Comic Hunters Review — Comic collection is just set collection with another name

Let's talk about theming in board games, one of the most controversial spectra for people on the autism spectrum. For simulationist American designs, it's everything, at the cost of all else. In the dark ages of the 90’s, European games only used theme to help players learn rules and integrate mechanics. Nowadays, we've evolved to the point where most games hit a happy medium.  Comic Hunters kinda lives there, but also not? Let me explain.

Comic Hunters is a set collection game played over 3 rounds where you build your comic collection, competing with other players for majority scoring in categories like 1st issues and new costumes while also managing your heroes. Hero scoring does one of my favorite things in board gaming, where players are expected to find the sweet spot of the bonuses for large individual hero collections and diversity, but that's not the only thing I love in this box. Comic Hunters’ rounds play as a set collection “best of” album, with cards being doled out in multiple varying phases that keep the game interesting and fresh. You've got the bog-standard draft, a Coloretto-style pile brinkmanship minigame where players take turns either drawing a card to add to a pile or grabbing a pile for the phase, an auction, and picking up all of a hero's cards in a grid's row or column. Gameplay-wise, the theme doesn't stretch too far beyond “comic collection is set collection,” but the theme does allow the Marvel license to do some Hulk throwing tanks around level heavy lifting.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but I've played so many games that simply threw a bunch of "good enough" minigames held together with gum and tape that I wasn't exactly impressed by the similar design approach here, and sure as hell was disappointed by the component quality that was so poor I was mildly surprised they all survived punching. What I was impressed by was the space Comic Hunters creates for real comic collectors to geek out; every time we play is a cavalcade of Mike commenting on whether or not he cared for a particular issue that just got revealed. I live for these little moments where I get to experience other people's genuine enthusiasm, and the fact that Comic Hunters gave me a pretty good game to play as a backdrop was an added bonus.

But as I hinted before, the theme isn't entirely beneficial. Between the less than stellar rulebook, card design putting age number next to scoring criteria, and it making sense flavor-wise for older comics to be worth more to collectors than ones hot off the press, we wound up accidentally scoring additional points for every issue's era for the first couple games we played. Guys, a queer reviewer admitted to getting  a rule wrong, time to start BoardGamerGate! Seriously though, I get that it's nitpicking, but it does speak to how most of this box feels like it aims for good enough and lands on thoroughly meh at best.