Adam Boudreau
United States
Massachusetts
-
The raid on my attic continues and this time Fireball Island was coughed up. What an awesome looking game, surely no one can deny this fact. The game board is a fully three dimensional terrain and the Miniatures Wargamer in me is excited with glee. I haven’t played this game since it was probably released when I was a kid. I always had fond memories of it and upon finding it we quickly needed to try it out and see if it holds up over time. It was like playing this game for the first time, as I don’t remember a thing about it. So do these game mechanics complement this totally awesome game board?
The results are in and my gaming group approves. This is a child’s game and has some decent complexity in the gaming mechanics. I say “complex” in the tense that I would be teaching a nine year old how to play this. Think of it as a gateway between children’s board games and the junior high games. In Fireball Island you play a treasure hunter who is competing with other treasure hunters on the board. The Indiana Jones in us is delighted at this prospect already. As any experienced treasure hunter knows you can’t just walk up and get the treasure, nor are the other treasure hunters going to be the least of your worries! No, you have to go on a great journey and find the treasure and you have to attempt to escape peril whilst doing all of this. The only way to get through this game is to capture the jewel and be the first one to the boat so you can sail off to safety.
I really like the options you have in this game and the way they incorporate some of the complexity. One of the more interesting features is how you get event cards. Each player starts off with one, but you don’t draw cards every turn or something as simple as that. Card drawing is a chance in itself. The paths in this game are made up of stone foot paths. Some stones are light colored and others are a dark grey. If you land on one of the darker colored stones you get to draw a card. You can only hold up to four cards though, which sort of forces you to use them when you can. They prove to be a major factor as the game is getting pretty tense towards the final parts! You can do a fairly varied amount of things with the event cards, like saving yourself from a fireball, moving ahead without rolling the die, stealing an opponent’s card, and even summoning a fireball!
That brings me to one of the most important parts of the game. Fireballs. Admit it; everyone thinks a fireball is awesome… until they get hit with one that is. I really like the way this game handles the fireball actions. It’s not completely strategic as in they happen at fixed times or only when someone plays the fireball card. They also happen whenever you roll a one on the die. I like this mechanic because in Dungeons & Dragons terms it’s like the ultimate critical failure. I say that because the rules say that when you roll a fireball you MUST hit someone on a trail. If your character is the only one on a feasible trail… well then, you get hit with a fireball. (At least this is how we interpret that rule. Might seem counterintuitive to trying to win, but I think it adds an interesting element to the game.) Don’t worry, your character doesn’t actually die, they get to essentially re-spawn in the Fireballs smoldering crater. These are dispersed through the map so you don’t have to restart the whole game… now that would be daunting! Instead you simply lose a turn, which isn’t too bad.
Another cool element is that you can use caves, which are dispersed throughout the map as well. When you enter the cave system, you roll to randomly see where you come out. I think this is pretty cool because it really plays into the concept that you could get lost in the cave system. Remember, we’re adventurers; we don’t necessarily have a clear cut map of every little detail, so we have to explore. Exploring could be detrimental and take you places you don’t really want to go!
All in all this is a really fun game. It’s definitely a great game to play with kids because it’s not the type of game an adult will likely get bored with. Even after all these years I think this game still has serious replay value. As the game starts to come to a close players are willing to make more and more desperate moves, so the game really picks up at that point. It can actually get very exciting, especially when everyone is near the boat on the verge of getting to safety with the jewel! Do you think you have what it takes to survive the Fireball Island?
-
Donald Cleary
United States
Bellingham
Washington
-
I loved this game. Don't forget to stick one finger in the mouth of the idol when you're 'reloading' it. A slip up can be catastrophic for someone's poor little explorer.
-
Adam Boudreau
United States
Massachusetts
-
haha this is so true! My friend Dan was notorious for doing this wrong. Eventually we just stopped letting him reload the idol.
-
|
|
