Designer: Brett Sobol, Seth Van Orden
You are a stock trader. Over the course of five to seven turns, you’ll be presented with some secret information about one of six stocks, and then use that insider information to try to figure out when to buy and sell stock.
The meat of the game is the supply phase. At that time, you have the opportunity to contribute cards – face up and face down, to one of several stockpiles. These cards mostly represent shares of stock, but also may be action cards that manipulate the stock price, or trading fees. Afterwards, each player wins a stack of cards in an auction, and have an opportunity to dump stock they think will flame out.
Stockpile doesn’t bear much resemblance to actually playing the market, but it is a fun, fast game that is easy to teach and usually plays in less than an hour.
Key mechanic: Evo Auction. Stockpile has an auction mechanic that I first saw in Evo. The first player bids on a stack of cards. The next player can bid higher on that stack, or bid low on a different stack. If he bids higher, the first player immediately bids next. If he outbids someone, that person goes next. This process is repeated until all players have a bid on a unique stack of cards.
What is elegant about this auction system is that it is fun, highly and immediately interactive, and does a very good job at narrowing the distance between the game’s leader and the guy at the back. Most of the time, players flush with cash will fight over primo stacks of stock cards. Players who aren’t doing so well will get the scraps, but pay the lowest possible price for them.
(Photo Credit: Gameapalooza)
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