Editor: Archangel Entertainment
Author: Ken Whitman
Year: 1997

Once upon a time there was, and there is still, a humoristic journal named Mad Magazine, for a short time published in Italy, too.
Among the funniest things published on Mad, for many years there have been pages of cheering mute strips by Sergio Aragonés.
He is the author of Groo, a funny and stupid barbarian wandering in a fantasy world together with his dog Rufferto.
Groo’s adventures inspired in 1997 a nice card game (GROO - THE GAME) and an expansion (GROO - THE EXPANSION: it looks like the titles were chosen by the barbarian himself…).
The base game is very simple: there are a pack of cards and seven special dices.
At his turn, every player can draw cards, play them or spend resources to build new buildings or recruit heroes for his army. The way you get the resources is one of the smart strategies that enrich this game.
On the sides of six of the seven dices there are symbols referring to the kinds of available resources: money, raw materials, workers, or Groo’s heads. Every player throws the dices, and, in order to play any card, he has to “spend” the dices with the necessary resources, listed on the card.
But beware! After the player has decided which cards he wants to play, if he hasn’t spent all his resources, all the other players, in turn, can play cards spending those resources.
This makes every choice very hard: is it better to play a card now, even if I’d better keep it, or run the risk that the others play cards even if it’s not their turn?
This brilliant rule involves all the players even during the others’ turns, beginning to think what they would do if they got the dices…
Somebody smarter than Groo could have noticed that the resource dices are six, but in the box there are seven. The last one is necessary for another brilliant game rule: the role of the main character. Even if Groo is a wonderful person, he is not so smart. In almost all of his adventures his presence in the village is a bad sign.
This is why the seventh dice shows how many villages (players) the card representing the barbarian will move during that turn (one or two clockwise or counter-clockwise, or it stays where it is). It is possible to move Groo also playing some cards, but the Groo cards – only playable if you spend enough “Groo heads” on the dices – have effect only in the village where the barbarian is wandering in that moment. Because of this it is always better to get rid of the unpleasant guest, and it is funny – and similar to the strip! – that the only hero in the game is actually the greatest danger for the players!
A GROO game is nice and quick: players spend their resources to build buildings that give Winning Points – you win at seven! – and recruit soldiers and monsters to attack the opponents’ villages. The rules for the fights is simple but good: the attacker chooses his army and counts the Battle Points of the involved cards.
The defender, then, chooses his armies and counts the Battle Points of his cards.
The difference in points, if in favour of the attacker, tells how many buildings will be destroyed (considering the cost of that building in Winning Points).
It is interesting that the game improves the problems of a typical “Take That!” game with just a few rules: players are always involved; even if you are about to win you can be lessened because of stupid Groo; the length of the game is short because the game always ends when the deck runs out the second time if nobody got seven Winning Points; if there is a draw the furthest player from Groo wins.
Even if it is a simple filler, GROO - THE GAME – especially if played with its expansion – is a good game and perfectly recreates the strip’s atmosphere.
As for the strip: Italian fans of fantasy humour are still waiting to read both Groo and another famous fantasy saga: Cerebus. Will it ever happen?