The Princess Bride: A Battle of Wits
Publisher: Game Salute
Release Date: 2015
MSRP: $25.00
Game Designer: Matthew O'Malley
Artist: Felicia Cano
ISBN: 091037987877
Players: 2-10
Playing Time: 15 minutes
Ages: 10+
ICv2 Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5

When the biggest flaw to your game is that the instruction book is about five pages longer than it needs to be, you might have yourself a bit of a problem.  That was the issue that we ran into when my friends and I played the game Battle of Wits.

In this game designed by Matthew O'Malley, the stakes are life or death as players recreate the famous wine scene from The Princess Bride and attempt to bluff their way into getting the other players to drinking goblets filled with poison while saving the goblet of wine for themselves to remain the sole survivor.

The biggest problem that myself and the other players ran into is that the instruction book made the game seem much more complicated than it needed to be.  Coming in at around six pages, everyone agreed by the end of the first hand that it could've been shortened to a page and a half and it would've been much better off.

Once we got past this initial game though, Battle of Wits proved to be a fun experience that showed that not all games have to last for hours upon hours in order to be an enjoyable time.  Moving very quickly, each game only lasted for about fifteen minutes (if that) making this a perfect game to play at a convention or on an airplane when people need to kill some time before the next event occurs.

The artwork is beautiful on each card though everyone agreed that the use of dialogue from the movie on each card was rather pointless as they play no actual baring on the game itself and the turns move too quickly in order to actually read the text on each card.

Even still, this is a game with high replay value thanks to all the different ways that you can customize the experience and insert yourself own house rules that will make the game easier (or harder if you so desire).

As mentioned, this is a game that moves very fast so pack this as a game to play when you know you'll have a few minutes to kill.

--L.B. Bryant