I picked up the Kickstarter preview of Greatest Beach Vacation, which will be part of a set of three vacation themed Roll and Writes.
This is one of those R&Ws that consists of different mini-games. In this case, six: jet ski, snorkeling, gift shop, surfing, sand castle, and volleyball. I’m not going to go into details on each of them but they are all distinct. I will note that most of the items in the gift shop give you bonuses in other mini-games.
Each turn, you roll six dice with two rerolls. You can then assign the dice to ANY of the mini-games. Most of the time I see a setup like this, you have to put all your dice in one mini-game. That said, two of the mini-games, gift shop and volleyball, require you to complete each section in one turn.
And the game only last five turns. Which makes getting that flexibility not just nice but possibly essential for game balance. It’s definitely an example of not being able to do everything you want to do.
Some of the spaces in each mini-game have one of three different sea shells. Each set of three different shells gets you five points.
Okay. My first reaction to playing Greatest Beach Vacation was to play it again. It does a really good job of having multiple paths to (hopefully) victory. I will say that changing horses midstream is going to not be pretty. And the scoring guide offers some real challenge.
I did feel a few of the rules were a little unclear. It also is listed for 1-100 players but the fact that you get rerolls means you can’t use Take It Easy simultaneous play. So, does that mean everyone has their own set of dice and lets everyone else know when they’re done?
Eh, it’s a prototype. The final version might clear all that up.
The biggest hurdle that Greatest Beach Vacation has is that it’s got a lot of competition. There are a LOT of one-page Roll and Writes. Even taking being a collection of mini-games and being aimed at a family audience into account, there’s a lot out there.
The game that it really reminded me of was Beach Life from Dark Imp. Beach Life is my second favorite of Ellie Dix’s designs. (Restaurantreprenuer is my favorite, by the way) It also consists of mini-games and has a beach theme, albeit about sea life, not recreation.
Playing the two games back to back, Greatest Beach Vacation held up better than I expected. I would rather play that game solitaire more. On the other hand, Beach Life is much stronger multi-player. Not only does it use simultaneous play, there are multiple points of interaction, bonus points for finishing mini-games first and player action determines the end game.
So, while I would suggest Beach Life for a family game night (I am starting to think that a printer generated family game night is becoming a viable idea), Greatest Beach Vacation is what I’d pick for a casual solitaire game.
When the Kickstarter for the Greatest Vacation collection hits, I will seriously be considering it.
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