Revolver Noir

Revolver Noir is a two-player 18-card game from ButtonShy Games. It’s an action thriller movie of a game, about two gunmen in a dark house trying to kill each other. To win the game, you must injure your opponent twice. 

Each player holds a stack of 9 cards in his hand. One of the cards is a map of the house. The rest are individual rooms. You don’t show your stack to your opponent. The top card in your stack is your location in the house. When the game starts you get to choose which room you want to be in. Once the game starts, you have two action points per turn. The house is dark so you don't know where your opponent is. The most important action in the game is to listen. When you perform the listen action, your opponent must tell you one room he is connected to. This helps you narrow down the possibilities of where he might be. You will be doing a lot of listening. 

You can move to a connected room. Every room card specifies the connected rooms. The map gives you a summary. You can shoot, which costs 2 actions points. Every room card also specifies where you can shoot at. You can always shoot at the same room you are in. You can shoot at other rooms which you have line of sight to. When you shoot, you must announce the room you are in and the room you are shooting at. If your opponent is located in the target room, he must announce that he is shot. 

Notice that by shooting, you are also exposing your location. So this is something risky. When I played this with Jon, I was first to get shot. My first thought was since I knew where he was, I could just shoot back at him. However, that wouldn’t be the right move, because he would just shoot me for a second time on his turn, and win the game. This meant I had to run away and the only way for me to win was to try to hurt him with a trap first. 

Setting traps is another thing you can do in this game. You can activate your trap on a future turn, and if your opponent is in the same room as the trap, you injure him. 

Some rooms have special abilities. You can use them if you are there. One room lets you flood the basement, and if your opponent is there, he gets hurt. The foyer lets you know the exact location of your opponent if he is on the second floor. If you start your turn in the kitchen, you get an extra action point. 

There is a lot of mind games in this portable little game. You are always on the move, trying to avoid letting your opponent know where you are, while at the same time trying to figure out where he is. Sometimes you take a gamble and hope you guess right. I played this at the airport while waiting for my flight. It's a clever little game. It's amazing how creative some of these ButtonShy games are!