DISCOVERIES: THE JOURNALS OF LEWIS & CLARK

Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis & Clark, Ludonaute, 2015

14+, 60 minutes, 2-4 players, Competitive Worker Placement

I'm an Englishman who spent more time in my childhood playing computer games and D&D than I did studying American history. After all, most British history existed before America was America, and then it only came to be when they started brewing a massive cup of tea in the harbour. Actually, I spent more time doing most things than I did studying American history, as the previous sentence indicates. So, when a game recalling the travel exploits of two individuals came to my attention, what was it that drew me in? Primarily, it was the fact that it was a historical game, and I own very few of these. Especially now I'm living in America, the chance to play board games and learn about this country is appealing. There are two games on the market about the travels of Lewis and Clark. The other has a really lovely board and is loved by many gamers around the world, but they often complain that the game gets bogged down half way through. This game seems faster, more streamlined and, frankly has gorgeous dice. I'm a total sucker for good dice, and this game definitely has them.

This version of Lewis & Clark is a worker placement game where the dice are the workers. Some workers are exploring on foot, some on horseback, some are forging positive relations with the American Indians and some are writing in the journal. At the beginning of the game, each player starts with a number of dice according to the colour of the character they've chosen. Some dice (grey) are shared resources who can be borrowed from other characters or found elsewhere. The designs on the dice are gorgeous, the colours are bold and exciting, and the mechanics are excellent. If you befriend an American Indian tribe, you gain a grey die, which makes total sense because you've got more people helping you on your travels. If a player uses their workers on an expedition, they then have to rest them back at the camp, where you might choose to use them for your next expedition before that player uses them again. This is the first part of what makes it a highly strategic game. 

The bold colours certainly factor well with me. As a colourblind gamer, I will always mark down games that have game elements that can be easily confused. This game is certainly not one of them. A wall of technicolour smacks you in the face as soon as you open the box. The journals are brightly coloured, the dice are brightly coloured, the cards are clear. Visually, this is a nice game. Simple in its aesthetic, but that simplicity certainly works in favour of the game.

Two of the player sheets with the journal zone not yet removed from the Dice Stock box

A word needs to be said about the term "American Indian," by the way. The game is very clear at the beginning to explain that the 1995 US Census Bureau determined that this term was the most popular among the community about whom the name is appropriate. I really respect Ludonaute for doing this research. That said, that research was 20 years old by the time the game came out, and I'm not sure that is still true. I could be wrong, though. Nonetheless, some cultural sensitivity is very greatly appreciated. In fact, the whole of the first page of the rulebook is a description of the historical mission and an explanation of terms, so this isn't an afterthought - the designers want you to really think about the history and culture of the game.

The aim of the game is to record three differing kinds of data in your Journal - geographical (by mapping territories), biological (by discovering new species) and ethnological (by encountering American Indian tribes). Are there many games that have the word "ethnological" in the rule book? I'm thinking not. In terms of game balance, it seems that biological records are where the winning points really lie, which is a shame in terms of game balance because one would have hoped these would all have been equally valuable.

Each of the 55 cards that come with the game are double-sided. On the Tribe side are descriptions of American Indian tribes that you can encounter. Here, for example, is a card of the Walla Walla tribe. And yes, that's a real name of a real tribe... don't be so culturally insensitive! On the top right of the card is one of two symbols - in this case, it's the symbol depicting a Wary Tribe, which means that to befriend it you need to spend two Negotiate dice (that's a die with an American Indian symbol on it), instead of only one for a Friendly Tribe. Under that is a picture of a Tepee. The player who collects the most tepees during the game scores points. The bottom of the card explains what you can do once you befriend this tribe. In this case, if you put down one Ride, one Walk and one Journal die (the Journal die must always be put down last), then you can travel for three mountains and then two rivers. What does that mean?

Areas for exploration are placed on the right-hand side of the board. There are always three potential areas for exploration. On the left-hand side of each card is the reward for completing that journey - in the case of these three cards, 9 points, a plant discovery, or 5 points and a tepee. Travelling up the card is a journey. The top card here gives choices - either 5 rivers and 1 mountain or 4 rivers and 2 mountains. The second card is a straight 3 river journey, and the bottom card here is 1 mountain then 2 rivers. If a player had the Walla Walla tribe card (see above), for example, they could then complete that bottom expedition since they would be able to travel 3 mountains and 2 rivers. So, they would then get to keep the card and count it for points later. Here's the challenge, though. You can't just choose from three expeditions - you have to make a choice of an expedition, take the card and then work towards the expedition. Making that choice and then working towards it is actually very tough, and you really have to manipulate your dice and use the dice of other players to be successful.

Here's an example of a player who's set up nicely to complete an expedition. They've chosen the 3 river trip. In the middle of the bottom of their board, is says that if you put down two Walk and one Journal dice then you can travel 3 rivers. This player has two Walk dice (one red and one grey) so they could do start with those dice this turn. Next turn, they put down a Journal die (you can only put down one type of die each turn) and the expedition is completed. Sound easy enough, but not necessarily. At any time as their action for the turn, a player can summon their own workers back to camp. That means taking all dice of your own colour back. In this case, if the red player took their dice back, this blue player would not be able to complete their expedition (because then they would only have one grey Walk die).  If they did that, the blue player has some choices. They could use their Negotiate dice (the blue and red dice on the left of the dice pool here) to befriend some American Indian tribes. That would give them an extra grey die, which they would then roll and hope to become a Walk die. Or they could call their blue dice back, roll them and hope one of them becomes a Walk Die. Or they could swap their expedition card for another. There are a lot of choices, and that is what makes this a highly enjoyable and strategic game. Yes, it's clearly luck dependent, but it's also about how you manage the luck.

In the centre of the table goes the board, with three Tribe cards on the left and three Discoveries cards on the right. So, the Tribe cards on the left are next to the right bank of the river and the Discoveries cards on the right of the board are next to the left bank of the river. Confused? You should be, because that's by far the weirdest part of this game. When you look at the board, the left-side of the river is apparently the right bank and the right-side is the left bank. They try to explain it in the rulebook in terms of the direction of flow of the river, but it's nonsensical. That stands out as a really silly design flaw. It doesn't affect the game in the slightest, so it was a ridiculous addition. Looking at the board below, the player whose turn it is faces some real choices....

Let's say it's the blue player's turn. What they could do is place dice on the card to work towards a current expedition. Or they could befriend an American Indian tribe, which makes future further explorations easier. But they have other options, too. They could summon their own coloured dice to their dice pool. Or they could take dice from one of the banks of the river (remember, for no sensible reason, the left-side of the board is the right bank and the right side is the left bank). In this case, taking from the right bank would mean five dice added to the personal pool, while taking from the left bank (on the right of the board) would result in four dice. Obvious choice? Not so much. One might be inclined to go for the five dice, but if the red player went next they could just summon their dice and the blue player would be left with three. That would happen on the other bank, too, but the red player might be more inclined to let you keep one of their dice and do something else, whereas if they see you using two of theirs, they might not. Again, highly strategic.

Having to choose Tribe cards adds another dimension to the game. Do you befriend, for example, a Friendly tribe (costing only one Negotiate die) that gives you a tepee and allows you to spend 3 Walk and 1 Journal to go either 3 rivers or 2 mountains, or a Wary tribe (costing two Negotiate dice) that gives you a tepee and allows you to spend two Walk dice and a Journal die to travel 3 mountains, or do you befriend a Wary tribe (on the bottom of this picture) that allows you to spend just one Journal die to explore 2 rivers? Tough choice. I would probably take the bottom card, but don't trust me entirely because I've never actually won at this game.

Again, the artwork on the Tribe cards is lovely, although I do not know if it is accurate to each tribe. That may be mere white anglo projection in the assumption that the designers have explored this in this much depth. I hope that they have, but can't be sure.

Two more things need to be mentioned. The first is that for the game to work best, every player should really say out loud what they're doing. If players are busy doing their thing, then there's little interaction. However, if a player says, "I'm putting down two Journal dice, one here and one here, and that gives me 2 mountains and 4 rivers, allowing me to complete this expedition" then that kind of talk really makes the game interesting. The second is something that totally confuses me - the fact that this (and the other Lewis and Clark game) is competitive. For a game which clearly paid attention to historical accuracy, why are Lewis and Clark competing? They didn't race back to Jefferson to say, "I collected more species than he did!" They were a team! How is there not a cooperative Lewis and Clark game? The game mechanics here would definitely not work cooperatively and the mechanics are a lot of fun, but that's only because you have to suspend disbelief and have Lewis and Clark compete. It's by no means a deal-breaker, because this is a good game, but it's .... well.... weird. The back of the box says "Torah is your turn to write history." Given that Lewis and Clark are competing in this game, that's possibly the truest statement in the whole game!!

WE LIKEY

• Cultural sensitivity
• Historical theme
• Strong, clear colours with excellent artwork
• Highly strategic
• Easy to learn with simple rules
• Novel dice manipulation mechanic
• Enjoyable game length time (about an hour)

WE NO LIKEY

• The left bank being the right bank and the right bank being the left bank!
• Notable luck dependency
• Imbalance of biological over geological and ethnographic elements when it comes to scoring
• Lewis and Clark didn't compete!

This game deserves a good score, so let's see what we've got.

Accessibility: 4/5 - The 14+ age suggestion is merely about legality, not about game play. Children under 10 should be able to play this. The rule book is clear and the diagrams helpful.
Design: 5/5 - I don't know of another game that manipulates dice like this. There might be others, but I don't know them. The colours and artwork absolutely round off an already well-designed game.

Depth: 3/5 - While the mechanics themselves aren't very deep, the strategic decisions that have to be made each turn are sizeable. 

Replayability: 4/5 - I prevaricated here between a 3 and a 4. The game length makes it very easy to play often.

Availability: 5/5 - Easily available online and in gaming stores at a perfectly acceptable price.

Summary: If you're the kind of gamer who loves to primarily play dungeon crawls and hack and slash, then this isn't for you. But if you want something really different, something educational and strategic, then this is a really good game. The dice manipulation element is brilliant, your party slowly gains in the ability to explore further and further and, despite a few niggles, the game is well balanced and well timed. You really feel like you're going on a long journey that requires real planning and careful execution. 

Final Score: I'm going to give this game our highest rating so far, particularly because of the excellent design. It only pips the previous best score by a hair's breadth, but nonetheless this game is well deserving of our rating of 85%.

SPACETEAM

SPACETEAM, Sleeping Beast Games, 2015

10+, 5 minutes, 3-6 players, Cooperative

Here at Boy Got Game, we like to review a wide variety of games and Spaceteam is certainly different to anything we've looked at before. Originally a game for Android and iOS from 2012, it was a free game that players could download. It was so successful that only a few years later it was turned into a card game. But is it any good, and why might you want to buy it as a tabletop game if you could already download it on your phone?

The game comes in a handy travel-sized box which contains 90 differing cards and a 5-minute egg timer. The cards are a shiny cardboard, so shiny in fact that you will drop them. Not a joke, they strangely slippery and while you're taking them out of the box, or when you're trying to shuffle them, you will drop them. And you will be annoyed and then you will realise that that's an essential part of gameplay.

The aim of Spaceteam is to repair a malfunctioning spaceship before it falls into a black hole, which it will apparently do in five minutes. All players have to resolve malfunctions on the ship at the same time, while dealing with annoying anomalies that hold you back. Each player has a set of tools, and they have to ask for tools from their fellow crewmates to resolve malfunctions. What makes the game is that everyone is asking for tools, and passing tools, at the same time. So it's loud and frenetic, especially because when you have the malfunction in front of you, you don't know the name of the tool you need to fix it.

Take this malfunction, for example. You need two tools to fix it - in this case, one has to be a specific tool and the other symbol on this card is a representation of a tool type, like suits in a normal deck of cards. But look at the picture on the left. You're asking your crew mates sitting around the table for it. How would you describe it? "The thing with a box and wires that's standing on a stand"? That's where the fun comes in. You're all badly describing tools that you need from each other at the same time. So, you're speaking and listening and swapping cards all at the same time. That's what makes this game crazed and loud - personal experience suggests it's not one to play with the kids asleep in a nearby room!

So, how does the team win? Each player has a deck of cards and as they resolve each card, they move onto the next one. Eventually, they'll find six differing cards that form a picture of the spaceship. If the team gets all six pictures down on the table before the timer runs out, they win. But if they don't, they get sucked into the black hole and lose. The frantic pace of the game is why the slippery cards are an interesting part of game design, because you have to be really careful as you're passing and playing cards. But there's more. As well as trying to resolve malfunctions, players have to deal with anomalies that they might draw as well. For example, the Man Overboard anomaly means that a player has been sucked out of the spaceship, meaning that they can't speak (which is a really bad thing in a game where you need to constantly be describing things and asking for things). The only way to deal with the Man Overboard is for the adjacant players to literally pull the player back into the ship! Or maybe you'll turn into a robot and you'll be unable to use your thumbs for the rest of the game (which is a really bad thing in a game where you're always holding and passing cards).

So, see if you can give it a try. How would you describe these two tools? In ten seconds. GO!Yeah, not so easy, is it? Not imagine that three other players are doing the same thing at the same time. That's what makes this a fun little filler. That said, there is a problem with the game. Having played it about ten times now, we've never lost. So, we decided to reduce the time limit to four minutes, but we still won. So, we added more cards to make it harder, but we still won. So, we shortened the time limit to three minutes, but we still won. And that means that, as fun as the game may be, it's too easy. There's no question it's fun but when it's hard to lose, it's just not that fun. But it's a filler, and we have to recognise that. It's a fun intro to a games evening, or a fun end to it if there's a few minutes left over after playing a lengthy game. Or perhaps it's a good game to play when you have a few minutes spare. But it's not the kind of game you take with you and play at the table in a restaurant! It's a bit too loud for that!             

WE LIKEY

• Very easy to learn
• Quick and portable
• Loud and frenetic
• Very quick game play
• Perfect game when you've got a little time left at the end of a game evening

WE NO LIKEY

• Slippery cards
• Easy to win

It's time to give this game some points....

Accessibility: 5/5 - There are fewer games that are simpler to learn.
Design: 3/5 - I get it. The slippery cards are to make the game slightly harder. But they're annoying. And while fun, it's also too easy.

Depth: 1/5 - There is no time for this to be deep. The rule book is two sides of a piece of paper.

Replayability: 3/5 - It's fun, it really is. So you'll want to play it on every game night when you have a few minutes spare. But it won't be the central point of your game night.

Availability: 5/5 - Easily available online and in gaming stores.

Summary: If you play this game, you will laugh. You will have a lot of fun trying to explain that squiggly tool with the things coming out of it, or the round tool with the base and the you-know-what. And you'll laugh when you all have to swap places in a heart beat.
And then, once you're done, you'll put it away and play a more in-depth game which will be the central focus on your gaming time.

Final Score: It's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. But it's really very simple and easy. As game design goes, it's good because it really brings out the laughs, but you'll spend as long taking it out and putting it away again as you do actually playing it. It's a good game to have in a collection, but it will never be a classic simply because of how light it is. Exploding Kittens was light, but this is even lighter. It's funny but not in the same way because this time the humour comes mainly from you not being able to describe things and not from good card art. It's worth having, certainly worth trying, and deserving of 68%.

EXPLODING AND IMPLODING KITTENS

EXPLODING KITTENS, Self-Published, 2015

7+, 15 minutes, 2-5 players, Competitive

Have you ever wanted to play Russian roulette? Of course you have. Secretly, deep down inside, you and everyone else want to face the void of your own non-existence and see what stares back. You just choose not to, you choose to suppress these feelings because of a deep-seating and false conviction that your life is meaningful and that your continuation on this ball of water-covered rock is somehow relevant to the universe. You incorrectly have convinced yourself that you have too much to lose. And so you don't. You continue your dull nine-to-five life, eat food to give you energy to essentially repeat your daily activities, you contribute to global species extinction and then you die anyway and ultimately rot to become worm food and then, in a final indignity, worm poop. And on your deathbed, you like many others will realise that, in fact, Russian roulette might have actually been a good idea. 

But guess what? Here's a game that basically allows you to play Russian roulette but without the risk of putting a bullet in your brain. And you laugh while you play it. So, basically, it's not really like Russian roulette, even though the game designers say it is. But it is a game of chance, and this is why thousands of people round the world hate this game. They think that each player may as well roll a die and the winner is the person with the highest number. On Boardgamegeek (the other BGG that's like this one in that it talks about games but is more popular despite being demonstrably less funny), it rates only as 5.8 out of 10, meaning it's seen by the public as a very average game. This despite it being the most popular Kickstarter of all time, raising $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers. So... is it that average? Let's have a look.

The game play is extremely simple. Each player starts with four randomly drawn cards and takes a turn playing whichever cards they want, and then to finish their turn they draw a face-down card from the pile. Playing is really very simple - for example, See The Future allows a player to see the top three cards of the deck. Shuffle allows them to... can you guess? You genius. Harvard awaits. If you draw an Exploding Kitten card, you blow up, unless you can play a Defuse card. Then you get to place the Exploding Kitten anywhere you want in the deck. Do you put it on the top for your next opponent? Or do you think that they've got a Skip card so it goes to the next opponent? And thus the game is on. Yes, sometimes you draw the Exploding Kitten first turn, you spend your Defuse and then you're vulnerable for the rest of the game. And that's what happens when you have a game of chance. Because that it ultimately what life is like. You can make plans but the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley. And if you don't know what that means, Harvard sent the invitation letter to you by accident. But, so what if you're subject to chance? At least you have fun! And you have fun because the cards are funny... genuinely funny. There's a NSFW version that I didn't buy but the normal game has you attacking people with thousand-year back hair. That's funny. There's a Tacocat which is amused by being a palindrome. There's a Rainbow-Ralphing Cat, which is exactly what you think it is. 

Who are the most successful people in life? Those who realise that shit happens by chance and there are only two things that you can do about that - plan for it as best you can, and then laugh when it happens. And that's exactly what this game does. You can plan ahead, and then your opponent can put down three of the same cards and steal your Defuse card the moment before you draw an Exploding Kitten. So then you keep your Nope card which allows you to Nope that play by them... if you're lucky enough to draw a Nope card. So, sure there's an element of chance, but if you know the cards (and there are only eight different action cards, as well as the sets of cat cards) then you can actually plan ahead, learn what your opponent has and take calculated risks. And if it all goes wrong and you don't have the right cards, you just have a laugh because it's the end of the game evening, you've already played two hours of a serious brain-bending game and you just need something light and fun. Honestly, I think that the people who don't like this game are asking too much of it. It's not like rolling dice. It's a quick, fun game of chance with a really good dose of humour and card design. Is it Fury of Dracula or Dead of Winter? No. Is it the kind of game you'll play after that kind of game for a bit of fun to round off the evening, especially after you've all had a few drinks? Yes, it's totally perfect for that.

WE LIKEY

• Very easy to learn
• Quick and portable
• Funny card design
• The box literally meows when you open it
• Perfect game when you've got a little time left at the end of a game evening

WE NO LIKEY

• If you lose, you're out
• Very heavy chance element
• TSA agents really don't like this in your luggage. I'm not kidding. Having a box with wires inside that has the word "Exploding" written on the cover? They don't think that's funny. Trust me - I'm speaking from real personal experience here.

It's time to give this game some points....

Accessibility: 5/5 - I play this game with my kids. When they started playing it, they were 3 and 5. The rules are ridiculously simple.
Design: 4/5 - For a game of chance, this is very well designed because there are some strategic options that you can explore in the hope of reducing your risk of chance. Yes, your starting hand, which is drawn by chance, strongly affects the rest of the game, but if you can last a few rounds, it's your choices that really make the difference.

Depth: 2/5 - It's not just rolling dice. There are strategic choices, just not very many.

Replayability: 3/5 - I have played this game at least fifty times. I took it on a weekend away with a group of teenagers and they loved it. It was a fun, bonding experience.

Availability: 5/5 - Easily available online and in gaming stores.

Summary: Yes, there's a chance element and yes, if you're out you're out, but that's like Russian roulette so when you pick up this game, you know what you're getting into. And if you have even a modicum of a sense of humour, you'll laugh when you're out and then you'll watch your friends play the rest of the game and make noises that encourage players or add to the tension or, if you're particularly anti-social, you'll go and do something else. To my surprise, I have found that I have some special Force-like ability that often helps me know when the Exploding Kitten is coming. Maybe this is basically Force training. I imagine that on the down-time when Luke wasn't schlepping Yoda across the swamps of Dagobah that they pulled out Exploding Womp Rats (the Star Wars version that probably should exist now that I think about it) and played it. 

Final Score: I rate games according to what they're trying to achieve as well as in comparison to others. This isn't trying to be a super complex strategic game. It's funny, it's silly, and so it earns a totally fair 71%.

BUT WAIT!!!! There's MORE!!!!!

IMPLODING KITTENS, Self-Published, 2016

7+, 15 minutes, 2-6 players, Competitive

They only went and made an expansion!!! Why would they do such a thing? Well, money, obviously. You get how the world works, right? Of course you do - that's why secretly you want to play Russian roulette, because the call of the void is only marginally quieter than the vacuous machinations of global society. 

The biggest criticism of Exploding Kittens was the element of chance, but Imploding Kittens minimises that with some new cards. Where Exploding Kittens had See The Future where you got to see the top three cards of the draw pile, now you can Alter The Future by seeing and rearranging the top three cards of the draw pile. That's a huge change. Moreover, if you Alter the Future, you might then choose to play Reverse, which switches the order of play, adding another dynamic play level to the game and thus force a card on a player who just spent their Defuse or Skip card getting themselves out of trouble. Or you could Draw From the Bottom if there's the Imploding Kitten card staring at you from the top of the deck. Ah, Imploding Kitten, how you open your maw to swallow the Earth, thereby reminding us of the futility of human existence. Not only does the game minimise the chance element through specific cards, but by starting you now with 6 cards instead of 4, you have more options and you're less likely to lose straight away due to a freak random draw. In other words, Imploding Kittens addresses exactly the problem that those who didn't like Exploding Kittens had. And, once again, it does it in a really funny way. One of the cards is a shark who hurts with words instead of teeth, another is a self-aware toilet. And there's also a surprise. I won't say what the surprise it, but there's a reason that the box for the expansion is much, much longer than the original, and all I'll say is that there's a clue in the above picture.

Imploding Kittens takes a game of chance and gives us more tools to mitigate against it. Now, instead of us battling the odds, we're really battling each other, and isn't that really life anyway? The constant battle for gene supremacy? The subtle competition of rich against poor, the struggle to be better, richer, faster, stronger than the other? Sure, I understand that that's not really what life should be about, but it's what life often ends up being for most of us. With Exploding Kittens, you were playing Russian roulette. With Imploding Kittens, you're smacking each other in the face with the guns while trying to take out the bullet in your gun and putting it in someone else's. And that makes it more fun because, despite the call of the void, Russian roulette is actually most fun when you win and get to return to your meaningless life, just now with the image of your opponent's last second of existence etched on your memory.

WE LIKEY

• Very easy to learn
• Quick and portable
• Funny card design
• The box literally meows when you open it
• Perfect game when you've got a little time left at the end of a game evening
• Much less of a chance element than the original game
• The surprise in this box. And no, it's not kitty litter. 

WE NO LIKEY

• If you lose, you're still out
• TSA agents still don't like this in your luggage. They really don't have much of a sense of humour about things like this.

So... how does this expansion change the points?

Accessibility: 5/5 - As before
Design: 4/5 - As before

Depth: 3/5 - Oooh, an extra point on depth. Now you're really thinking about strategy.

Replayability: 4/5 - I think this makes the original game even more playable.

Availability: 5/5 - As before.

Summary: If you play games often, ask yourself how many of them actually make you laugh out loud? I mean, properly laugh. Ultimately, that's what this game does. To me, that makes it an invaluable item on any gamer's shelf.

Final Score: I'm going high on this one. I think this expansion keeps the game simple and fun while removing the worst element of the original. It's a game that anyone can pick up and play easily, it's now even more fun because you're able to plan ahead much more. This is an expansion that seriously improves on an already fun game, while remaining as simple and funny as the original. With that in mind, I'm going to award this an impressive 80%.

DINOSAUR ESCAPE

DINOSAUR ESCAPE, Peaceable Kingdom, 2015

4+, 10 minutes, 2-4 players, Co-operative

Imagine the scene. Your two young children play a board game together. Imagine it's something competitive, like Candy Land. Imagine that by the end of playing Candy Land, the children somehow haven't lost the will to live and one of them actually wins the game. What happens next? If they're like most young children, there are tears from the player who lost. You now have two choices. You can either teach the child who lost that life is actually like that, that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and that they should toughen up before life crushes them asunder. Or, you can teach the kids that winning doesn't have to be at the expense of someone else and that they could instead play a game where they're part of a team against the game. Now, I'm not judging you as a person if you choose the first option, merely as a parent. But let's imagine you took the second option - this is where you pull out a cooperative game for children which, statistically speaking, is likely to be by Peaceable Kingdom, creators of Hoot Owl Hoot, Race to the Treasure, Engineering Ants, and more. But you grab Dinosaur Escape because it says "Dinosaurs Included" on the box and that's as good a reason to grab a child's game as any.

The rules for Dinosaur Escape are so unbelievably simple that instead of just explaining them, I'm going to show them to you. 

Did you notice it? The extra customer care bit they did? Children lose pieces to games. They break games. Peaceable Kingdom will replace them for you for free. That's really good.

The board itself is colourful, simple and well-designed, with differing zones, a place for the volcano and an island to escape to.

I imagine that when the asteroid came that wiped out the
dinosaurs that earth actually looked rather a lot like this.

The pictures on the tokens are well drawn, surprisingly well considering that it's a children's game. There's something different about this as compared with, say, Hoot Owl Hoot, and it's mainly in the artwork. Where Hoot Owl Hoot has extremely simple cards with colours on them to show which square to move to (which reminds us of.... shudder.... Candy Land), the artwork on these tokens is actually rather impressive, with shading and more than one colour. You can actually use these tokens to have a discussion about something prehistoric with the children. And that's where this game does really well. Your three dinosaurs are herbivores, and they have to avoid the carnivorous T-Rex. You've got the start of an educational discussion right there. Then you can take the models, which are high quality plastic models, and use them to start talking about why Stegosaurus had plates, why Triceratops had horns, why Brachiosaurus had a long neck, etc. This game begs to be turned into an educational opportunity.

  

Part of what makes this game so good is that it's a combination of a few differing game elements:

1) A memory game

2)  A building game

3) Light strategy choices

Players have to remember what's under each fern, they have to reluctantly build up the volcano and they have to choose which way to send their dinosaurs in order to make their escape. In other words, they have to learn to play the odds. Yes, it's possible to lose the game in the first ten turns, and I've actually seen that happen thanks to incredibly unlucky dice rolls. Normally, though, that doesn't happen.

Triceratops, I have freed you. You may now go and eat ferns
somewhere else that is unlikely to be destroyed by a volcano
but nevertheless still faces a grave flood risk.

"All my life I've suffered your noxious gases, only to be
ironically killed by different noxious gases." 

Having the volcano at the centre of the game, and as the main threat, is excellent game design for children. They literally watch the threat build up - indeed, they actually have to build the threat up themselves. They do so reluctantly but joyfully, because it's great to build a volcano. Other children's games usually have the threat measured on some kind of meter or track, but here it's real and dominant and exciting. It looms over the game. And it's an extremely simply 3-D puzzle. 

Yes, he had survived. But the loneliness and ennui
that set in afterwards made Triceratops wish
he had perished along with his friends.

So, what makes this game so profoundly different to something like Candy Land, which we have already reviewed? There are a number of very profound differences, actually. Firstly, obviously, it's a co-op game so there's very little chance of tears afterwards and, moreover, it builds communication and teamwork. Secondly, the randomness is mitigated by strategic choices by the players, and their own ability to remember game elements makes them actively involved in the game. Thirdly, there's a giant bloody volcano that builds up during the game! Fourthly, the artwork and models are excellent. Finally, there's no going back - there's no real punishment. Yes, the T-Rex makes you go back to a square, but once you draw the T-Rex, if you draw it again then it's your fault, not a random game element the likes of which you can find in Candy Land.

Did I mention there's a bloody awesome giant volcano in this game?
Thought so.

Okay, but the big question is, will adults want to play it? For me, the answer is a resounding yes. If during play I ever starting to think, "I wish I were playing Fury of Dracula right now" then I just throw in a dinosaur-related fact to the kids to prove my adulthood once more. And the kids love this game and watching them love it and work together is joyous.

The strangest thing for me is the rating. Our 3-year old plays this with no issue, and moreover, this game can be played solo. That's right, a solo child's game that works. I'm also not sure what a 4th player would do, considering there are only three dinosaurs. Maybe build the volcano? That doesn't seem fair. I'm also not convinced about the timing - probably closer to 15 minutes as an average. So, really, this should be rated 3+, 1-3 players, 15 minutes.

Let's get some numbers on this game.

Accessibility: 5/5 - A 3-year old can understand it. Enough said.

Design: 5/5 - For a children's game, I think this is simply excellent design. It promotes cooperation, the models are great, the board is great, the artwork is great, and... that's right... there's a bloody great volcano!

Depth: 2/5 - This is not going to tax your brain like Siege of Jerusalem, and for good reason - because it's a kids' game! But it's more complex than just roll and move and involves memory and light strategic choices. 

Replayability: 3/5 - I've seen this game be played by two children at least twenty times, probably closer to thirty. At 15 minutes a game, that's a lot of time you could be doing the ironing, or the kitchen or... oh crap, I was meant to tidy the kitchen tonight. Kids enjoy working as a team, they enjoy this kind of game and they want to play it again and again.

Availability: 5/5 - Easily available online and in gaming stores, for less than $20.

Summary: As young children's co-op games go, I think this is possibly the best one. It far exceeds any others I know in terms of game design and artistic content. The strategic choices aren't as complicated as some of the others, like Race to the Treasure, and the 3-D models and volcano are just what children of this age range want. 

Final Score: Well done, Peaceable Kingdom, through this game, you've turned our kids into cooperative gamers. Mainly for excellent game design in terms of what it sets out to achieve, I'm awarding this game a very respectable 73%.

FLASH POINT: FIRE RESCUE

FLASH POINT: FIRE RESCUE, Indie Boards and Games, 2011

10+, 45 minutes, 1-6 players, Co-operative

The call comes in... "911, what is your emergency?" On the other end is a panicked response of "I need a simple yet fun cooperative game!" Moments later you grab the box and rush to the table for a fun game....

The essence of a cooperative game is that it's you (the players) against the game. In this particular game, you are firemen trying to rescue innocent civilians from a conflagration that keeps burning in a building that continually veers towards collapse. If you win, everyone wins, but if not, everyone loses. I had never heard of cooperative games until last year and I'm totally enthralled by them. Not all gamers are married to gamers, so marital bliss isn't often enhanced by the suggestion of whipping out a quick board game. I've even seen a married couple engage in a blazing row, including full board flip, over a game of Monopoly, although to be fair that might be because Monopoly is such a dreadful game. And yes, in case you're wondering, the phrase "blazing row" was deliberate here. But what if two loving partners with nothing better to do with their time were to engage on a fun bit of role-playing together? Not that kind, pervert. And that's what a game like this is - a bit of fun where people work together. I've even seen non-gaming spouses (spice?) converted to gaming by Flash Point. 

While waiting to be called to their next blaze, the firefighters
re-enact a scene from The Breakfast Club.

The game play is very simple. In the basic game, you place victim, fire and door markers in locations as shown on the starting map. All doors start closed. Each player takes a nice firefighter model (all of which have been very well colour-coordinated so as to not confuse colourblind people) and places their firefighter outside the building near one of the external doors. The game then continues in three phases:

1) Take Actions
2) Advance Fire
3) Replenish POI markers

Each firefighter gets 4 actions per turn. To move to an adjacent square costs 1 action, if it's on fire it costs 2 and to carry a victim costs 2. Opening a door costs 1, removing smoke from an adjacent square costs 1, turning fire into smoke costs 1 and removing fire entirely costs 2 (which makes sense because fire to smoke costs 1 and then removing smoke entirely costs another 1). Turning fire into smoke and leaving it is risky, though, because smoke can easily reignite and then you've just wasted actions. Certain situations demand chopping down walls, although you don't want to do that too often because the entire building collapses when all the wall damage markers (black cubes) are exhausted. Placing one damage marker on a wall costs 2AP, placing a second costs 4. Once there are two damage markers on a wall, you can freely move through it, but so can fire. If you don't use up all your actions in one turn, you can store them for the next turn. And here's where the game designers missed a trick, frankly. The tokens for this game are absolutely fine. The fire markers clearly look like fire, flip them over and they clearly look like smoke. The ambulance looks like an ambulance, and so on. 

Phase 2 is advancing the fire. This is where things go wrong for you. The game comes with two dice - one six-sided and one eight-sided. At this point, you roll both dice and place a smoke marker on the corresponding grid square. If the square is empty and adjacent squares are empty or smoke-filled, nothing happens, other than more smoke filling the board. If the square is already smoke, it becomes fire. If an adjacent square is fire, then your smoke immediately becomes fire. If it's placed on an existing fire, then all hell breaks loose because you've got an explosion where walls and doors can be damaged, people can be injured and fire spreads like crazy. You also have to check for flashovers, which is where squares that have just started burning (e.g. as a result of an explosion) that might be adjacent to smoke markers will turn them all to fire as well. In the pictures below, for example, the yellow firefighter is dealing with a small blaze in one room while the blue firefighter has decided to turn fire into smoke wherever he goes, instead of putting it out. Silly blue firefighter. The dice are rolled and, with alarming accuracy, a fire token is placed right in the middle of the blue firefighter's room. That happens a lot, actually - the so-long-as-it-doesn't-set-that-particular-square-on-fire risk that goes wrong far more frequently that you would expect statistically. Every smoke token next to a fire token turns to fire, even going out of the door of the room. 

Yellow: "Blue! Put out that smoke!"
Blue: "Nah, it's okay, I've got it."

Yellow: "Blue! There's a fire starting in your room!"
Blue: "Yeah, it's okay. I've got it."

Blue: "Crap."

The third phase is replenishing POIs - persons of interest. The point of the game is to rescue these people from the building before it collapses. If you've rescued one by taking them outside the building, this is the phase where you add another. You always add them face-down because you don't know if they're going to be a real person, a pet, or a blank marker. In the photos below, orange firefighter has bravely chopped her way through the wall to rescue the trapped POI.

"Through dangers untold and hardship outnumbered, I have fought my way here to rescue you..."

She rushes forward and flips the POI marker...

"A CAT?!? Seriously?!?"
(This game revealed to me the depths of my hatred for cats, by the way)

The game ends when one of three things happens:
i) The building collapses
ii) 7 POIs have been rescued (or 10 for the perfect game)
iii) 4 of the 10 POIs die (thereby making it impossible to get 7 out safely).

The more experienced game starts with explosions already in the building, as well as hazmats (hazardous material). Vehicles can be used, including a fire engine which drenches an entire quarter of the board. Instead of generic 4AP firefighters, players can also choose from a range of characters and cleverly using their combined skills you can save the day and still allow cats to crisp. 

Before we get onto the rating, a quick word about the cat thing. If you've been reading this review and you've got upset about the cat thing, I'm sorry. For you. I've lost good firefighters trying to save a cat. If you rescue a dog (also possible in this game) then at least you know it's going to be happy to see you. Rescue a cat and it would probably claw you for picking it up. Or complain because you were removing it from the heat. Or go back into the flames in the hope that you might follow it and thus end up back in danger yourself, just because.

So, what do we say about this game?

Accessibility: 5/5 - This is an incredibly easy game to learn and not only is it a co-op game but it can also be played solo very easily.
Design: 3/5 - I rather like the models in this game - they're simple, brightly coloured and stand out against the flat game. The markers are particularly clear, and although it's a shame there aren't any carry-over action markers, that's not the worst thing. The board initially seems cluttered with dice pictures on each square, but you quickly get used to it. In terms of game balance, this is excellent - not too hard and not too easy.
Depth: 2/5 - There's not that much depth to this game. It's an ever-evolving puzzle so you have to keep your wits about you and balance certain risks and strategies ("No, you go for the victim and I'll put out the fire here before it spreads...").
Replayability: 3/5 - This game is fairly well written in terms of progression. First, there's the basic game and then there are three levels of experienced game - Recruit, Veteran, and Heroic. Moreover, because there are Specialists, there are many ways that you and your fellow gamers can approach even the same scenario. That said, there are only so many times you can go into the same board and put out the fires and rescue people (an issue which later expansions resolve).
Availability: 5/5 - Easily available online and in gaming stores, usually for a very fair price of $25-$30.

"Hey, lady, you weren't in here when I checked the room before!"
"Yes, I was, I was here watching Oprah."
"No, you weren't. I cleared this room five minutes ago and you definitely weren't here."
"I was."
"No, you weren't. It's like you've just appeared randomly according to some dice rolls of something. Let's go."
"Can I just finish watching this episode of Oprah?"
"Your TV melted twenty minutes ago."
"Fair point. Will you carry me?"

Summary: I like this game. I don't love it, but I like it. Reviewing it has made me want to play it again. It's a perfect intro game for non-gamers, for young gamers and also for those wishing to learn co-op games. More experienced gamers will find themselves challenged by more advanced scenarios, as well, so there's something here for everyone. There is a random element throughout the game, as with many games, but it seems totally thematic here in the sense of a chaotic fire suddenly bursting into flames in one room and another. Some co-op games are all but impossible to win (I'm looking at you, Ghost Stories!) but this one is perfectly beatable with good teamwork, unless you're really unlucky. It can be frustrating to flip over a POI tile only to find it's blank, but I guess that reflects the hectic nature of fire rescue in that you think you see someone and go to investigate. Aiming for the perfect game makes it harder and while it can be exciting to get everyone out of the building with only moments to spare, you're not going to be left with the same narrative and stories to tell as you might with other games... except for the time that I sacrificed my own firefighter so that my wife could get the last victim out just as the building collapsed, but that's because I'm hero all over. I wouldn't say that this is excellent but it's certainly a good, solid game. It's not too long, it's easy to learn, it's well priced, and there are a ridiculous number of expansions (to be reviewed separately another time). Most importantly, it gets you talking to others around the table, planning, howling when you roll badly and the fire spreads like... well, wildfire. Some games will be extremely cerebral and quiet but this is not that kind of game. It's sociable, vocal and fun. It can also be played solo. You can even balance out the most common problem of co-op games, which is the dominating player, by making one of the quieter players the Fire Captain (thereby giving them the Command ability to move other players).

Final Score: Easy to learn, fun, increasing complexity, a strong sociable component, increasing complexity and a good basis for some excellent expansions affords Flash Point a very respectable 76%.