For ages I have been after a card game that meets very specific requirements. It must be small enough to fit in a pocket – no extra pieces or whatnot, meaning I can bust it out when and where. It must have the option to play single-player. And finally, it must be obscure or stylish enough to ensure that when I play it I feel like I’m in on some great smug secret. I appreciate this last point is not endearing.
Anyway, Bandido! Sweet Bandido! Bandido is a lovely compact card game from Helvetiq, which I discovered over half-term. It fits in a very small box and is playable with elegant cards which are all a little thinner than normal playing cards. Hold them in your hand and it’s a bit like holding a small cardboard coffin – perfect, it turns out, for such a claustrophobic treat.
Bandido is all about stopping a bandit from escaping prison. You place the bandit card in the centre of the table. This is the bandit’s cell, with a series of potential tunnels leading away from it. Once that’s in place, you take turns playing cards that slowly build a tunnel network out from that cell. Each player holds three cards and picks another up when they’ve played one. It’s cooperative, which means it works beautifully with a single player.
Yes, you’re building tunnels, but your aim is ultimately to cap each of them – to place a flashlight card that creates an end-point for the tunnel, meaning that the bandit cannot use it to escape. The problem is simple: as you place your cards, randomly dealt from the deck, you often end up opening new tunnels and creating new paths for the bandit to use. The game ends when all possible tunnels have been capped, or when there are no more cards. If there are uncapped tunnels on the final map, as it were, the bandit has escaped and you lose.
How to play BANDIDO? Watch on YouTube
A few observations. Firstly, Bandido is one of those games that I love – a game where you create something as you play. The maps can sprawl and form very intricate shapes, all of them wonderfully game-like in their maziness. I cannot play a game of Bandido without snapping a picture of the layout afterwards. It’s wonderfully creative stuff.