I was sifting through a table of games at Gen Con 2018 and the lady next to me said, “Get Tides of Madness...it is awesome.” So I grabbed a copy.
A Bit of Background
Tides of Madness by Kristian Curla is the sequel to Tides of Time.
Tides of Madness was released in 2016. Tides is a card drafting game for 2 players that takes about 20 minutes to play.
Inside the Box
The box has great art and everything is of high quality:
18 high quality taro sized cards indicate suit, action, victory points to score if an action is completed and a Madness tangle of tentacles on 8 cards.
20 Madness tokens
Score pad and pencil
High Level Game Play
Tides has three rounds of three phases: Drafting, Scoring and Refresh.
The player with the most Victory points at the end of the third round wins.
If a player finishes any round with 9 or more Madness tokens they lose.
Players start the game with five cards in their hand.
Drafting:
Each player selects a card from their hand and plays it face up.
The players trade hands.
This continues until all cards are face up.
Scoring:
Each player takes a Madness token for each card they have with the Madness tentacles.
The player that took the most Madness tokens can either score 4 Victory Points or heal 1 Madness token.
Each player scores their face up cards.
Refresh:
Players gather up their played cards.
They put one face up to start the next round.
They discard one of the remaining cards from their hand.
Then deal two new cards to each player.
After Refresh the players have 6 cards in Round 2 and 7 cards in Round 3.
Reactions
Tides of Madness plays smooth and is very balanced. Lots of fun.
Madness tokens provide a depth of strategy that can really influence card play.
Highly recommended for a 2 player only game. Game play consistently takes 15-20 minutes.
Tides of Madness plays a bit differently each time due to the drafting mechanic.
Give it a try!
The Good: Thank you lady-in-line for suggesting Tides of Madness!
The Bad: Watch out for Madness! They influence which cards to play and pass.
The Dastardly: When your wife thinks she has won because she has the most points but finishes the last round with 9 Madness tokens...so she loses!
Thank-you Dreamlands for the win!