Unauthorized - A New TOS Review!

As a part of the crew I am always joyous when the item we get to review is something for the whole family. That was definitely the case with the newest board game by Chara Games called Unauthorized! As soon as it arrived my children tried to start playing with it right away ... even before reading the rules, which I'm kind of a stickler for doing. I also wanted to try and play the game with adults so I could get a handle on how to play. I'm a little slow when it comes to new games so I was a little cautious.

But I really had no reason to be. The game has a simple premise and easy enough rules to follow. You even have 2 cards that have the rules that can be kept on the table during play. The game is designed for 6 -12 players with an age range of 12+.  My son is only 8.5 and my youngest daughter turns 12 tomorrow. They both were able to play by themselves after a little bit of instruction.  I'll get back to that a little later.

Inside this red sturdy box are the 2 reference cards I mentioned, 1 dealer card (that rotates around with the dealer of each round), 12 Role cards (most have a male and female depiction of the role), and 97 experience cards. The amount of experience cards each player gets is determined by the number of players. There are a required number of specific roles as well - pastor, police, and neutrals.  When you have 6 - 8 players you have 1 pastor and 2 police and the rest are neutral. At 10 players you have 2 of both the pastor and police and the rest are neutral.

The cards are thick and glossy and feel well made. After shuffling they did stay a little bent for the rest of the game. But now that they've been back in the box it's not as noticeable. Oh and I forgot to tell you that among the all red or all green experience cards there are wild cards. You can determine how you play them. First strategy could be to play your wild cards so that you clearly state your loyalty. Another strategy would be to keep them so you can play them when your loyalty is questioned by the police. Both are valid strategies.

Now the main goal of the game is to 'sway people's loyalty.'  So the pastor gets all green cards; the police get all red cards; and the blue neutral people get a mixed up batch. Whatever you have most of is your "loyalty" so if you have 6 green and 1 red card you would be FOR the Church. If you have 5 red and 2 green cards you would be FOR the State. The interesting part is when you have 3 and 4 so basically neutral.

The game says it should take about 30 minutes to complete. It has 4 rounds to each game and in each round each player has 2 things to do -- a card action and a player turn. This is when it gets fun ... and tricky. You need to play to your loyalty and try to 'convert' others to your side. But as I said earlier you could be entirely neutral and your loyalty could change with each of the 4 rounds!!! Exciting, isn't it?? We thought so as well. State wins in a tie or if all those loyal to the church are in prison. Church wins with a majority of players loyal to them and at least 1 NOT in prison.

Such a great way to talk about and in a way "experience" (and I do use this term loosely) what it would be like to live in a location that has an underground church. We were so excited to try and play the very first time we did so with only 4 players. Yes, I know it says we should use 6, but my husband was like a kid on Christmas and wanted to 'make it work' so we took it on our double date at a friends house. Needless to say, it didn't work. It was just really difficult. But my husband said we should try one time with just neutrals ... so we did. He called it "straight up street evangelism."

Then we played a time where both the men were 2 players and us girls were just ourselves so that we had 6 roles on the board. We gave one man the police and another the pastor and then they each had a neutral. That game went well after they could remember who they were playing with which hand ... which is why this game would be best played with at least 6.

The next time we played, was when a friend was in town visiting and my kids were all super excited because that meant we had 6 people and we could play Unauthorized!! Their friend was so gracious to join in on the game. We let me son be the pastor since he's the youngest. All he had to do was try to make others turn "green". He caught on super fast and the next time decided he would be able to play the police. For ease of explaining and letting him play 'on his own' we thought the police and pastor roles would be best if you are playing with kiddos who are under that 12yo range. My daughter (who turned 12 TODAY!!!) was able to play a regular role card for a 'neutral' player.

We did have to play a few games in a row for them to really get the gist, but they have begged to play the game again and again.  We had hoped that if family had to come over during Hurricane Irma that we'd be able to play with a larger crowd, but we were not effected as much as we anticipated so they never came over. However, we do have this game out and about so it could be played at any time.  Since we have 5 in our family, we have been able to play it a few other times with dad playing 2 people and my son being either pastor or police who have the easier "roles". But the more we play the easier it is becoming for him. I expect he'll be playing a regular role very soon.
This game as been tons of fun and we can't wait to play with our church small group very soon ... they are just getting started again for the fall. I know that we will be using this a lot more over the years. Make sure you check out all the other reviews from the Crew by clicking the link below. You can also find Chara Games and more about Unauthorized and other games at their Facebook page or on Twitter!