Pocket World Cup: The Rise of Antarctica

This felt much more like a simulation than a game with heavy strategy. It was fun to try and if I owned it I'd pull it out every once in awhile, but it isn't a game that I'd want to play frequently, and I'd probably wouldn't buy it if it existed in a published form. The choosing of players is fun but outside of a couple of lineup changes (e.g. with card management, and I had a player who could add a die to both sides) the matches mostly play themselves. It is fairly obvious when you want to use rerolls and such. The yellow/red card abilities are pricey in qualifying and so seem only worth it if it'll make you for sure get more momentum, whereas in the World Cup it is do or die so you might as well if you have a decent chance of losing/going to PKs.

The World Cup itself has a lot of time spent seeing how the NPC teams advance, with the only decision space being whether to try to manipulate the match by spending momentum. However, despite the low amount of decision making, it is fun seeing the bracket narrow down, and there is a little bit of excitement when a strong team gets some bad rolls and is eliminated.

I feel like there should be a more consistent way to get forwards. Your initial ones aren't great, maxing out your goal scoring potential per half at 2 unless you have 9+ dice, and it is difficult to score more than one unless you have 8+.

After one play it is hard to deem balance, but I got the impression that there are some players that seem to be significantly better than others. I had a GK that allowed me to cancel 2 goals for a cost of a yellow card, which seemed much more reliable than a GK that could set the value 2 of opponent's dice to any value (which is generally worse or the same, only being situationally better against teams that e.g. score base don longest straight, or against France), while also being the same level and costing a yellow card to perform the action. Maybe I am really undervaluing the ability to set die values.

Rulebook organization is strange, with how to play matches being after the section on how to play the World Cup, despite the World Cup not occurring until the second half of the game.

My game results: Qualifying: Iran 2-3, Honduras 2-1, Peru 2-2 (3-2) Japan 2-1, Nigeria 2-3, USA 2-1 Brazil 2-4, England 2-1, Uruguay (3-4)

WC Group Stage Poland 2-1 Portugal 2-0

WC Knockout QF Italy 2-2 (3-4) Eventual winner: France

A sporty dice chucker that pulls you into your very own underdog story.

Check out my full review here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2667666/feel-rhythm-feel-rhyme-get-its-world-cup-time

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