Girl Genius: The Works (2nd ed)

Girl Genius: The Works is a game for 2 or more players, ages 12 and up. The game takes about 30 minutes to play.

What if everything in the world was a cog in a giant machine? That's the idea behind Girl Genius: The Works, a unique strategy card game based on the world of Girl Genius.

The game is played on a 12-card tableau, representing the machine. Cards interact by flipping, spinning, and popping out of the machine. Cards can pop in chain reactions, and that might give you extra points, more cards, or other wacky effects!

If you like adventure, mad science, and innovative strategy, then Girl Genius: The Works is for you!

The Comic: Girl Genius is a beautiful and hilarious comic series by Phil and Kaja Foglio, filled with intrigue, romance, and mad science. It's the story of Agatha Heterodyne, a gifted "spark" whose phenomenal powers lead to wild adventures! The comic has been going strong for 18 years, and has won many, many awards. If you don't know it, check it out!

The Game Designer: James Ernest is a world-renowned game designer responsible for more than 200 published designs. His elegant, story-driven designs are famous for engaging players' intellect and imagination. And he has also won many, many awards.

The Publisher: Cheapass Games has been making great games with Phil and Kaja Foglio since 1997! We've also made many other games, more than 100 at last count, including ten via Kickstarter campaigns. Learn more about us at our double-secret website, cheapass.com.

The game is most strategic with 2 players, and can be slightly more chaotic with more. It's a game of planning ahead and setting up moves for yourself, so it's best to play in teams, rather than a free-for-all.

This game was first released in 2001, when the Girl Genius comic was brand new. (It's an update of an even older collectible card game created by the same team.) The first edition was a single 110-card box. At that time, many of the characters in the game hadn't yet appeared in the story, and some of them still haven't!

This new edition of the game will have four different 60-card decks, each with all-new cards representing a different arc of the Girl Genius story. The decks are:

Castle Wulfenbach
Master Payne's Circus of Adventure
Castle Heterodyne
The Siege of Mechanicsburg

Girl Genius: The Works is one of James Ernest's personal favorites, because of its exceptional strategic options (despite its apparent randomness) and all the art he painstakingly colored. Plus, it was nominated for two Origins Awards in 2001: Best Abstract Card Game and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game. Why, the only thing better would have been to actually win.

NOTE: cover image is from 1st edition

AWARDS
2001 Origins Award Nominee: Best Abstract Card Game
2001 Origins Award Nominee: Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game
2001 Listed in GAMES Magazine's GAMES 100