games review: three from Ravensburger
Aug. 5th, 2023 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraLast year I seem not to have reviewed Quest, but as I recall we weren't wild about it but thought it was better than the Aristoplay games.
This year we've been working our way through some of the other Ravensburger games we didn't play over and over (in contrast to the ones we did, Enchanted Forest, Labyrinth, and Scotland Yard).
Flying Carpet lets you lay out your own board of obstacles and then race around them with a hand of movement cards that give you various movement options, including into moving into zones with more default movement, vaguely Niagara-esque. The board art is really gorgeous; I think we mostly thought the gameplay was a bit fiddly and random, and Q found it frustrating, but I would play it again.
Hare & Tortoise is a racing game in which you have to balance spending movement points to get further ahead with moving strategically or even falling back to get more movement points (very vaguely like Cartagena). Neat mechanic, my parents especially got a kick out of it, may favor people who can grind more math in their head (or might have enough random element to counteract that). I would also play this again.
Wildlife Adventure is a route-building game of trying to get three shared paths to go through the nodes in one's hand (sort of like TransAmerica). The board was a little challenging - my parents couldn't tell some of the color choices apart (different shapes apparently hadn't been invented yet in 1986) and some of the connecting lines were nigh-invisible from the ends of the table. Some of us thought it might play better with fewer than 6 players. Junie really disliked this one. I would play again.
I think all three were better than Quest. I would probably rank them Hare & Tortoise, then Wildlife Adventure, then Flying Carpet, in order of my interest in playing again.
This year we've been working our way through some of the other Ravensburger games we didn't play over and over (in contrast to the ones we did, Enchanted Forest, Labyrinth, and Scotland Yard).
Flying Carpet lets you lay out your own board of obstacles and then race around them with a hand of movement cards that give you various movement options, including into moving into zones with more default movement, vaguely Niagara-esque. The board art is really gorgeous; I think we mostly thought the gameplay was a bit fiddly and random, and Q found it frustrating, but I would play it again.
Hare & Tortoise is a racing game in which you have to balance spending movement points to get further ahead with moving strategically or even falling back to get more movement points (very vaguely like Cartagena). Neat mechanic, my parents especially got a kick out of it, may favor people who can grind more math in their head (or might have enough random element to counteract that). I would also play this again.
Wildlife Adventure is a route-building game of trying to get three shared paths to go through the nodes in one's hand (sort of like TransAmerica). The board was a little challenging - my parents couldn't tell some of the color choices apart (different shapes apparently hadn't been invented yet in 1986) and some of the connecting lines were nigh-invisible from the ends of the table. Some of us thought it might play better with fewer than 6 players. Junie really disliked this one. I would play again.
I think all three were better than Quest. I would probably rank them Hare & Tortoise, then Wildlife Adventure, then Flying Carpet, in order of my interest in playing again.
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Date: 2023-08-07 06:36 am (UTC)My first thought after playing Wildlife Adventure was that it reminded me of a sort of proto Ticket To Ride, but it's actually more of a proto Transamerica. I wonder if you could actually play the Transamerica rules on that map.
I've now reminded myself what the Transamerica map looks like; I'd forgotten that it was a totally regular triangle grid, which the Wildlife Adventure map really is not at all. Hm.
I think Wildlife Adventure with 4 players would be better than Wildlife Adventure with 6 players, but I'm not yet convinced that either would be better than just playing Transamerica.