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Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out!
First: We hit the Sub-Saharan watering holes while avoiding the brush fires in Savannah Park
Next: Into prehistoric waters we dive, to stay alive and thrive in Dominant Species: Marine
And lastly: Roll them bones on a dead man’s chest in Bluffaneer Dice Game
Savannah Park
Designed by: Michael Kiesling, Wolfgang Kramer
Published by: Deep Print Games & Capstone Games Family (2021)
Players: 1 – 4
Ages: 8 & up
Playing time: 20 – 40 minutes
In Savannah Park, each player is in charge of their own wildlife park. The goal is to group animals with their own kind. Each player starts the game with the same set of 33 unique animal tiles, with those tiles laid out at random in your personal wildlife park.
On your turn, name a specific face-up tile that all players must pick up, flip face down, then move to a different empty space within their own park. Tiles that have been flipped cannot move again, and once all tiles have moved, the game ends with a scoring round.
Beware the brush fires, they scare animals away at the start of the scoring round. You receive points for uncovered spaces containing trees and grass. Then count the animals in herds, and multiply by the number of watering holes among that herd. For example, a herd of five rhinos and three watering holes is worth (5×3) 15 points. The player with the most points wins.
I’m looking forward to what everyone has to say about this game, because I’ve HEARD so much about Savannah Park.
Dominant Species: Marine
Designed by: Chad Jensen
Published by: GMT Games (2021)
Players: 2 – 4
Ages: 14 & up
Playing time: 1 – 3 hours
Dominant Species: Marine is a worker placement game where each player assumes the role of one of four major aquatic-based animal classes — reptiles, fish, cephalopod or crustacean.
The goal is to outperform the other classes by accumulating – prehistoric victory points. (PVPs)
Being that this is a GMT game, you’d die of starvation before I could get through all the rules of the game. So here are the very broadest of broad strokes:
You have to attempt to thrive in as many different habitats as possible in order to claim powerful card effects.
The habitat – in this game – is the prehistoric ocean over 60m years in earth’s past. Large hexagonal tiles are used throughout the game to create an ever-expanding interpretation of the ocean.
The action pawns drive the game. Each pawn allows a player to perform the various actions that can be taken—such as speciation, environmental change, migration or evolution. When placed on the action display, a pawn will immediately trigger that particular action for its owning player.
All the while, you will need to propagate your individual species in order to earn victory points for your animal. You will be aided in these endeavors via speciation, migration and adaptation actions, among others.
When the game ends, players will conduct a final scoring of each tile and score their controlled special pawns—after which the player controlling the animal with the highest VP total wins the game and becomes the Dominant Marine Species.
Bluffaneer: Dice Game
Designed by: Ken Gruhl, Jeremy Posner
Published by: Big G Creative (2021)
Players: 3 – 6
Ages: 10 & up
Playing time: 15 minutes
Bluffaneer Dice Game is a … dice game. YAAARRR!
It’s stupid simple … even a land lubber like ye self can learn it before the sun’s past the yard arm.
Each player receives a card. On each card is a pair of non-matching symbols from the faces of the dice.
Players in turn will roll the dice. Rolling doubles produces a special result, such as all players giving you money, allowing you to steal coins from another player, or you having to pay a coin to your opponents. If the player rolls anything other than doubles, that’s when the cards come into play. If your roll matches your card, all the other players have to dump a coin into the bank.
If your roll does not match your card, this opens up the table to the other players where they can shout out GIVE ME YOUR BOOTY, claiming that they have the match. If you as the roller believe them, you have to pay them a coin. If you think they are lying, shout back BLUFFANEER, and make them reveal their card. If they were telling the truth, the roller has to now pay them 2 coins! But if the roller catches another player in a bluff, then the bluffer has to pay the roller 1 coin. The bluffer then draws a new card, and the next player takes their turn rolling the bones.
The game comes to an end when one player has all the booty. SO grab your cutlass and weight anchor for Dead Man’s Bluff.