Nanty Narking Kickstarter Review

Well-dressed gentlemen, dirty street urchins, pea soup smog and a young paper boy calling you “Guv’nor”, are all part of the sights, sounds and awful smells of a nanty narking in Victorian London Town. Nanty narking is an old fashioned phrase for a right good time (something now I can’t say without putting on a Barbara Windsor impression and adding “saucy” to the end of the sentence) and it’s an appropriate, if at first odd sounding, name for Phalanx Games’ remake of Discworld Ankh-Morpork.

Have you played Martin Wallace’s Discworld Ankh-Morpork? If so, then this is probably the most superfluous board game review that you will come across, as Phalanx Games’ Nanty Narking is a perfect reskin of the Tree Frog original, but with the game transplanted from Terry Pratchett’s titular city to merry old London Town.

In Nanty Narking you’ll be trying to complete your secret objective, which usually involves getting things onto the board, while preventing anyone else from completing there’s. It means that the correct way to play Nanty Narking is like a hawk and keeping a beady eye on every action of your opponents.

Being a Martin Wallace game, Nanty Narking is powered by a massive deck of cards and each card gives you a number of actions to play. Generally these cards will allow you to place your agents on the board, take money from the bank and buy buildings. There are also a plethora of other options including assassination, arson and theft, allowing you to further influence the state of the board and generally annoy your opponents.

It’s a ridiculously simple set of mechanics that allows for a huge amount of strategic and tactical scope and the entire game runs smoother than a well-oiled otter sliding down a polished stainless steel water slide. There will be times when the cards don’t do exactly what you want, but there’s always the opportunity to effect the board state, either to your own benefit or your opponents’ detriment.

To win Nanty Narking takes a certain amount of cunning. If you go hell for leather on your secret agenda, then it’s going to be pretty obvious what you are attempting and gives your opponents plenty of opportunity to put the brakes on your plans. But if you can be crafty, and not make it too obvious which of the objectives you are aiming for, you can hopefully confuse your opponents into thinking they’ve ruined your day, only for them to have stopped something that has nothing to do with your actual goal.

Those of you that have played the original Ankh-Morpork will be familiar with its simple components and Discworld characters. Phalanx’s version has been blinged up to the maximum with a series of amazing little miniatures to represent your agents and some beautiful artwork on all the cards. The game has been completely re-themed for the Victorian era and relies on fiction of the time, with Sherlock Holmes and the works of Charles Dickens being the major sources of inspiration. The result is a beautiful looking game that feels close to the ideals of the original.

Nanty Narking is a brilliant game, something that carefully balances direct player conflict and area control without relying on heavy randomness and this new version is beauty to behold.

Nanty Narking on Kickstarter now.

This Kickstarter preview is based on a prototype version of the game provided by the publisher; the final product may look, play or smell different to that used in this preview.