Designer: Michael Yang
Publisher:  Greater Than Games, Synapses Games
A: Keegan Moore, Nolan Nasser, Allen Panakal
2 players  |  20-30 min. |  ages 14+  |  MSRP $25 | BGG Entry
Time ot teach & learn: 10-15 min
Review Written by: Lucio Rodriguez

Game Synopsis

In Compile, two players take the role of newly sentient AI attempting to understand themselves and the world around them. With a limited deck size, players are constantly jockeying for majorities in the play area and looking for card synergies to aid themselves or hinder their opponents, with the goal of “compiling” their three Protocol cards in order to win the game.

The game begins with players each drafting three of the 12 Protocols. The play area is composed of these Protocol cards (placed with the “loading” side up), three lanes or columns, each containing one of your and one of your opponent’s Protocols.

Mechanically, these Protocols provide Command cards (6 for each Protocol, for a deck size of 18). Thematically, these protocols represent the conceptual framework the AI is using to understand the world–Command card abilities reflect this. Fire destroys its own cards for additional benefits. Speed adds cards or allows extra plays. Gravity moves cards or Protocol locations.

Command cards have values at the top (usually 0 to  5)—however, they can only be played face-up in the column containing their matching Protocol. Each Command card has up to three abilities, such as manipulating the location of cards, altering their values, flipping cards face up or down, allowing extra draws or forcing discards, or outright removing cards from the table. Command cards can always be placed face-down (all backs are grey, indicating no protocol affiliation) for two points in any column, but this makes their abilities unavailable.

Each turn feels simple: Check if you have “Control” (a card value majority in at least two columns)--if so, claim the control token.  “Compile”--per the game’s namesake–one column if you can (cards valuing 10+ and more value than your opponent), flipping it to its “compiled” side and emptying all cards (yours AND your opponent’s) from the column. Then, either play a card OR refill your hand.

In truth, each turn is a balancing act. Sure, you can play that high card now and compile next turn, but that means covering a command that gives you free cards every turn. With your hand dwindling to three cards, two cards, when do you make the agonizing choice to surrender a turn to refill your hand? It’s inevitable, but always feels like you’ve allowed your opponent two consecutive card plays. Maybe your opponent is going to compile next turn–do you play a Command card that lets you rearrange the Protocol cards, hindering your opponent but giving them access to a potentially devastating resource: your own cards!

The first player to “compile” all three of their Protocols is the winner.

Why We Love Compile

Compile is a large game in a small package, nested choices within choices and plenty of room for discovery—all within a 30-minute play time.

The card quality is excellent—sturdy cards with a comfortable finish and metallic embellishments. The art is beautiful and thematic without being overwhelming, and the layout and iconography are straightforward.

Fans of living card games or trading card games will immediately be familiar with the feel of Compile: you’ve drafted or built a deck and now wrestle with your opponent over who can best steer their deck to victory. At the heart of this are the Protocols.

The twelve Protocols in this game each feel unique. Death deletes cards from the field. Water, like a wave, returns cards from the board to your hand. Plague slowly eats away the cards in your opponent’s hand. Life feels like planting seeds to grow bigger results, allowing you to play cards from the top of the deck, or flipping face-down cards to face-up and reactivating their abilities. With each player utilizing only three Protocols in each game, there are countless synergies to find among them. And if the twelve in Compile: Main 1 aren’t enough, Compile: Main 2 and Main 3 each include another twelve Protocols, and Aux 1 and Aux 2 each include three more, all compatible with each other.

Within the theme of being a new sentient program, sometimes the columns in the board state don’t suit your needs–you’re testing Darkness against your opponent’s Fire, but you’ve got a hand of Water cards. Or maybe your opponent is about to compile their third Protocol card and win the game? The solution? You can rearrange a row of Protocol cards, either with Command card actions, or if you have the control token when you refresh your hand. Only the Protocol cards move, leaving the Command cards in place. The board feels dynamic, as if you’re constantly testing and retesting your newly gained sentience.

But this is not without consequence. If your opponent compiles an already compiled Protocol, they get to draw the top card of your deck. Of course, when your opponent does the same to you, the frustration of delayed progress is outweighed by the exhilaration of gaining an ability that is entirely outside your deck’s wheelhouse while simultaneously reducing your opponent’s deck size.

There is a satisfaction in discovering the many ways the command cards interact,and how the game’s rules bend under different Protocols. And depending on the Protocols in use, victory can feel like overcoming an intense struggle, a well-timed trick, or the inevitable result of careful planning. Each game of Compile is a balancing act, a tug of war, an optimization puzzle to eke out the most value from limited resources. With only a thirty minute playtime, when the game is done you’re likely to want to draft another three protocols and begin the experiment again!

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Congratulations to designer Michael Yang

More information on Compile at Board Game Geek

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