Scoundrels is a turn based board game for your Windows Phone with a slight role playing game feel to it. You compete against other players to discover treasure before they do.
Along the way you have monsters to deal with and traps to avoid as well as your opponent. Scoundrels is more of a tactical/strategy game than an action game so don't expect a lot of fast paced game play. Scoundrels isn't without appeal but may be more of an acquired taste when it comes to Windows Phone games.
When you launch Scoundrels you are greeted with the main menu where you have options to play Campaign or Free Play modes, choose your language and mute sound effects/music. Campaign is a single player (you vs. the computer), multi-level mode that follows a story line. The Campaign mode also has tutorial pages that will walk you through game play.
Free Play supports up to four players (human or computer) where you can adjust a few gaming variables (number of monsters, traps, etc.) or have these variables set randomly. The multi-player mode is pass/play style when dealing with multiple human opponents.
The gaming screen has your playing board (the map) with player stats/vitals running up the right side of the screen. Each player has a starting point and movement is done one adjacent square at a time. You move to grab the treasure and return to your starting point. Along the way you'll stumble on bonus items to help you with battles, traps and monsters. You may even have to find a key to be able to gain access to the treasure.
When you stumble on to monsters you have two options, fight or run. Combat is automatic and you do have the option to skip the blow by blow narratives and find the outcome of the encounter. If the monster prevails, you have to return to your starting point. If you win, you move into the space.
Again, the goal is to snatch up the treasure and make it back to the safety of your starting point. If you get hurt in battle, you heal as you move or you can skip a turn and heal all the faster. You also have traps of your own that you can toss out that will snare your opponents. Traps will hold a player in place for a few turns, giving others a jump on things.
By the way... if your opponent gets to the gold first you can always catch him and start a fight. Beat your opponent down and you can snatch the treasure and high tail it to your starting point for the win. Just remember, your opponent can recover and chase you down. So no sight seeing and watch out for traps that will make you vulnerable.
Scoundrels plays like a board game on your Windows Phone with very little flash and action. That doesn't make Scoundrels a bad game it just might not appeal to everyone. Graphics are decent, game play while basic is challenging, and if you have to leave a game mid-stream Scoundrels will save your progress.
Scoundrels is a good game for your Windows Phone but give the trial version a go before making the commitment to buy. The trial version will give you access to the Campaign mode. This is enough to either sell you on the game or decide it's not your cup of tea and move on.
The full version of Scoundrels is running $.99 and you can download it here at the Windows Phone Store. It is available for both Windows Phone 8 and 7.x devices.
