Koala Rescue Club is the second collaboration between Joey Games and Postmark games. It’s a Print and Play, Roll and Write game for as many players as you can cram in. It’s designed by Phil Walker-Harding, the same guy who designed Sushi Go, Imhotep and Barenpark. And part of the proceeds go to real life koala conservation.
Well, that’s a lot to unpack.
Okay. The idea behind the game is that you are planting trees and rehoming koalas in them. The actual boards are collections of irregular grids connected by bridges.
The mechanics are very simple. Roll a die to determine a polynomial (or is it polyhedral?) shape. You then use that shape to either plant trees OR rehome koalas. No
mixing and matching. You can also disregard the roll and fill in one space. The rules say to draw a circle for a tree and an inner circle for a koala. I have ended up marking a slash for a tree and a back slash for a koala so a completed space is an X.
On each board, you initially only have access to one area. You get bonuses by filling in rows and columns with koalas (meaning you have to fill in trees first) One of these bonuses is bridges to new areas.
The other bonuses include filling in a tree, filling in a koala, gaining a volunteer (which can be used as +/- 1 to a roll) or filing in a circle on a small group of hospitals on the edge of the map. Fully completed hospitals are worth points. And getting to fill in a bonus tree or koala is actually a big deal. You will end up with holes.
The game lasts two rounds of fifteen turns. You score at the end of each round. You get one point for each area completely filled in with trees, one point for each area completely filled in with koalas. Completed hospitals are worth varying points. Each map also has three bonus goals which just get scored at the end of the game.
I went into Koala Rescue Club with mixed impressions. On the one hand, both Walker-Harding and Post Mark Games have solid track records for me, including their previous collaboration Scribbly Gum. On the other hand, drawing shapes on grid is a very heavily used mechanic and only using one die flattens the odds and limits the possibilities.
(And, yes, Waypoints, also from Post Mark Games, also only uses one die. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule)
It took a bit for Koala Rescue Club to grow on me but it did grow on me. The game is all about tight spaces and tight margins. Each space is its own little knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth. And because you have to fill in every area entirely before it scores any points, every single point is tight.
But if that is your jam, and sometimes that’s exactly what I am in the mood for, having your plan come together in Koala Rescue Club is very satisfying. And you definitely have to maximize the use of the bonuses.
However, while I have come to definitely enjoy the game, I also know that it is designed for classroom use. And, having run games in classrooms, I can definitely see a lot of students getting really frustrated with Koala Rescue Club. It is honestly more of a gamer game.
(On the other hand, I can see the other Joey Games game I’ve played, Scribbly Gum, working much better in the classroom. It has a much more open decision tree.)
Koala Rescue Club might not be for everyone but it is a solid, top tier Roll and Write. And it has the bonus of going to a good cause.
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