Girl Genius: The Works

In 2001, when the Girl Genius comic was brand new, James Ernest and Phil Foglio created a clever little card game called Girl Genius: The Works. It’s a strategic, chaotic puzzle game where every character is a cog in a giant machine.

In 2018, after nearly two decades of the comic, the duo got back together to update the game, completely overhauling the art and fleshing out the character list. The Kickstarter campaign for Girl Genius: The Works raised nearly $200k, and launched four new decks, each representing a story arc of the comic series.

At that time we printed barely enough to fulfill the Kickstarter campaign. We planned to make a different set of the same cards, consolidating them into a single product for retail, but soon after the campaign had shipped, Cheapass Games was sold to new owners, and they let the game go quietly out of print.

Now Cheapass Games is pleased to bring back Girl Genius: The Works as four slightly beefier decks (see below), available as print-on-demand from DriveThruCards.

The Works is a puzzly card game for two or more players, in which every card is a cog in a giant machine. The game takes place on a 12-card board, where cards are always flipping, spinning, and popping, and every card has an ability that triggers when it pops. Each time you tinker with the board, it can have repercussions through the whole system.

Decks: The 2018 versions of these decks included 60 game cards and three lose-a-turn cards. Because the nearest tuck box size at DriveThruCards holds 72 cards, we have made some additions. Each deck now includes the original 60 cards, plus duplicates of all five Agatha cards, four Lose-a-Turn cards, two player aid cards, and one of the four promo cards from the Kickstarter campaign.. The decks are as follows:

You can play the game with any one of these decks, mix them together, or even pick your favorite cards and mingle them into a custom deck. Each one has a unique expansion symbol to help reset everything after the chaos subsides.

Rules: If you buy this game from DriveThruCards, you’ll also need the rules:

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