Commissioned by Chara Games Review

My family loves games. We just can’t seem to get enough of them around my household. Recently, we have been playing Commissioned from Chara Games. I received a physical product for this review.

 

Finding a good quality Christian game is not easy especially one that is more of a strategy game. I have to confess that I’m not a strategy game person. I like more simple games that don’t take a long time to play or require too much thinking about it. My son and my husband enjoy thinking games that you need to have a strategy to win. They make my head spin and take way too long for my busy mind to accomplish.

What is Commissioned?

The theme of Commissioned is Church History and first 150 years of the history of the church. Your goal is building the church by spreading the Gospel.  It focuses on the book of Acts and the Apostles. There are 5 scenarios of playing the game. You can also choose the difficultly levels in the “trial deck” by choosing either Disciple or Martyr that will determine the challenges to those who are playing. The game is intended for ages 14+ and 2-6 players. The instructions stated around an hour of play time. Maybe it was a learning curb but, it took closer to 2 hours from start to finish.

The game comes in a heavy duty box for storage. All the pieces look like they are well made.

A two sided game board that is thick and sturdy. The game board is colorful and seems appropriate for the game theme.

6 colorful wood Apostle Player Pawns.

4 wooden Missionary Meeples

75 wooden Church Member Cubes

2 wooden Elder’s Staff Token

1 Heavy duty colorful cardboard Converted City Leaders Token

1 Heavy duty colorful cardboard Roman Legion Token

5 1 Heavy duty colorful cardboard Extinguished Token

301 Heavy duty colorful double sided cardboard Mission and Growth Stop

1 Eight Sided Die

5 Double-Sided Scenario Card

6 Unique Player Boards

96 Faith Cards

27 Trial Cards

Rulebook

1 Theme Appendix

I was confused with the how to play. That is usually the case with strategy games for me. It's not the games fault it was only me! I handed it over to the guys. They didn’t quite understand all the concept completely at first . Chara Games did however put together a helpful video which is very detailed in its instructions to help clarify the instructions.

I will explain the rules given to me and try and convey them clearly! I feel a bit flabbergast trying to give rules with a game I didn’t play. I had to ask lots of questions to clarify. So grace for any errors on my part.

Step 1 is choosing one of the 5 “Scenario Card”. For beginners it was recommended to use the “Acts of Apostles Cards”. These scenario cards tell you where to put game pieces and which side of the “Scenario Card” you are on.

The Scenarios are in order of difficulty. 

Acts of the Apostles

The First Missionary Journeys

Appeal to Caesar

Peter’s Gentile Outreach

To the Ends of the Earth

Each player can choose which one of the 6 Apostles they play during the game.  Every Apostle has a different ability.

After you have done those steps you set up your board 6 “Faith Cards”, tokens, the “Apostle Player Pawns”. You need to choose an elder to begin playing.

Order of Play has three phases: 

Arm-each player draws 6 cards from their “Faith Deck”. Cards number varies if playing with 4 or 5 players.

Live-each player draws 5 “Action Cards” in order. You will repeat this action several times in the game. Live have steps like: 

Trial-you follow the steps on the “Trial Card”

Pray-Quietly play 2 “Faith Cards” put face down.

Share-The Elder rolls the die. A roll of  1 the spies infiltrate: no talking and you remove 1 Church Member or Missionary from the Elder's current church.  A 2 means that messages were intercepted: no talking and you re-roll the die and place either a Mission or Growth Stop on the Elder's church. A 3 represents that the messages were lost. With a roll of a 4-8 nothing happens. 

 

Move-2 moves Fellowship/Mission move. Fellowship move allows the Apostle/Missionaries, and Church Members to move between locations. Mission move allows 1 Apostle or Missionary to advance to a location that doesn't have a "Mission Stop" on it.
  
Grow-the church with 3 + adds a Church Member only if it doesn’t have a “Growth Stop” in place.

Mature-After completing the required play times during the “Live Phase” . You purchase 2  “Faith Cards”. The “Faith Cards” have a numeric value on them between 1-4. 

The “Elder Staff” gets passed to the next player and you continue until the last “Trial Card” is played out or until the churches are extinguished.

Final Thoughts:

My almost 11 year old son and beloved husband of 26+ years tackled this game a few times during the review period.  My guys liked the different scenarios played. That makes for a game changer each time. However they thought it would be neat if Chara Games created more “Scenario Cards” and “Trial Cards” to purchase as an add on as an expansion pack and a growing game like other strategy board games do. They felt the game could easily add on to for more future game playing.

They liked the concept and theme of Commissioned. It was nice having an in-depth Christian Board game. You have to think and it’s a strategy game that could possible interest non-Believers to play. It would be fun to have 6 players playing the game. A nice group game for game night.

 

Biblicaly accurate  game. My husband didn’t see any errors in the historical aspects that we know in the Bible.

Commissioned was a game that exceeded both of my guys’ expectations. I hope to see more Biblical based games that have this much depth to them. 

I dictated the rules with my son’s giving me the rules and tried to convey them clearly so I apologize if I missed a step or worded something wrong.

 

Chara Games has a new game available called 3 Seeds. It’s still a strategy game but, a card game and a lighter game. It’s not as involved and takes around 30-45 minutes to play. My son was intrigued to play this but, I forgot to jump on it in time for reviewing. It looks like it will make a good future gift for him.

Social Media Links: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CharaGames/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CharaGames/ @Charagames 

Don’t forget to see what others from the Homeschool Crew Review them think about Commissioned.