Review 9: Lifeboats

Lifeboats is a game that should come with a warning.  For those of you who do not do well with being singled out and targeted to actively be taken out of the game may want to avoid Lifeboats.  I would say that it is the game that you would least like to play with a particularly stressful relative or friend, consider this your warning:

Name: Lifeboats

Players: 3-6

Playing Time: 90 minutes

Suggested Ages: 12 and up

Awards:  None

Game Setting:

Each player is taking on the roles of sailors who have escaped from a sinking ship onto life boats.  The boats are headed towards a collection of desert islands, each one with its own scoring value.  The winner of the game is the player who can score the most amounts of points depending on the island and type of sailor that they are able to rescue.  All is not plane sailing, all the other players are looking to save their own sailors as well and this means that throughout the game some sailors are going to have to leave the lifeboat!

Game Play:                              

Each player chooses a colour to play.  Each player then takes the coloured pawns that match their colour.  The pawns come in two in sizes, one slightly larger than the other.  The smaller represents sailors who will score less points at the end of the game and the larger represent Officers who will score more when or if they reach the islands at the other end of the board.   Depending on the number of players, the board is then set up with coloured boats that match the players and then one more boat coloured in black.  Then the players take cards to match the colours of all the players plating the game in addition to the black card.  Finally the players take three Captain cards.

Once all the players have collected the initial items for the colours that are in play each player then takes it in turns to place their sailors and officers into any of the lifeboats.  Importantly the colour of the lifeboat is only to determine the boat chosen during the voting phases.  It is only if there is a draw at the end that the colour of the boat will produce a win for the player.

One player is selected as the start player and for the whole of that turn; they will have the ultimate decision on any ties.  After the round has been played the start player marker is moved on to the person sitting on the previous start player’s left.

Once all the pawns have been placed in the boats that game is ready to be played.  In the phase of a turn the players all vote to see which boat will spring a leak.  The players use their coloured cards to secretly choose which boat the leak is going to appear in.  Once all the votes have been placed face down, they are then all revealed at once.  The colour that has the majority takes a leak token and places it in an available space.  During any voting phase a player can choose to use one of their Captain cards.  When a Captain card, the player who played it can have the final decision on the vote.  However if two or more players have used their Captain card, then they are all cancelled out and the majority colour takes the leak.

When the leak is being placed there are instances where there is no room for the leak.  When this is the case the players who have sailors in that boat are required to vote for which colour will need to sacrifice a sailor or office.  After the votes have been cast in the same way above, the influence of the voting is worked out.  Here the total of the sailor who are worth one point and the officers who are worth two are added together for each colour.  Where there is a draw the result of the score over rules.  Captain cards can be played during this voting road.  The colour that was voted out removed one of their pawns and that sailor is removed from the game, lost to the seas!

If at any point the number of leaks in a boat outnumbers the sailors the whole lifeboat sinks and all of the sailors and officers are removed from the game.

Once the voting phase for the leak has been completed, all the players then vote on which of the remaining boats is to move forward.  The colour boat that gets the majority of the votes will move forward and again any player(s) can play a captain card to try to take control of the voting.

The winning boat is moved forward one space and the final phase then begins.  In the final phase the players must remove one of their sailors from one of the boats and place it behind the boat.  Once all the players have done this, in reverse order the sailors must choose to swim to another boat.  They are not allowed to enter into the boat that they have just left and if this is the case the sailor is removed from the game.  Once all the swimming sailors have picked their new boat the game continues with phase one again.

This continues until the last boat is lost to leaks or arrives at one of the islands.  Once this has happened the players total up their scores depending on which island their sailors and officers have landed on, as each of the island have different scores for each of the pawn types.  The winner of the game is the person how has the most about of points.

My Score:

 

Game Play:  2/4

Components: 2/2

Replayability: 1/2

Theme: 2/2

Total: 7/10

My Comments:

I really enjoy playing Lifeboats although admittedly I end up being the person who takes the battering during the voting process and I struggle to persuade others to move the boat I want them to move on.  I’m obviously not diplomatic enough!

The stress levels in this game can get quite high and when someone becomes the target of the voting, they are often left being the person who ends the game sooner rather than later.  This is usually me but the game is still enjoyable.

Lifeboats requires careful thinking and planning and well-constructed.  The playing pieces, boats and leak tokens are all wooden and that artwork is perfect for the game.   This is the reason that the components get the full two marks.

Replayability is a difficult one, as there will be a number of people who, after playing it once will never want to play it again.  Being the target for everyone else’s voting is not a comfortable feeling especially when there is clearly and obviously another option that should be chosen but it will never happen because the other players are out to get you.  

The debating and persuading features heavily and is what gives this game some great mileage points in future replays, but only if you enjoy that kind of thing.

I’ve dropped the two points in gameplay because it is a game that some people will play and some will definitely not play. The gameplay is OK however sometimes the voting, especially where there is not enough room in the boat, in my opinion, gets in the way of the flow of the game.

Overall though I think that this is one that most households should have.  It steps outside the normal games that most people play and is one that a lot of people will enjoy coming back to time and time again.

Give it a go and let me know if your thoughts on the game.