New game review

Author: jericson

_posts/2025-03-11-blood-of-an-englishman.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "The Blood of an Englishman: Head to head fable simulator"
+tags: game review
+comments: true
+---
+
+If you sat down to design a game about Jack and the Beanstalk, it
+seems inevitable that it'll be an asymmetric contest between quick and
+nimble Jack (from an unrelated nursery rhyme) and the powerful and
+ponderous giant. If it must be a tableau manipulation game as well
+there's no doubt the end result will be something along the lines of
+_The Blood of an Englishman_.
+
+If you've played solitaire (including [more obscure
+variations](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2976943/enders-review-solitaire-games-youve-never-heard-of)),
+you've moved cards around in a tableau. Often the rules restrict you
+to moving the cards in the front and your goal is to dig out the next
+card in a sequence in order to build up stacks (foundations) next to
+the tableau. This is what Jack does in _The Blood of an Englishman_,
+though the numbers need not be sequential, just
+increasing. Thematically, he's climbing the beanstalk (numbered cards
+which have increasingly ominous images of vines) to get to a treasure
+(gold, goose or harp). Claiming all three treasures would require 21
+cards and Jack can make three moves a turn. Add in a few more moves
+because he needs to move cards from front to front or back to front in
+order to reveal the next bit of beanstalk or the next treasure.
+
+This would be the most boring game of solitaire if there weren't a
+giant eager to squash Jack. The giant has [one
+aim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-fi-fo-fum):
+
+
+> Fee-fi-fo-fum,  
+> I smell the blood of an Englishman,  
+> Be he alive, or be he dead  
+> I'll have his bones to grind my bread.  
+
+Mixed among the vines and the treasure are eight cards with an
+increasingly threatening giant. There are two cards each labeled Fe,
+Fi, Fo and Fum. If these four words ever appear (in any order) at the
+front of the 5-column tableau or grouped together in a single column,
+the giant has obtained Jack's bones. For obvious reasons, that ends
+Jack's game poorly. Fortunately (for Jack) the giant has one move per
+Jack's three. Unfortunately, that move can be calamitous.
+
+Like the colossus he is, the giant may move four (and exactly four)
+cards from the front of one stack to the front of another. That can
+reveal a giant card that seemed safely buried in the stack. Or he can
+move two cards front to front. This counts as a single move (for the
+giant) which can waste Jack's time by covering a treasure or a key
+number. Finally the giant may discard a single vine anywhere in the
+tableau, which has an obvious use of limiting Jack's options as he
+climbs his beanstalk. It also has a subtle use when the vine card
+separates two giant cards.
+
+Since every card is visible from the start, this is a perfect
+information game similar to [chess](/2021/01/03/chess-review.html),
+[tablut](/2022/05/05/tablut_review.html) or the master variant of
+[Torres](/2023/10/02/torres.html). Every now and then the cards turn
+up in such a way as to give the giant an easy victory. So Jack gets a
+chance, before the game begins, to move a single card from any place
+in the tableau to another spot. Thematically this is justified as the
+help of the giantess from the story. It's such a lovely concept and
+almost too perfect.
+
+From what I've read, people tend to find Jack the easier role. That
+certainly holds at the start of the game since Jack's extra moves help
+him climb beanstalk stacks with little opposition from the giant. He
+can claim one or even two treasures while the giant maneuvers his
+cards into place. But each time he takes away a vine card, there are
+fewer options to hide from the giant cards. So the tension builds and
+Jack slows down. His moves must be deliberate and constantly watchful
+for the giant's tricks.
+
+I can't be sure, of course, but I believe a patient giant can always
+defeat Jack. The large moves must be focused on concentrating giant
+cards almost to the excussion of thwarting Jack's goal. Yes you'll
+lose some gold and a magical golden-egg-producing goose. But there's
+always that harp destined to betray Jack. (To be clear, the treasures
+have no magical powers in the game.) Now Jack's path to victory is
+constrained and the giant's moves can be subtle. No need to bury the
+next number if you can discard it instead and add more moves to Jack's
+progress. Setting up the threat of Fee and Fi in one that can be
+joined to Fo and Fum in another with an epic four-card move can slow
+Jack down long enough for the giant to pull off a Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum in
+another column with discards or single-card moves. And I'm not
+convinced Jack can beat a giant who's patient enough to get Jack on
+his third beanstalk.
+
+Jack's story has been told for hundreds of years, which means it's a
+solid story. But it's also been pretty well explored. By the time
+[Disney got a hold of it in
+1933](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giantland), it was a brisk 8
+minute vehicle for Disney animators to create the Tom and Jerry model
+with Mickey and the Giant. Mickey Mouse himself frames the action by
+reading the storybook version to mice children who don't care for it
+in end. It's a story that requires embellishment that's not so easy to
+pull off as live-action adaptations have shown.
+
+For better or worse, The Blood of an Englishman follows the canonic
+story as faithfully as one could imagine from a simple card game. I'd
+be tempted to suggest "improvements" such as giving Jack special
+powers when he collects a treasure. But that would break the
+compelling elegance of the existing rules. Unfortunately those rules
+aren't as sublime as [Lost Cities](/2021/12/07/lost_cities.html), so
+it's not the two-player game I'm likely to reach for. Thankfully, _The
+Blood of an Englishman_ doesn't take much longer to set up and play
+than a Disney short. You'll want to play a second time with swapped
+roles. But after that the game goes back on the shelf waiting for
+someone looking through to spot that exceptionally evocative cover and
+ask "What's this game like?"
+
+Also published on [Board Game Geek](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3476041/article/45782013#45782013).