Caper

The Game

Caper is a heist game in which you assemble a team of professional thieves to break into museums, banks and such to steal valuables. It is mostly a 2-player card game, and includes 3- and 4-player variants. 

Three locations are randomly drawn and placed between the two players. These are the locations you will fight over throughout the game. Over six rounds you will play thief cards and gear cards to your side of the locations. You can have up to three thieves per location, and each thief can be equipped with up to three pieces of gear. Odd numbered rounds are for playing thieves and even numbered rounds are for playing gear. At the start of a round you draw a certain number of cards. You pick one to play and then you give the others to your opponent. So the hands of cards will go back and forth between the players. You repeat this process until there is only one card left. That card is discarded. 

Thieves and gear have various effects. Some give you strength to compete and win the location being contested. Some give points directly. Some give you treasures of specific types. Every set of different types of treasures scores points. Many card powers have effects depending on other cards, for example some may score points based on opponent thieves at the same location. Some may generate strength based on sets of cards of specific colours you have at the location. Some cards let you disable your opponent’s card. 

After completing six rounds, all cards will have been seen, and will have been either played or discarded. You check who has won each of the three locations. The locations will score points and give other benefits. You also score points from your cards. Whoever has more points wins. 

The Play

The core mechanism is simple so the game plays smoothly. You need to manage your cash flow. Some cards cost money to play so you want to have some money saved up. You can sacrifice cards for money. Some cards give you money when you play them. 

The cards in the game have many different powers, and they are represented using icons. Not all are easy to understand. For your first game expect to look up the reference booklet frequently. Yes there is a whole booklet for this. 

It’s generally a tug of war as you compete for the locations. Sometimes you need to decide where to fight hard for and where to concede. While doing the tug of war, you also want to play card combos which give you points at game end. Since the hands of cards go back and forth, sometimes you might take a card for the sake of denying your opponent. 

The Thoughts

I imagine a lot of time and effort has been spent on the art and product design. Every thief has unique art. The production is high quality. Unfortunately I didn’t find the game very interesting. It has several game mechanisms which are typical in Euro card games, and nothing really stands out. Admittedly I’ve only played the basic Paris scenario. When playing London or Rome, the card mix is tweaked. It’s a combo game, so if you like making card combos this might be your thing.