Image taken from https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8936819/shred-of-redemption

Designer: Artem Safarov
Publisher: Best With 1 Games
Artist: Cole Munro-Chitty

Shred of Redemption is a clever bag building action selection optimization puzzle game that follows the story of a person gaining positive traits to redeem themselves from their past errors. Once they have regained their positive traits and faced their vices and regrets, there is one final reckoning they must overcome to fully be redeemed.

To start the game, the player places all vice dice in the draw bag and then draws one at a time. After one die is drawn, the player also draws two redemption cards and selects one to use for that round. This continues until the player has five dice and five redemption cards. The rest of the dice can then be put aside or back in the box, as the bag has to be freed up for the next step: tokens.

The token bag is built via two avenues – one of each of the six virtues are automatically added along with six regret tokens, but the rest of the tokens are determined by the symbols present on the chosen redemption cards. For reference, the redemption cards also have an ability on them that can be used once over the course of the game.

Once the bag is built, the player rolls each die and places them in a row and then draws tokens from the bag and places them in a row below the vice dice until there are five virtue tokens in play (there can be more than five if a regret token is drawn).

After all of this gets set up, the real gameplay begins. The main goal is to remove all regret tokens from the row and also line up the first five tokens in the row so that each vice has its matching virtue below. To accomplish both of these, players take token actions and redemption card actions. As aforementioned, each redemption card has a one-time use ability, but the tokens are where things get interesting. Each virtue has two possible abilities a token can provide: a “use” ability and a “discard” ability. If a token is utilized for its “use” ability, it simply gets flipped over to its used side. If it is again used for its “use” ability, it gets discarded. On the other hand, if a token is utilized for its “discard” ability, the token gets discarded immediately. If a token is on its used side, it cannot be utilized for a discard ability. As you can imagine, the discard abilities are stronger than the use abilities, but both have their place and can be crucial for success.

The end of this action phase, called the redemption phase, occurs when the player either runs out of actions and has yet to remove all regret tokens and/or line up vices and virtues, in which case the player loses the game, or the player achieves the goals and succeeds in this phase. If the player succeeds, they then move on to the final reckoning.

If the reckoning phase is reached, the player draws a reckoning card and resolves its negative effect. Then, the player must use the remaining tokens and redemption cards they have available to overcome the obstacles from the reckoning card and once again meet the two success requirements in order to truly win the game.

Overall, this game is pretty fun! It’s really interesting to balance the token and card powers, and it’s tricky deciding which redemption card to select based on both its tokens and ability. The design is well done and has some nice interconnected elements. The abilities for the tokens are all very different, and some of the card powers can be really strong and useful. I also love a good, original take on bag building, and this does that well. It lends to the element of luck while also providing a strategic layer to building your bag and gaining all your abilities. It plays pretty quickly as well – maybe a little longer than the printed time on the box unless you fail immediately, but it’s still not lengthy. The artwork is fabulous as well!

My main issue with the game is how luck based it is. Bag builders naturally have luck involved, but considering this one has dice, card draws, and bag building, success can be very dependent on luck. Like I said, the token abilities can be very useful, but it can be tough to have five of the same token and none of the others that you actually need. It’s unfortunately easy to get stuck and have no options that help you win the game, which can be frustrating. For example, the yellow tokens let you draw more tokens out of the bag. If you have zero yellow tokens out but four yellow tokens in your bag, you get to a point where, unless you have a card that can help, there’s nothing you can do other than hope you can maybe reroll dice or something, but that’s still exceptionally luck dependent. There definitely is strategy in the game, but there are also some uncontrollable aspects that can make or break redemption.

The other complaint I have is in relation to the reckoning cards. I understand that the game would be less challenging if that last phase wasn’t there, but I almost wish the game ended before that phase, or that they considered that a more difficult variant. The luck is so prevalent throughout the game that adding another element of luck via the reckoning card draw can be irritating. I feel accomplished making it to that phase to then have it all come crashing down.

In terms of components, there are a lot of different dice which is cool – it creates a lot of variability and endless potential combinations. On the other hand, the draw bag is too small. The tokens can fit, but it’s difficult to mix them up and draw some from the bottom when there are a lot in the bag.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this one. I like it, I think it has some interesting strategic and tactical decisions, there is a lot of variability, and I enjoy its mix of mechanics, but the massive reliance on luck for success disappoints me. It’s not a bad game by any stretch; it’s just one I enjoy in small doses and can easily get frustrated with.