Gateway Island

• Designers: Matteo Boca, P.S. Martensen
• Publisher: Van Ryder Games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 10-20  minutes per game
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Gateway Island is your Introduction to Board Games! Featuring 21 different games and a variety of game mechanics, Gateway Island is just the game you need to introduce friends to the world of board gaming. The simple and accessible rules are quick and easy to learn. Find out if you (and your friends) like drafting, worker placement, bluffing, racing, party games, dungeon crawlers, and much, much, more!

Gateway Island contains 21 beautifully illustrated jumbo cards and other game components like cubes, disks, a die, and everything you need inside of a portable box that can be taken anywhere. It includes a rulebook to cover the rules for all 21 games and also a Supplemental Book that teaches new board gamers a glossary of terms they may hear, or components they may run across.

Lastly, and perhaps best of all, after playing a game, the rulebook will recommend 1 or 2 new games for you to try if you liked the mini game! Featuring over 30 game recommendations from a variety of publishers, you’ll know exactly what games to add to your collection next based on the fun you had with Gateway Island!

So, Gateway Island is a really audacious concept – most of what you need to know is in the above publisher description.  Trying to cram so many different game concepts into a small box with minimal components is fantastic.  All of the games use no more than a single d6, 8 discs and 60 cubes.  Sure – this sparse set of components limits the different possibilities (i.e. no Deckbuilding, which is clearly the best game mechanism out there…) but the breadth of topics covered by this box is amazing.

The deck of 21 Island cards are generally used to form the board for a particular game.  Some of the cards are used for more than one game, and they are double sided to maximize their usefulness.  The game comes with complete rules for 21 different games, and as you might expect, this is more than your usual ruleset – in fact it is a 72 page tome!

Each game is classified by the game type (which major mechanisms are represented), the player count, and which components you will need from the box.  Each of the games is also rated by complexity (1 to 3) as well as Strategic Depth (1-3).

So depending on your mood, you could peruse the book to see what sort of game you want to play – or if you’re like me, just dig out a board card at random, see if the game fits your current player count, and start playing!  Alternatively, the back cover of the rulebook also breaks down games by mechanism, player count, complexity and depth – and you could use this as a guideline to choose a game.

Admittedly, all of the games are micro-games (as you would expect based on the small component load), with most of the ones we’ve tried taking only 10-20 minutes.  In some ways, the games here remind me of the Japanese style of games where only one or two game concepts is used to form a game.  It may not feel complete, but you’ll definitely figure out whether you like that particular mechanism or not.

For many of the games, there are also helpful suggestions to other full published games that have a similar feel – so if you like one of these microgames, you instantly get a suggestion for something else to try.  For someone new to the hobby, this is a really nice service.  I doubt anyone would really fall in love with any of these microgames, but again, the point is more to help expose gamers to different mechanisms in small digestible portions.

While I’m on that topic, I’m thinking about the possible audience for Gateway Island.  Possibly it’s really for newbies – this would give them a great overview of different game themes, with a low commitment of both money and time to try to figure out what they like – assuming they don’t have access to a game library somewhere.   

This would also be a great tool for a budding game designer – as more of an educational tool. I’ve given guest lectures at a few university game design programs, and I’m always amazed at some game presentations I get where a budding designer is so proud of their independent discovery of the rondel or time track player order mechanism – only to find out that this is a known thing.  Having a quick play through the games in Gateway Island might be a great way to learn what is already out there so you don’t have to re-invent the rondel (wheel).

Is it for a gamer like me? Honestly, maybe not.  I mean, I own over half of the games suggested as follow-on games, and I feel like most of those already fall into the “gateway game” category – so rather than play this 10 minute push your luck microgame, why wouldn’t I just pull out Popcorn Dice and play the real thing (without much more time nor rules?!)

Given the small size, I could see this as an interesting addition to my Travel game kit.  Sure, most of the games are simple and tiny – but what if you were on a train trip and didn’t have a lot of space for either game storage or gameplay – these games would fit well on a seatback tray or top of a suitcase, etc.  There’s also a little bit of empty room in the box to let you squeeze in a few other things.

Gateway Island is a really interesting concept, and there are plenty of reasons for this to resonate with gamers of all levels (as I have noted above).  It would definitely be worth taking a look at if you are curious to learn more.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor