A one-of-a-kind game

With UKGE now in the rearview mirror, it’s time to continue our deep dive into the world of Molly House. 😉 In our previous post we talked about the theme in detail, now let’s take a look at what makes the gameplay so unique.

Each turn, players roll the dice and move around the board, using one or both dice results, then taking an available action. These mostly revolve around getting cards to use later in festivities. You can also play cards into your tableau which is a double-edged sword: Your reputation increases with certain Molly houses which helps you collect Joy (victory points) faster, but if they are ever raided you might get indicted. 

The most important action is organizing a festivity. Players bring guests to the event (by playing cards one at a time) and the neutral “Community” also joins in with random cards. It’s a tiny bit like playing poker, but sets are chosen from every card. 👉With all cards on the table, the highest valued set is evaluated, scoring joy for whoever played them. Usually, you want your cards to be part of sets, because only those will score and generate joy, unless you already have other plans. 😉 There are 4 different sets that can happen, and it's really fun trying to foresee how the current festivity will go, but that’s not everything yet.

What really makes the game are the 3 different outcomes with changing win conditions and the fact that you can never be sure what other players are after. 🧐 There might be moments in the game, when a House is raided and you’ll be forced to make a decision of whether to become an informant on another House or not. This decision is not an easy one - you are basically “betting” on one of the possible endings - and you’ll have to do everything you can to reach it, without giving away your intentions. 

Did you pledge loyalty to the Community? You’ll have to make sure it reaches a certain joy level and that you have higher joy than other players. 😇

Did you secretly turn into an informant? It’s still risky. Your best bet is to get the House you are spying on raided, showing that you are a valuable informant, otherwise you’ll face prosecution! 😱