Uprise can be played with 2-8 people, a huge bonus to us as we often have six players and struggle to find games that include more than five. It also can be played competitive, solo or co-op which we liked. Three games in one! For our first test, we chose to play competitively. I've since played solo and it just as strategic and challenging as the other modes of play.

In the updated theme, players are part of a secret society, working to complete missions that will overthrow the ruling elite. To start, players draw three 'Stache cards, a Top Hat card and a secret mission card. Top Hat cards have random patterns of pictures in a 3x3 grid. The secret agenda card has a pattern to demonstrate how your bureaus need to be built on the Top Hat. But, before you can build anything, you need the matching cards in your hand. No match? No building. Any cards you can’t use, you can discard or store in your vault to purchase upgrades like safe houses or bonus secret agendas.  Bonus secret agendas can be used in place of your current secret agenda if you’re struggling to complete it. This trickery can be a good thing as your opponents won't know your exact moves, and as an added bonus, secret agenda cards can be rotated any which way you like so it matches the way you're building on the Top Hat card. You'll also need money to purchase Top Hats and extra secret agendas when you're done building a layer, so strategy and critical thinking are key. Some Top Hat cards have small symbols on a picture, indicating some kind of bonus, so you need to weigh your options carefully.

Uprise is it isn’t a typical board-and-dice game so it's a good game to have in the stash. Every player has their own individual set of buildings and cards to play with, but you can still impact their game. In your mission, you take a Top Hat card with a random pattern of pictures in a 3x3 grid. 

It sounds complicated, but it’s pretty quick and easy to grasp, and it’s quick and easy to play. When you’ve finished building a Top Hat card, you need to purchase another to stack on your buildings and build your way up. This is where it gets tricky, and where you need to be creative. If your towers or cards fall off, they’re out of play. Cards can be laid and adjusted as you’re building and your secret agenda can be rotated to make it work for your Top Hat card. There’s a lot going on, especially when other players start buying Moustache cards and playing them against your hand. These can be hugely detrimental, forcing you to stop building for a round (thanks, Ryan), remove a layer of buildings (you're welcome, Wes), and so on.

Uprise took us only about 20 minutes to play and it's easy enough for younger players to learn (10ish and up), but strategic enough to keep adults engaged and looking for another round. At the end of the game, the player with the most points (calculated by the yellow blocks on the Top Hat cards completed) is the winner.

Conclusion

We quite enjoyed our playtest, and the plays we went through after. Cooperative is fun, and it's an excellent way of teaching the younger players strategy and skills before getting into solo or competitive play. Personally, I like the competitive version best, but really, that's not a surprise to anyone. We're definitely looking forward to the competed version!

Note: On our first run-through of the game, we were a little befuddled by the pictures and theme, and chatted about improvements. Before we'd even connected with Alex, though, he texted us to mention he was working on a theme change which we think will serve the game and its intention well. So, our pictures and the game will probably look different than what the Kickstarter version is.