Fun for kids and adults alike? Groovy, man, groovy.
Written: Sep 08 '05 (Updated Sep 09 '05)
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Pros: Hallucinatory artwork, easy to learn, fun to play for youngsters adults alike.
Cons: Well, there is the whole 70s thing.
The Bottom Line: Cool design. Great fun for all ages. Mystic crystal revelations.
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| theeye's Full Review: Aquarius |
You've got to hand it to Looney Labs. They know how to design simple, fun, sociable games that serious gamers, dilettantes and kids alike can enjoy.
My husband and I first discovered Looney Labs years ago, when we picked up a copy of Fluxx. The next year, we discovered Chrononauts, the time travel game, soon to be followed by Chrononauts: the Early American edition. Our five-year-old son enjoys all of these games, even though they're not quite age-appropriate, in that they require significant reading.
So when a friend recently recommended Looney Lab's Aquarius card game as fun for kids and adults alike and requiring only minimal reading, we knew we had to pick up a deck. Our son, you see, has become a game fiend in recent months and finding games that are suitable for him, but tolerable or -- dare we hope? -- even genuinely fun for us has become a matter of self-preservation.
Aquarius, I am happy to report, fits the bill perfectly.
Something of a cross between classic dominos and Fluxx, with a dash of 70s nostalgia thrown in for atmosphere, Aquarius is trivially easy to learn and surprisingly engaging for a game in which luck, more often than not, trumps strategy. Two to five players can play and even the youngest players, if capable of counting to seven and memorizing the meanings of a handful of symbols, need not feel disadvantaged.
The brightly-colored, psychedelic 60-card deck features various permutations of five basic 'element' illustrations, officially representing Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether. We're not quite so hippy-dippy-new-agey in our household and we just refer to them by the names our eminently sensible son (who's not too familiar with the Flower Power ethos) gave them: Garden, Cloud, Fire, Fish and Star. They are pretty darn cool illustrations (see footnote for an image link) and invariably draw admiring attention. This game is fun and it knows how to flaunt it.
The deck consists of three different types of cards: Goals, Elements and Actions. The five Goal cards, each featuring a different element illustration, have distinctive backs and are kept separate from the rest of the cards. At the start of a game, each player is dealt a Goal card, which is kept hidden from the other players; any unused Goal cards are set aside for the time being.
The remainder of the deck consists primarily of Element cards, each of which may feature a single large element illustration; a pair of smaller illustrations bisecting the card lengthwise or widthwise; or a quartet of yet smaller illustration panes. The handful of Action cards included come in five flavors, each with its own groovy picture to go with a brief text caption.
The five Actions are:
Trade Goals, which sports a picture of a bulbous submarine;
Shuffle Goals, represented by a rainbow-colored hot air balloon;
Trade Hands, featuring a retro flying saucer;
Zap a Card, with the ever-popular flaming rocket ship; and
Move a Card, appropriately enough illustrated with a mildly funky bus.
Those five captions are the only text that appear in the game and the corresponding pictures serve nicely as mnemonics for kids who aren't reading yet; indeed, the short and to-the-point captions offer a nice opportunity to practice reading skills. The instruction sheet shows all five pictures and can be used to provide a quick review at any time during play, if your child forgets what any of the cards mean.
So, enough with the inventory: how do we play?
The mechanics of the game are simple and will be very familiar to anyone who's ever played dominoes. A single card is drawn from the deck and placed in the middle of the table; if it's an Action card, you replace it in the deck and keep drawing until you get an Element card.
Each player is dealt three cards into his hand, as well as the separate, hidden Goal card. The official rules call for the player with the longest hair to go first: if you are playing with youngsters, you will, of course, allow the youngest child to go first, regardless of coiffure. (You are, after all, no fool.) At each turn, a player draws a card from the deck and then plays one card, either an Element or an Action.
Element cards, when played, are placed on the table in any available spot next to a card already there. Cards must all be oriented in the same way, neither skewed nor placed perpendicularly. For a play to be legal, at least one of the element panes on the new card must match an element on an adjacent card. The matching illustrations need not be the same size, so long as they abut each other in whole or in part. It's dominoes with a twist.
If an Action card is played, it is placed in a discard pile and the specified action is performed. The actions are largely self-evident. Trade Goals allows the player to swap Goal cards with the player of his choice or with one of the unused Goal cards (note: the instructions that come with the game strongly imply that only the former is legal, but the manufacturer's website clarifies the rules). Shuffle Goals gathers all five goals and redeals them randomly to all players. Trade Hands lets the player select a victim with whom to swap hands. Zap a Card affords a player the opportunity to select any card in play on the table, pick it up and add it to his hand, leaving him with one extra card in his hand at the end of his turn. Move a Card allows him to pick up a card in play and replace it anywhere else on the board, so long as the new position satisfies the matching rule.
And how do you win? Well, remember you've got a Goal card. For the moment, at least: until someone trades or shuffles goals and throws you for a loop. Your objective is to generate a contiguous clump of seven or more of your designated goal element. I call it a clump, because the seven need not be linearly arranged, so long as they are all connected in some fashion along card edges (diagonal connections never count in this game). As soon as you spot such a clump, you may reveal your Goal and declare victory, even if it is not your turn.
As you might imagine, your opponents will do everything they can to prevent such clumps from forming with elements not their own. And, if they suspect that you are in possession of a goal that is dangerously close to winning, they may decide to Trade Goals with you. Or, if they're desperate enough, they may take a chance and Shuffle Goals. So don't feel so smug when you see a clump of six of your favored element: your fortunes in this game are not written in the stars. Nor in the other four elements: no, not even in those cute little fishies. (Readers who are already Looney Labs fans will recognize a Fluxx-like flavor in this respect.
Having played this game many, many times every evening since acquiring it last week, I can confidently report that it's a lot of fun for kids and grownups alike. (Let me tell you: it sure beats Chutes and Ladders). The random elements help level the playing field a bit. And if your five-year-old has as good a poker face as mine does, you'll have no trouble figuring out what his Goal is and, um, adjusting your strategy a bit to produce the desired outcome.
It is Aquarius after all: when Jupiter aligns with Mars and the stars tell you it's time to put the cards away and go to bed, a smart parent meets a child's trust abounding with harmony and understanding. Unless you like tears and tantrums, of course.
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Additional information and resources:
Image of Element cards: http://wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Aquarius/gifs/AquariusGameExample.gif
Manufacturer's product description: http://wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Aquarius/Aquarius.html
History of Looney Labs: http://looneylabs.com/OurCompany/OurHistory.html
Play Java version on-line for free: http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Kory/JavaGames/Javaquarius/
Other games my son (and his folks) recommend: King's Table, Fluxx, Kill Dr. Lucky, Rush Hour, Jr., Roadside Rescue
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 10
Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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Epinions.com ID:
theeye
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Location: New York, NY (it's a hell of a town!)
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 165 members
About Me:
Company president, math geek, first time mom at 39, epinion addict. Sleep? Not lately.
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