Agent Avenue: Board Game Preview

In the weeks leading up to Essen Spiel, the biggest board game convention in the world, publishers reveal their upcoming games and this we got a chance to try a yet unreleased game. It’s the latest release from Nerdlab Games, folks that brought us the Mindbug series of card games. This is another card game, as expected, light on the rules, but with a neat twist. Read on!

Agent Avenue takes us to the 50s Americana-inspired suburb where anthropomorphic animals reside. You’re two spies living across each other in a quaint street. But, one day, you start suspecting the other one is also a spy. What follows is a game of cat-and-mouse around the board, recruiting neighbors to help you catch the other spy and reveal their secret.

A turn in Agent Avenue is simple: you play two cards in front of you, one face-up and the other face-down. They have to have different names, which is a big hint to the opponent. Then your opponent chooses one of those cards and places it face up in front of them. You take the remaining card and resolve those results by moving your pawns around the board.

The game has a sort of set collection vibe, as each card’s power changes depending on how many copies of it you’ve got on your tableau. Some cards move you forward, some backward, or you might even stay in the place. You want to catch the opposing spy, but they’re also chasing your tail. Also, if you’ve got 3 of certain cards you instantly win or lose the game.

As you can imagine, each turn is a big gamble. You want to set up good combos, but at the same time, you might end up giving your opponent wind in their backs. I think players who are good at keeping track of probabilities and card counting will dominate in this game. One good thing is that there’s no text on these cards, so you can play it with your kids, too, or friends from abroad.

The game also comes with several variants. What I’ve described so far is the Simple mode. In Advanced mode, you flip the board and use an additional deck of Black Market cards that give instant and ongoing bonuses. For my group, the Advanced mode felt ideally complex, while keeping the chaotic nature of the main premise.

Although Agent Avenue is mainly a two-player board game, you can also play it with up to 4 players as it has team mode where up to two players on each side control a single character. I think this mode is even funnier as you’re working with hidden information (you can’t show each other cards or talk) and the way you play cards leads to hilarious situations.

All in all, we had a fun time trying out this game and you can expect our full review very soon.

Agent Avenue will be released at Essen Spiel 2024. We based this preview on the print-and-play version provided by the publisher Nerdlab Games.