I’m a gamer, always have been. Problem is for a large number of years that’s really just consisted of the video variety. That’s a huge mistake on my part, to not enjoy the video game’s analog brethren… the board game. There’s actually a vibrant and intense board game world out there that’s been pushed to the sidelines by game players such as ourselves for too long. In this column I’ll be diving into this world, looking at games that hopefully you’d like to try out for yourself.

As my exploration into the world of board games goes on, I’ve now played enough games that I find myself gravitating towards certain genres. While I’d love to get into some deep deep strategy games with tons of minatures, I know I don’t have access to people to play against so for now I’ve shied away. As I’ve been slowly roping my non-gaming friends into the hobby along with me, I’ve been staying more towards the casual/gateway types of games. So, for now, games like Battlestar Galactica will just have to stay on the shelf.

But that doesn’t mean the games I’m currently playing aren’t fun, interesting or devoid of strategy… far from it! They just tend to have a lower gaming experience requirement, having easier rules to explain and understand… and playitmes nowhere near some of the crazy wargames. Enter Abandon Ship.

The USS NVRSNKS is going down, and it’s up to you to safely guide your rats off the ship before she takes the final plunge into the deep blue. There are 7 different colored rats on this sinking ship and each person has 3 (secret) rats that they’re responsible for. Points are scored for what order the rats get to the top deck, with a few bonus points available for grabbing some cheese along the way. So let’s take a look at how you actually play the game.
The board is tall as all get out, and though it initially sits 36 decks out of the water that fact will soon change as this baby starts sinking. In a great little feature/gimmick the boat actually sinks down through the board as the game goes along, so the water for all intents and purposes does in fact rise!

So you line up all 7 differently colored rats and each person takes a life raft token which on the bottom has 3 colors. These 3 colors are the rats you need to get to the top (while trying to keep it secret from the other players since you don’t them moving those rats backwards). The first person to go rolls 8 dice (1 for each color rat and one “wild” die). The player then chooses one die to “play” and moves that colored rat up the number of decks depicted on the die. Then that die is taken out of the dice pool and the next person goes, rolling the remaining 7 dice. After that person plays a die the remaining 6 are passed onto the next person, etc etc. When only one die remains in the pool, a ship sink token is overturned at random, and the ship sinks down that number of decks. Rats that hit the water are dead, out of the game, and their corresponding die removed from the game.

The game ends when four rats get to the top deck. In an interesting twist, the first rat to the top gets no points…. he’s crushed beneath the feet of the fleeing passengers! The second rat scores 5 points, the third rat gets 3 and the forth rat up gets 2 points. At this point everyone flips over their life rafts and tallies their scores. Highest wins!

Now, there are a few additional rules to make this all more interesting. There are a few decks where if you land on them you get little pieces of cheese that are worth extra points at the end of the game. Also, the dice have a few different markings on them to give you some options. While typically you can only use a colored die to move the matching rat (green die moves the green rat) some of the dice have numbers with circles around them. On those dice you can use it to move any color rat you want (so in the picture below you could use the orange die to move any rat 4 spaces). Also, while a die is typically removed after being used, some sides of the dice have a little “x” on them… and those DO NOT get removed when they’re used. These two dice rules give the game some much needed flexibility.

In addition to the circles and x’s on the dice there are also a few icons to jump way up or drop way down certain rats, so it’s important to make sure that people aren’t clear which rats you’re trying to rescue, less they roll the dice and drop you down a ton of decks.

That’s pretty much all there is to it! The game can support up to 7 players and while it says ages 10 and up on the box my 8 year old niece had no problem at all with the rules. She wasn’t so great at hiding which rats she was going for though (but we just acted like we didn’t know). Most of the games I’ve played so far were with 3-4 people so I can’t speak to how it would work with 7 but I’d have to assume it’d be a far bit harder since you won’t get as many rolls before the ship sinks each time.

The games play out quickly, since there aren’t a ton of decisions to make. Once you get everyone clear on the rules you can play a game in 20-30 minutes easy. This makes it a great filler game as a lead in to something meatier or you could just play it out a few times. The theme of the sinking ship (on a board where the boat actually sinks!) with the little wooden rat pieces make the whole thing a ton of fun. My niece especially loved sinking the ship down each time, sliding the boat down into the water and being so relieved when her rat survived by one deck.

It’s ability to handle up to 7 people is interesting, since the norm for your typical boardgame is about 6, anything above that moves into the Cranium/Apples to Apples party game genre for the most part. It also has a very affordable price point and since it can handle such a huge swing in players I’d say this is the kind of game that would fit into just about any library of games. The ease of explanation and the quickness of the games only adds to its appeal. This is a game I can see breaking out quite often around here, in between games of Battlestar Galactica.

Abandon Ship was designed by Reiner Knizia and was released by AEG in 2009. It is available online at Amazon.com, Funagaingames.com and at your Friendly Local Game Store.