Flash Point: Fire Rescue

I had a long-time customer tell me the other day that Flash Point: Fire Rescue has become his go-to game for co-operative play. This was a big announcement because for years his favorite co-operative game was Pandemic, a game many of you readers will know as an excellent co-operative game.

But, you know, I think he might be right…

In Flash Point: Fire Rescue, players are members of a firefighting brigade. The game board is a map of a home— like a detailed blueprint. Around the outer edge of the board outside the home are numbered squares representing the street, sidewalk and lawn. At the beginning of the game, firefighters arrive on the scene of a fire. Inside the home—the exact location unknown—are a number of occupants. Players win by rescuing a predetermined number of occupants. Players lose if four occupants are consumed by the flames or if the building becomes structurally unsound and collapses.

After Settlers, After Ticket to Ride, After Carcassonne…

The holiday shopping season is upon us and one of the common questions we’re running into this season is what board game we would recommend to someone who already has Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride. We’ve been asked this so many times, in fact, we decided to put our recommendations on our Web site to help you with your holiday shopping.

Here they are: Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Acquire, Fresco, Forbidden Island, and Dominion.

Powerboats

My exposure to racing board games is limited but I know there are many fine examples. I have never heard Powerboats mentioned in lists of excellent racing games because of its simplicity but it is the simplicity my family really enjoyed.

Here is a quick overview of the game. Each player races a powerboat on a lake, navigating around three buoys in the correct order and direction and then crossing the finish line. Three-sided dice control speed. At the beginning of each turn, you can decide if you want to add or remove one dice. You also decide if you want to roll re-roll any dice. The combined total of the dice is your speed for that turn. You then move your boat that number of spaces, but before you move, you have the option of turning your boat one hex-side (or 60 degrees).

Aqua Romana

NOTE: This game is currently out of stock at our distributors, which means we don’t have copies in our stores and we can’t order it.

Aqua Romana is a German-style board game for two to four players. Players assume the role of experienced architects and use workers and master builders to build aqueducts that supply water to towns and cities during the age of the Roman Empire. The winner of the game is the architect that has accumulated the most points by building the longest aqueducts.

Players begin with a reservoir, a source for the water that will be carried in the aqueducts they build. A worker is placed on each exit of the reservoir. As an aqueduct is extended from this exit, the worker will move along the aqueduct’s length. Once an aqueduct is finished (described as “closed” in the game instructions), points are scored for the length of the aqueduct and the worker is removed from the game. This means each player has a limited number of workers, and thus the number of aqueducts they can build is also limited.

Introduction to German-style Board Games

If your household is like mine, chances are you have closet space or cupboard space set aside for a collection of board games. At my house, our cupboard has the classics Scrabble, Monopoly, Trouble, Pictionary, Yahtzee, and Battleship. We also have no less than a half-dozen decks of playing cards, and a selection of German-style board games.

German-style board games are a class of tabletop games that, generally speaking, have simple rules, short to medium playing times, emphasize strategy, downplay luck and conflict, and usually keep all the players in the game until the very end. Germany produces more board games per capita than any other country, but the style of the German board game has been adopted by other countries, thus board games designed with the same principles in mind are often refered to as German-style board games or European-style board games.

The degree of strategy involved in playing these games can vary, but, in general, German-style board games are designed for everyone– meaning the beginner and the expert board gamer (and everything in between).

With this primer in German-style board games in mind, I give you a list of five such board games that would be a welcome addition to any board game closet or cupboard. The games are listed in no particular order.