In Club Unlock, players try to crack as many safes as possible, as if they are part of Ocean’s Eleven. By cracking safes, you earn cash, and the player with the most cash is the winner, because in Club Unlock, cash is king.
Like many other games published by Playte, it is a re-release of an older game in a new guise with updated design. It often involves accessible card and board games from German game designers. This also applies to the card game Cash by Jürgen P. Grunau (known for Monza) and Wolfgang Kramer (known for a whole host of games such as El Grande, Renature and 6 Nimmt!) which now appears before us as Club Unlock. Is cash still king?
In Club Unlock, players take on the role of bank robbers, cracking safes as if they’re starring in a George Clooney film. Don’t expect a grand caper (an English term often used to describe a heist adventure), but rather a fairly simple card game.
Each turn, players either draw cards to their hand or play cards to open safes. There are cards in four colours, and each safe contains a combination made up of one or more of those colours.
If you play the correct set of cards, you may take the safe into your hand, and that safe is worth points. The trick is to open several safes at once, as this way you score more points.
It’s quite simple and perhaps a bit too simple, especially since players have no hand limit on cards. Nothing stops a player from saving as many cards as possible and playing them all at once. You can also focus on a single colour, making it nearly impossible for other players. With a hand limit, players would need to play more efficiently. Because of this, Club Unlock isn’t really a caper, despite its potential as an interesting and straightforward card game.
