of fun.
What really makes The Umbrella Academy Card Game interesting is how players utilize each character’s special abilities. Just like in the comics and TV show, the different members of the Umbrella Academy have special powers, with players able to utilize these abilities at the end of the round to give themselves an advantage against the villains. For example, The Rumor can use her ability to instantly kill any of the villains, whereas Seance is able to bring discarded cards back from the dead, so to speak. Similarly to playing attack cards, players have to coordinate with each other to determine how their special abilities should be used.
The only real downside to The Umbrella Academy Card Game is its pacing. Even with just two players, participants have to defeat seven villain cards, which can make the game last longer than the 20 minutes that it claims to take to play through. It can become somewhat tedious and repetitive during these longer play sessions, so maybe it would be better to have players face off against fewer villain cards when playing with smaller groups than what the rules recommend.
Even though players would be facing off against more villains, it seems like playing in larger groups would actually speed the game up quite a bit. Players would then have access to all of the different hero abilities, which could in turn help them wipe out villains at a much faster rate. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we were unable to test The Umbrella Academy Card Game in a full group of six players, but it’s easy to see how it would be more entertaining with more people.
Besides working together to defeat Umbrella Academy villains, the card game also incorporates the siblings’ dysfunctional relationship in a clever way. Each round starts with players flipping over a dysfunctional family card, which adds a restriction for players to deal with that round. Considering how much the siblings’ rivalries and their dysfunctional relationships factor into The Umbrella Academy comic book and TV storylines, it’s great that the developers were able to figure out a way to make it part of the card game as well.
Tabletop or card game players that aren’t really big fans of The Umbrella Academy may not be all that impressed by the card game, but those that do enjoy the comic book series or Netflix series will likely find a lot to like about it. The cards look great and the game can be fun, though any potential purchasers should keep in mind that it really seems designed to be played in full, or close to full, groups, which may be a bit tricky to pull off right now given the current situation.
The Umbrella Academy Card Game is seeking funding through Kickstarter.
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