If you’ve ever wished a Rage Room had Rules and Points, boy howdy have I got the game for you!

Tear-able Quest, from Shintaro Ono, illustrated by Sai Beppu, and published by Allplay, is a 1-50 (yes, fifty) player game that takes about ten minutes to play. It is a multiplayer solitaire experience.

Gameplay Overview:

In Tear-able Quest, players take on the role of Rippers—competing to tear their way to Victory. Each player receives a sheet (either Manic Meadow or Dragon’s Den), which they will slowly tear to shreds for precious Points! Sheets are covered in Monsters and Weapons, which are used to fulfill point recipes.

Games last three rounds, each round lasting two minutes. Each round features a new monster card, plus a Boss Monster card that stays out all game long. Each card features Quests that must be fulfilled for points. For example, the Skeleton monster requires a single slip of paper with an axe and one, two, or three skeletons for two, five, or eight points per slip.

The challenge comes in tearing each paper precisely, because if a sliver of any other monster or weapon is showing, Rippers get no points at all. Add up your scores after three rounds, and the Best Ripper is declared!

The aftermath of one player’s game in the Manic Meadow.

Game Experience:

Tear-able Quest plunged me into emotional journeys I was not prepared for from a 10-minute recipe-filled dexterity game.

I played this with my family, which was fun until my three-year-old decided it wasn’t fair that my DEX score is 20 points higher than hers and pitched a giant fit. She was infuriated that the game was already torn up and that she couldn’t inflict more damage.

The sheet after round 1, scoring 2 bosses and 1 slime.

I also played this solo, which felt futile and sad, like I was slowly ripping up a note from a long lost love. Or like a serial killer trying to craft a note by delicately ripping out capital letters from a magazines.

More than anything, the pile of paper scraps left at the end of the game sent my Save the Earth hippie self into a bit of a spiral. This game exists to be destroyed, a monument to man’s waste. Thank goodness it’s all recyclable (save one plastic bag to hold the cards, and the shrink wrap it came in), or this would be a very different review.

The game itself is well contained, but loses its luster after repeated plays. There are only four Monsters, so you only miss one recipe per map, per game. This means that if you’ve played before, you can game the system a bit and predict which icon recipes and groupings to try and save to score big.

Scrying the hidden treasure and curses printed on the back side of the sheet.

Scoring can be mixed up with the use of the 6 Bonus Cards, which add some scoring objectives to your targeted Ripping. These can be the most or fewest paper slips collected, or the most treasure. One even lets you flip the fourth (normally unused) monster card and score that as well for a round.

Each sheet has a front and a back side. The front contains the Weapons and Monsters that make up the recipes you are fulfilling, and the back contains treasures and curses, which can modify your score if they appear on your ripped slips. The rulebook encourages players to hold their sheets up to a light to plot their Rips accordingly.

The art on the sheets and the cards is adorable. It is reminiscent of my poorly-drawn notepad paper battles that I used to have in Middle School in the best way. The monsters and weapons are just similar enough that it can be hard to spot what you are searching for quickly in the heat of a round, but also unique enough that they can be quickly sorted.

Final scoring.

The rounds themselves go by quickly, though the rulebook states that it’s fine to set the timer to go longer than the standard two minutes. I found myself wishing the game was one-minute rounds with scissors instead of two with my clumsy, fat fingers.

Scoring is simple; just count each recipe on each paper slip you tore that round. Check the front for the recipe and any stragglers, and the back for any treasure or curses. Rounds can vary wildly in points-getting.

I generally like to go after the boss first for big points, and then carefully pick high-scoring recipes in rounds two and three.

Final Thoughts:

Tear-able Quest is a fine family-weight filler. It may even skew slightly heavier than pure family based on the new information revealed in each round, and the dexterity required to be competitive.

For a 10-minute game, it is cute and easy to get playing. I do not recommend this for repeated plays in a single session, as it quickly gets boring (and my hands hurt, damnit!)

Final Score: 2.5 Stars – A fun, single-use filler game.

Hits:
• A silly filler game, doesn’t outlast its welcome
• Cute art

Misses:
• The guilt of needless waste is crushing
• Boring after repetitive plays