Publisher: Wise Wizard Games
Designers: Larry Bogucki, Robert Dougherty, Douglas Hettrick & Carl Van Ostrand
2 Players
Playtime: 20-40 Minutes
It’s hard to think of anything but Dice Throne when one thinks about head-to-head dice-throwing board games. It’s especially hard not to think of Marvel Dice THrone when thinking about head-to-head dice-throwing board games with superhero themes. KAPOW is here to add to this specific board game genre, but is it already too crowded? Welcome to KAPOW! Volume 1.
A Brief How To Play
KAPOW is a neat blend of fighting game and Yacht Dice (Yahtzee). Each player chooses their character – one has a hero and the other gets a villain. Each player gets the appropriate screen, board, and dice; the setup is complete just like that.
Each player rolls the dice they currently have, then they allocate them to the location they deem best. Multiple faces can be used in different ways. The faces denote Might,m Energy, Toughness, Agility, X-Factor, and Wild. On the player boards are many moves. To the far left are different attacks, the middle has defense options, and the right side of the board has utility options such as healing and adding dice or dice faces to their pool for future turns. Like Yacht Dice, players need to distribute their dice most effectively, but not to score, but to build the best possible dice pool and deplete their opponent’s health.
After players allocate their dice behind screens, they reveal their boards and play out the attacks and guards. Guards negate attacks, but any attack leftover depletes health. Guards and other actions build dice to make players stronger on future turns. After everything is resolved, dice are rebuilt, screens go up, and play continues until someone’s health hits 0.
Pacing and Interaction
KAPOW doesn’t take much time to learn, and that great feeling of picking up the game quickly transitions nicely into the game’s stellar pacing. After just one game, players will have lightning-fast turns that consist of rolling dice and strategizing for future turns. There isn’t any downtime in KAPOW, as players conduct their turns at the same time. Together they will solve their own little puzzles with the dice they rolled, and the only time that play “alternates” is when players are resolving attacks and dice-building, so there aren’t many decisions to be made.
The board is initially overwhelming, but the layout is intuitive. Sure, there are a lot of dice configurations that can jam up beginners, but every face mostly fits in its own area of the board, so any player that has a game or two under their belt will be comfortable. The first game or two will take maybe an hour, but it won’t take long for 20-minute games to become the norm, especially when a player dominates or just surprises their opponent with a big roll that they have been building towards. Turns are satisfying and there is always something to consider, ensuring that players never experience downtime or feel like there is nothing to do on their turn.
There are mainly two types of interaction in KAPOW. The most obvious interaction is attacking and depleting health. Players will constantly be looking for the perfect time to attack or build their dice without taking too much damage on a turn. While there is plenty of luck in KAPOW, reading your opponent is the main way to succeed in this game. Players aren’t just playing a game of solitaire on their dice, and keeping up with their opponent’s playstyle opens up opportunities to foil attacks while landing a big one of their own.
Players will also need to keep up with the pool of dice and dice faces. Players have the opportunity to passively impact their opponent by removing a resource from the pool and locking their opponent out of it. It’s not as aggressive as attacking, but it can lead to some unique moments that can completely ruin a game plan if executed correctly.
Replay Value
While the basic rules give each player a generic hero without a special gimmick or moveset, KAPOW offers a few unique heroes and villains that cater to specific playstyles. Even without the unique characters, KAPOW feels highly replayable like deck builders are full of variance. When you throw in that there are dice and a fair amount of luck in this game, players will find that no play is quite like the other.
There are also solo and cooperative modes that add to KAPOW‘s value, and the AI that drives those modes is well done and leads to challenging matchups. KAPOW isn’t going to stand toe to toe with games that are built around solo play, but it is still entertaining.
Theme and Components
Everything from the fonts to the rules in KAPOW leans into the comic book theme, and it works wonderfully. Players will get the feeling of heroes and villains clashing throughout, with swings, defining moments, and big finales as players put together the perfect string of attacks. The art is solid and reflects the house styles of Marvel and DC. It’s not anything special, but it gets the job done and looks like it belongs in a comic book. KAPOW lacks the branding that Marvel Dice Throne has, but if players don’t need to play as Spider-Man, they will find that this is one of the best superhero-themed games out there.
The dice are neat, with spots for players to put faces into each of the six sides as they build the perfect dice for their characters. The dice faces snap in well, but sometimes they snap in a little too well. Players will sometimes spend more time than they want fiddling with the dice as they try to pry the faces out of them.
KAPOW Is Great For Fans Of…
Anyone who likes chucking dice and superheroes will be delighted by KAPOW. Those who enjoy deck builders and adding optimal strategies to luck-based games will enjoy the dice-building elements in KAPOW. Dice Throne players will appreciate the differences that KAPOW offers too, and there is room for both games on the shelf if players enjoy dueling with dice.