Five Fingered Severance Board Game Review

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Have fun at your last day of work and go out with a bang in Five Fingered Severance, the irreverent board game of unruly employees and corporate chaos! Steal merchandise from the shop, slack off and insult customers. Avoid the wrath of the boss while directing his attention to the other employees. Gain the most personal profit before the shop closes for good (or you get fired, whichever comes first)!

Once in a while, there comes a board game that’s like a breath of fresh air, featuring a theme and gameplay that we haven’t seen much of before. Five Fingered Severance by Minion Games is one such game. Instead of focusing on creating the most efficient farm or using strategy and tactics to conquer your opponents’ armies, the goal of the game is to be the opposite of a model employee, and have a blast doing so.

The game revolves around a convenience store that is running its last day of operations before shutting for good. Players take the role of the shop’s employees, from the light-fingered Lucy and Roger the slacker to foul-mouthed Lock and fast-talking Victoria (each character has unique advantages). Not wanting to go out with a whimper, you all decide to turn your last day into the most memorable day ever!

The objective of the game is to obtain the highest score, which is composed of how much slacking off you’ve done, how much merchandise you’ve manage to hide in your stash, and how many customers you’ve managed to insult. However, each self-serving activity you do will also generate Heat. Accumulate enough Heat, and the boss will fire you before the day is up. You must therefore strategically go about your business accumulating points while keeping a low profile, all while sabotaging the other employees from doing the same. The game ends once the work shift is over, or all but one employee has been fired, whichever comes first. The employee with the highest score then wins the game.

The gameplay mechanic is pretty simple: during a player’s turn, they reveal a Work Marker card and play 2 actions. The Work Marker cards describe new events that happen, such as the boss moving to a new location, or new work opportunities, slacking opportunities or new customers appearing at specific locations. The actions are pretty straightforward; you can move to a new location. You can activate a work or slack card at your location. Work cards will lower your Heat, with more effect if the boss is around to see you work. Slacking (such as playing video games) will earn you victory points the longer you slack, and will increase everyone’s Heat. (If a job doesn’t get done, everyone cops it!)

You can also steal merchandise from your current location (as long as the boss or customers are not around). However, you won’t earn any points from this loot until you move to the storeroom and stash them in your locker. You can also interact with customer cards in your location. You can help them and lower your Heat, or insult them and earn victory points, with the side effect of increasing your Heat. Some customer cards have special effects, such as the friend with the big purse. You can steal and slack when this customer is around, and you can even stash your loot in her purse!

If the boss turns up in your location, you have to make a suspicion check, which is made more difficult if you’re carrying stolen goods or were caught slacking. If you get caught, you take Heat and all the stolen goods get confiscated.

Players also have access to Plot cards that you can play at any time during your turn. They can have basic effects such as moving yourself or the boss to specific locations (to hinder your opponents’ efforts), or more interesting effects such as avoiding a suspicion roll or forcing another player to make a suspicion roll.

You will get fired if you Heat reaches 30, so you will need to make sure you earn the most points before you get fired or the day ends. Gameplay-wise, although the mechanics are pretty simple, there will be a lot of redirecting the boss’ attention to other players, trying to get them fired. At the same time, you will need to maneuver to make sure you will end up with the highest score. With so many Work events and Plot cards flying around, the game is very interactive. It also has a good amount of replay value, since the starting conditions are based on the effects of random Work event cards, and will be different each game.

But what makes the game truly shine is its unique theme. The whole premise of causing chaos at work can be appealing, and many of you will probably wish you could really do it in real life! However, it is this unique and quirky theme that may become a barrier or alienate certain players. After all, the game deals with things such as stealing the gun from the register, tricking your boss and playing video games at work. Some people will understandably feel squeamish about this adult premise, but it’s all good if the players understand that this is fictional entertainment and not something to learn from!

Five Fingered Severance is a fun, fresh and quirky game, and is suitable for players of most skill levels. There will be lots of laughter as you get caught experimenting with the microwave, or inadvertently insulting a foreign customer, or just seeing the boss rush to the toilet. And just imagine the joy of seeing other employees get fired first! You will love it if you like the other games from Minion Games, or other quirky games such as Isla Dorada or the Munchkin franchise.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 6 players

Related items at Amazon.com: