Collectors and their collections are a big deal in our culture. People love to collect all sorts of cool and unique things and show those collections off to the world. Today we are going to explore the world of stamp collecting and see how it translates into game form!
Stampede is designed by Jeroen Geenen with art by Shutterstock and graphic design by Fiore GmbH. It is published by Wizkids for 2-6 players and plays in 30 mins or less.
Overview
In Stampede players are taking on the roll of stamp collector. Each game turn you expand and exchange stamps with other players. The winner is the first to collect 5 of the same animal or all 9 different animals.
Gameplay
Stampede comes with 90 stamp cards, 10 each of 9 different animals. One side has a specific animal, the other side has one of two animals on it. One is the correct animal featured on the front of the card.
Each player begins with 3 facedown cards and 2 faceup cards in front of them. There is a draw pile of the remaining deck in the middle of the table and 3 cards faceup to form the stamp exchange area.
Each player will take a turn, then it will pass clockwise until the end game condition for someone winning is met. On your turn, you will take 3 steps that are followed in this specific order:
1-Take the top card from the draw pile and add it to your hand.
2-Play one card from your hand and add it faceup to your album.
3-Execute the action that corresponds to the card you played.
In step 3, each animal card has a specific action that you will take that affects your stamp cards. Some of the cards may allow for exchanges of cards from your collection as well. Your number of cards will stay the same, but this allows you to mix and match sets or try to reach for one of each animal card.
To win, you mist have 5 of the same or one of each of the 9 animal cards in your collection at the end of your turn. That player is the winner of the game!
Impressions
Stampede brings a unique card-based set collection to the table, allowing you to take and collect cards that then have varied powers that will affect what you do with your sets. I enjoyed playing this at a varied player count, it works well from 2-6 and at all counts in-between. We got in multiple plays with this one with newer and seasoned players but it seems to be a bit more popular with casual/newer players.
The art and design on this one is nice, it’s cute and simple with characters that really pop. The actions are kind of hard to follow based on the symbology on the card, most players felt they were constantly having to reference the player aid cards to see what the action was they would be performing.
Overall Stampede is a quick to learn and quick to play game that may have a place in your light game collection or filler games. The game sets up quickly and plays in less than 15-20 mins almost every time which are both good filler qulaifications. There is strategy and fun to be had, and it plays relatively fast allowing you to get it in between heavier games or as something to play late into the night when a game sounds good but you don’t want to go all in on setup. It’s also a great game to get played for a younger or inexperienced gaming crowd. So keep an eye out for this on to add to your “collection” soon!
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