Clank! – First Impressions
Clank! has maintained a high level of popularity within the tabletop community since its release in 2016. It’s a game that I’ve not really heard any criticism of and it is lauded by both casual and hobbyist gamers.
The family-friendly deck-building game was designed by Paul Dennen and published by Renegade Game Studios in partnership with Dire Wolf. The trio of Rayph Beisner, Raul Ramos, and Nate Storm brought the world to life with their illustrations and artistic talent.
It’s a game with card drafting, push-your-luck mechanisms, and a lot of charm. If a game was designed around the dragon hoard incursion of The Hobbit, I imagine it would look a lot like Clank!.
You need to steal things, but there is bound to be noise along the way. I’ve played many games over the years, but there are still dozens that have escaped me. Clank! was one of those until recently, but now I’m happy to share my thoughts with you on this relic-hunting adventure!
What It Does
The main focus of Clank! is the deck-building mechanic, which drives most of the decision-making as players consider where to go and what to do with the hand drawn. All players start with the same cards, but upgrading the deck over time will eventually create a unique deck for each player.
It’s a competition between players to see who can get the most gold (or points) on an expedition into the castle and depths of the dragon’s den. Artifacts, market goods, and other relics provide the points, and players will be searching for and seeking these throughout the game. The deeper you go, the greater the rewards. But the danger also increases the further you go from the surface.
The dragon will periodically stir as sounds echo through the tunnels, damaging the adventurous thieves and threatening the safety of their mission.
Whoever has the most points at the end is not only the winner but the best thief of the bunch.
How It Does It
So what mechanisms are swirling around that together brew a game of Clank! for the players around the table?
Deck-building and card drafting are the two biggest, but bag-building is also important as that directly impacts the likelihood of getting injured by the dragon. The game definitely utilizes a push-your-luck system as players weigh the advantages of diving deeper for more artifacts or points, all the while watching their fellow thieves and seeing who might be heading back to the surface. And then player elimination is definitely something that should be addressed because not too many games like Clank! have that as part of the design. If you are in the lower half of the board when your health is reduced to zero, you’re out of the game entirely, which looms big as a threat above the heads of every would-be thief who is down below the surface.
With the cards, though, there are three symbols that act as resources for players to spend: skill, swords, and boots. Skill is the resource that enables players to gain new cards for their deck so it’s probably the most important, but you won’t use it until the end of the player turn. Swords and Boots are the tools that you use to fight and move. Swords enable you to safely navigate pathways that might contain danger and they also help you to clear monster cards off of the dungeon row, gaining rewards and preventing potential lingering threats. Boots are the only way (beyond teleporting) to move between rooms on the board so you need them to be an efficient explorer.
As you start to build your deck, you cycle cards through your discard pile and draw new hands, gradually getting better and better at moving, fighting, and drafting new cards.
Each player will likely approach their deck composition differently and that’s part of the fun. One player may become a brutish warrior who cleans up all the monsters while another capitalizes on movement to run around hoovering up all of the artifacts and gold.
Why You Might Like It
Clank! is a very accessible game that feels fun each time you sit down at the table. It’s engaging for new players and veteran ones.
The Clank! mechanic, which results in players making noise and placing those player cubes near the Dragon bag means that each attack from the fearsome creature always makes you wonder if you’re the one who is going to get it. It’s tense and thrilling.
Why You Might Not
Deck-builders have integrated variability due to the way that players draft and combine cards, so that’s a positive for many players, but there isn’t a lot in Clank! besides that which could deepen or vary the game for players who want it to be more crunchy.
There are expansions and different iterations of the Clank! world (a legacy game, a sci-fi rendition, and plenty of additional content), but the core game is pretty simple.
If a low- to mid-weight game isn’t what you’re looking for—or if deck-builders aren’t really your thing—then you’ll be hard-pressed to derive the same pleasure that so many others do from Clank!. It may just not be your mojo.
Final Thoughts
My initial plays of Clank! has made me excited to get this to the table with my son and with other members of my family. It’s light. It’s breezy. And the Hobbit-esque world will definitely appeal to many people that I play games with.
I can see why so many gamers enjoy it but I also feel that it has a specific place in my library. I don’t think it’s one that I will always take off the shelf, but the experience was enjoyable enough that I want to keep exploring it and may look into some of the expansions to give it some variability in the long run.
If you haven’t played it, I recommend that you give it a try. And may your clank be quieter than your opponents!
And if you want to know more, check out Clank! on BGG or visit Renegade Game Studios to see the entire Clank! universe that’s available.
I want to hear what you think, though! Do you like any of the Clank! games? Give a shoutout in the comments for your favorite.
If you don’t like Clank!, what’s a deck-building game that you do like?