Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes)

Published Feb. 19, 2010 at 10:00 p.m.
One of the criticisms launched against prolific game designer Reiner Knizia is that his games get their the theme pasted on. This means that whatever the players are trying to accomplish through the game's mechanics really doesn't have much to do with the graphics and the box description. He has at least 200 published games - and might have another one thought up by the time you're done reading this review - so we understand that they can't all be perfect matches.

Knizia's card game Poison, first released for the table top in 2005, is a perfect example of this. The game could almost be played with standard cards - the deck includes three colors/suits (each with three 1s, two fours and one each of 2, 5 and 7) and eight "poison" cards worth 4 each - but the company that released the game, Playroom Entertainment, printed it with a magician/warlock/witch theme. It was later rebranded and slightly tweaked to include donuts as the game Baker's Dozen in 2008.

The iPhone and iPod touch version of the game (US$2.99) uses the earlier Poison graphics, and it's a gorgeous looking little translation. The app was released 2009 by Griptonite Games and we honestly wish they'd have updated a few nagging items by now. Read on to find out what is good, and what could be improved, in this clever card game.

Gallery: Reiner Knizia's Poison

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Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST...Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST...Please see our terms for use of feeds...

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