Lifeboats, Really Nasty Motor Racing Game - 21 January 2009

A full turn-out (if perhaps an unexpected one) for games at Stuart's this week. Kieron introduced the first new game, Lifeboats, also known as 'Rette Sich Wer Kann' ('Each Man for Himself') which gives a better indication of what's in store.

The players each have two officers and four sailors on a ship that is going down. There are a set of lifeboats with limited spaces and islands in the distance. Each turn, the players vote for which boat springs another leak, which moves towards the islands, and then each can hop a sailor between boats. As the boats start taking in water, the occupants throw each other out to stop the boat sinking!

The voting is clever. Following negotiations (which we kept pretty short), each player places a card face down that either represents a colour or a Captain. The colour with the most votes gets the result of the particular phase e.g. white boat moves forward, yellow sailor thrown overboard. The Captain is the trump card but if more than one are played, they have no effect and are lost - and each player only has three to last the whole game.

This isn't the kind of game where thinking about your strategy is much use. Played fast and frantic, it's just supposed to be a fun game.

The second game we played was David's Christmas present to James - the Really Nasty Motor Racing Game. And so it was disappointing for both of them, that it didn't live up to the high production values and good reputation of the Really Nasty Horse Racing Game. You couldn't really balance your own risk and reward, and once the Really Nasty cards ran out, it was a simple kids game of "throw dice, move counter". Sadly, this became one of the very few (only?) games that we have abandoned halfway through.