Oh No, Volcano!

• Designer: Phil Walker-Harding
• Publisher: Buffalo Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 7+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with copy provided by Buffalo Games

Says the publisher: ‘In Oh No, Volcano!, you race to climb and collect ancient treasure while dodging lava!  Peril lies ahead on every turn. Play climber cards to move your team of explorers up the face of the volcano, then drop a lava ball from the spot listed on each card. Watch the lava balls rattle and roll down, knocking off any explorers in its path…including your own if you’re not careful!  Choose your moves carefully, and be the first to collect all of your treasure.”

To play this game, you first construct the board so that it sits securely in the box bottom.  Each player gets a player board and their own deck of Climber cards as well as the 3 climbers in their color.  The deck of cards is shuffled and each player starts with a hand of three cards.  

On a turn, the player first plays a card – either a Climber card from their hand or a face up Gear Card from above their board.  Looking at the left side of the card, there are actions, and they are performed from top to bottom.  

Every card has at least one move action, specifying one of your three climbers and a number of spaces that they can move.  They do not have to use all the movement points, and they cannot move through other climbers or boulders.  Movement is either lateral or upward in the nearest diagonal.  Your climbers never move back down the mountain!  If the end their movement on a gem space, they take a matching gem from the supply and place it on a scoring space on the player board.  If they end their movement on a lower cave entrance, they can choose to use the cave and appear at the upper exit.

After movement, you might be able to place a Boulder; this can be balanced on two pegs on the board thus mostly protecting the space underneath the Boulder from Lava Balls.  You cannot place a boulder on another climber nor can you cover a treasure space nor a cave.

Finally, every card tells you which of the six spaces you must drop a Lava Ball down the mountain.  As the ball falls, it might knock Climbers off their space; if this happens the Climber is removed from the board and its owner gets a Gear card as consolation.  You are limited to a maximum of three Gear cards at any time.

The game continues until one player has filled all the Treasure spots on their board with matching treasures – the game immediately ends and that player is the winner.  

My thoughts on the game

I briefly saw this game at GenCon, but after seeing it, I immediately contacted my rep at Buffalo Games to try to get a copy to try.  It has an impressive table presence, both in appearance as well as the attention grabbing clickety-clack sound as the lava balls traverse down the board.  To top it off, the designer, Phil Walker Harding, has produced a number of games I have really liked – so that was another reason to want to try it.

As with many Buffalo Games releases, Oh No, Volcano! Appears to be targeted to the mass audience.  At the moment, I know I have seen it for sale in Target, and this seems to confirm the likely audience.  Given that fact, I know that this isn’t going to be like Gizmos or Cacao – but I’m always curious to see whether some higher level gaming mechanics/strategy can be foisted upon the unknowing public.

The Climber and Gear cards give a number of different options to the player each turn, and it does take a bit of planning to get your people to the places they want to be.  You have to play a card that moves the desired climber, you have to pick a path to move towards an objective, away from the likely path of the lava ball, or both…  Or if you take a risky path, hopefully the card also lets you put a blocker in a position to protect your climber… It’s a bit more complicated than just roll and then move clockwise around the board.

That being said, it’s not entirely rocket science either. Much of the strategy is pretty straight forward.  Many of the choices are easy to make, and the younger kids I played this with had no problems choosing reasonable actions on their turn.  

A lot of the fun is watching the lava ball smite down climbers, and after you’ve played for a bit, you might even start rooting for the ball to hit your own guys!  Why is that?  Well, each time you lose a Climber to a lava ball, you get a Gear card.  And, for the most part, the Gear cards are superior to the ones from your own deck.  It’s not that you won’t still play cards from your hand… sometimes, you need to move Climber B, and if a hand card is the only one you have that moves B, well, then that’s what you’re going to play.  That being said, you can get generally move movement or more options from the Gear cards than the regular ones.

Production wise, this one is definitely a looker.  As soon as I set it up on the table with some friends (non-gamers), they were asking about how to play it.  The rest of the components are solid, though I have had to color in the letters on my climbers with a sharpie as they are pretty difficult to see otherwise.

The age limit on the box is 7+, and this is completely appropriate.  Like I said, it’s more than roll and move, but ultimately not by much.  It’s fun to play, and we certainly laughed as we watched the lava balls burn the poor climbers – but this is one I’d definitely reserve for the younger crowd or non-gamers.  I’d be happy to play it with my nephews should they request it (and they will likely inherit my copy after this review is posted), but this PWH game will likely not make it back to the regular gamers night table again.

It is a great introductory level game, and it is definitely one that I would include on a gift list for those occasions when one would want to give a game to someone.  The price point of $20 is very good for the quality of components that you get in the box.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor