Artificial Intelligence is slowly starting to infiltrate many aspects of our everyday life. As someone who has a background in tech, I do interact with AI on a regular basis at my job and also in my personal life to help me be more productive. When I heard that Compile was themed around artificial intelligence, I was eager to sit down with it, have several plays, and share my thoughts.

Compile overview

In Compile, you and another player are competing artificial intelligence that are trying to understand the world around you. You’ll each be assuming the role of three artificial intelligence protocols and battling across from each other in 3 lanes by playing cards to try and compile the code for that lane. The way a player can successfully compile a lane, is to have 10 or more points in that lane at the start of their turn and have more points than the opposing player in that lane. The first player to compile code for two of the three lanes is declared the winner.

Set up

Lately I’ve been gravitating towards easy to set up games I can get to the table quickly and are played in a relatively short amount of time. Compile certainly fits this preference. In Compile, there are 16 protocol cards that players can select from to make their three lanes. Before the game starts each player will draft three of these protocols and each of the 6 playable cards for that protocol to make up their deck. The selected protocols will be placed in the center of the table in a row of three facing each player. The protocol cards themselves are then shuffled up to form the players draw deck players draw five cards into their hand to start the game. Last, the control card is placed out on the table in a neutral spot within reach of both players and you’re ready to start the game. Really simple set up not even five minutes.

Compile Gameplay

I’m a big fan of Compile’s simple gameplay. The actions you can take on your turn, essentially boil down to three types. You can either play a card, compile, or refresh your hand.

When playing a card, take that card and place it under the respective protocol and invoke the effects on the card or play the card face down in any row you would like. Cards will have point values on the top of them that contribute to compiling the row and can have instant and ongoing effects that could last as long as the effect is visible. These card effects could have you deleting your opponents cards, shifting cards from one lane to another, flipping cards over or drawing more cards. I have not been through all the protocols yet, but there are a ton of effects. As you continue to play cards in these lines, you’ll be covering up previous cards. But what’s cool is you’re only covering the bottom 2/3 of a card so you’ll still have ongoing effects of the top line of cards that you cover.

If at the start of your turn, you have achieved 10 or more points in your line and have more points than your opponent’s line across from you, you must take the compile action. By compiling, you are flipping the protocol over noting that you’ve completed that line and removing both your cards and your opponents cards that are played underneath that line and putting them into the respective discard piles. What’s also important to mention here is the status of control at the start of your turn when compiling. If you happen to have control when compiling, you now get to mix up one player’s protocols as you see fit. You can do this to your advantage or the opponents disadvantage.

The last action that a player can take on their turn is refresh. When refreshing, you draw back up to five cards into your hand and if you happen to have control, you also get to rearrange those protocols as mentioned before.

Play will continue back-and-forth with opponents playing cards against each other and activating effects until two of a single player’s lines have been compiled, that player will be the winner.

Impressions

I really like this game. I think for the time it takes to set up and how snappy and simple the gameplay is, this game punches well above its weight class. the cards that belong to a protocol are very thematic to that protocol. As an example, the gravity protocol you have a lot of cards that will shift other cards towards the gravity line. With each of the 16 protocols having their own unique cards, strategies are varied and deep for the simplicity of the gameplay. There is nothing more satisfying in the game than playing a card that shifts or flips your opponent’s cards and prevents them from compiling their next turn.

The cards in Compile are amazing quality. They are thick and durable with some kind of a foil or holographic overlay. At first touch I thought they were PVC cards but after reading up on them a bit more they are paper with a high quality core. They seem really sturdy and have shown no signs of wear in my many plays. The art is fairly simple and makes the card’s text easy to read even at a distance. It is importantly to see what abilities your opponent has in play and the subdued art helps.

The AI theme is a bit light and not really woven into the game itself. This game very easily could have used a different theme and still been just as good but I am not going to detract here as the game is just so solid.

I really like that this is a game I can introduce to players that are not really gamers and after the first couple of turns, they grasp and understand the concept of the game. Because it is so snappy, they want to jump into it again and play another game of Compiled right away.

Compile Final Verdict

I’m giving compile four out of five stars. I really really like that this game plays fast, has deep strategy, simple term structure, and it’s really something I can introduce to new players. Couple that with a $20 price point and it’s an absolute slam dunk of a game to have in a collection.