Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Designer: Friedemann Friese
Artist: Christian Fiore
Year: 2010
Players: Two to five players
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 55 Minutes (Yes, it really states exactly 55 minutes)
Genre: Eurostyle stock market game
MSRP: $44.95
Black Friday represents a simplistic simulation of playing the stock market. The title at first looks lighthearted and fairly simple since the rule book is all of six pages. The game comes with a game board, tiles, money, bars, a cloth bag and neat little briefcases that mainly represent the different stocks in the game, amongst other things. The components in this game are pretty standard fare although nice all in all. The suitcases are sort of cool but they’re small. The artwork has a light tone, which may lead one to believe this is a simple game – it is not. The rulebook however is deplorably bad! At only six pages you’d have thought someone would have taken a look at it before it went out the door. The rules are rife with typos and grammatical errors while very few items are spelled out in stone as any decent rulebook would be; way too much ambiguity and it’s even missing a rule that you have to go online to find an errata sheet to address.
I’ll go into more details about what a mess the rules are in a bit.
The suitcases are the main components of the game as you will use these to indicate the stocks they own, the side board market, and as a blind draw mechanic from a black bag. To begin the game two suitcases of each color are placed on each of the sales tables. Black suitcases (these are bad – or good – and more on that later) are also placed on the sales tables. These black suitcases are also place in a section of the board known as The Wall Street Journal along with subsidy cards which are sorted in value: one, two, and five. Depending on the number of players, a certain number of suitcases of each color, except for black, will be placed alongside the board to form the market and a different number of each will be placed in the black bag. Then each player draws five suitcases from the bag to form their hand and, finally, the start player will draw twenty suitcases from the bag to add to the market while all players get a special action card.
Each of the five stocks – and black is not a stock but a downward trend in stock prices – begins with a value of seven and the silver price is set at 20.
Once you’ve done all of this you’re ready to begin play. On every turn, each player has one action they may take. These actions are…
Buy stocks – This is exactly as it sounds as you purchase any stocks at the going rate up to the purchase limit. Also, you will need to take one of any of the colors you bought and take a suitcase from the market and place it on the purchase area. If it is the third of that color to be purchased that turn it will cause the stock price to increase one space. Also, if there are no more of that color in that side board market it will cause a price increase as well.
Sell stocks – Just as it reads as you sell back any stock you wish, also up to the purchase limit. You take the current stock price from the bank. You then take the suitcases you sold and place them back in the market. You then choose any of the colors you sold and move the price of that stock down one space. You then take a color (and it doesn’t have to be the same color you drove the price down but one that you sold) and take that suitcase from the sales table and add it to the market.
Buy silver – This is how you win you the game really as you’ll use silver to acquire gold bars and those are only purchased with silver. You can buy silver at the going rate, up to the purchase limit. You move the marker on the silver buy table as many spaces as silver purchased. Then you take a suitcase of any color and add that to the silver purchasing table. If it is the third color of that stock on the table you then increase that color’s stock price one space. Just as with buying stocks, if there are no more of that color in the market the price increase by a space.
Pass – There is an option of passing. When you take this action, you get to choose any briefcase out of the market and add it to the silver purchasing table. Once again those same rules for three of a color or no remaining of that color in the market will trigger the price increases.
Additionally on each turn, a player can take subsidies, up to the current subsidy limit, although interest on these will have to be paid off and if at any time you can’t pay the interest you’ll have one more turn to pay it off or you’re declared bankrupt and out of the game. Also, once per game, a player can use their special action card with is normally just simply being able to buy one additional stock or silver bar or sell an additional stock over the current limit.
If at any time there are exactly five stock suitcases of a single color (or six in a five player game) a price adjustment will occur. When this happens each player has to pay their interest on their subsidies and then the player who triggered the price adjustment will draw a certain number of suitcases from the bag. I won’t go into detail on the price adjustment but suffice to say this is normally going to drive stock prices down although on occasion you might see an increase for one or two.
The game ends once the silver price reaches 100. When that occurs each player will sell all of their stocks, take out any subsidiaries they still can, and purchase as much silver as that will buy them. Five silver bars equal one gold bar and the player with the most gold bars wins. If tied, then you look to see who has the most left over silver, if still tied whoever has the most left over cash is declared the winner.
A price adjustment will affect stock prices, the silver purchase price and what color stocks go into the black bag. A price adjustment occurs when exactly five colored briefcases (six briefcases in a five player game) are in any of the five tables (black colors excluded for this). When a price adjustment occurs, the person who caused the price adjustment reaches in the bag and randomly pulls out X amount of stocks. When there’s a price adjustment everyone has to pay their subsidies. Once you’re all paid up, the random stocks are placed on the board, then depending on the number in each color pulled, the stocks prices will move accordingly; more of a particular color will keep the price the same or even possibly raise it. Too few of a color and that stock will drop in value.
And that’s how the game is played. Or at least that’s how I think the game is played due to the fact the rule book is horrendous and it seems there’s a lot of discussion online about various interpretations of the rules. Rio Grande supposedly has the rules online but when you try to view the PDF, it’s broken so you only see one page. Maybe this is the one page people have issues with – I’ve read that people have been told numerous ways to play the game so no one seems to know exactly what the rules are – but even reading the update didn’t help matters much. Maybe Rio Grande neds to fix the PDF file?
I’m sure Black Friday will appeal to some folks out there who want to play a game that simulates the stock market to some extent. For myself there are just too many small niggling rules and items that can be overlooked while playing which lead to frustration and confusion. There is some strategy involved as players get to choose various stocks to try and push the price up or drive down but, overall, much of that is defeated by the sheer randomness of the price adjustments. Mainly the people I played this with found it to be rather frustrating and not fun all in all.
I’m afraid many people will see the lighthearted artwork and cute little suitcases only to think this is a lightweight eurogame only to take it home to find that it’s a lot meatier than what they might be ready or even looking for. Black Friday certainly didn’t do it for me and the rules are a disaster so I surely can’t say it’s a very good game by any stretch.
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Here’s the link to Rio Grande’s PDF for the rules:
http://riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_374_gameRules.pdf
I should point out that trying to view the PDF online led your browser to only display a single page out of a reported six (if I remember corrrectly) for the file. When we were playing it for review we tried to check out the rules on both my tablet and on a laptop at the house we played with the same results. The download didn’t work properly either and I tried it again once I got home to no avail. It’s possible that Rio Grande was made aware of this issue with the file and have currently addressed it.
Regardless, that still doesn’t really impact my overall experience other than maybe a rulebook that made sense would have bumped the game just over a six score. I’ll also guess having a downloadable file today surely doesn’t help people who bought the game originally, in 2010, who have now written off the design and moved on to greener pastures.