Family
Alter 8
Spezial
Looking for someone to play!
RUMMELPLATZ
Candyfloss and Merry-go-round!
„Got on board, join the ride, we are riding round again, friends – and hey, hey, hey, the next trip will be backwards!“
You can very nearly smell the unforgettable mixture of candy floss, French fries and sugar-coated almonds when you spread out the lovingly detailed game board of RUMMELPLATZ on the table, despite its cardboard smell. And if you listen really closely you might even believe to hear a babble of voices, party music and the rattling of the roller coaster, despite it only being the clatter of plastic jewels, dice and innumerable card board counters that tumble out of the box filled to the brim. And we have set it up, the game published to celebrate the 15 year jubilee of the publishing company eggertspiele, a game completely different from all the games under this label that have thrilled the (expert) gamers community.
We want to have fun
Already in the run-up to Spiel 2010 the special blog that had been installed for the occasion on the internet showed that all persons involved obviously had lots of fun while planning their little surprise for the gamers’ community. What was really brewing became clear rather late in the day: a game featuring a Fair Ground. What a clever move! How else could you give room to so many creative minds if not let them create all those fun rides and other attractions of a Fair Ground and so avoid a final result giving off the impression of a forced piece of patchwork? The game has everything from a Haunted House to Ring the Bell, lovingly, invitingly and creatively presented and illustrated by seven different artists, with names like Michael Menzel, Harald Lieske or Franz Vohwinkel in themselves creating a “Who is Who” of the German games illustrator community.
And if you ask if the fun had by all in developing the game comes across when playing the finished product, the answer is a loud and clear YES! But do not expect a challenging or strategic game! What is really expected from the Fair Ground visitors?
A litte rumble on the ramble
The basic idea is really simple: In each of the four game, none of them lasting more than half an hour – even when played with the full complement of six players – the players visit one of a total of eight attractions and try to get a good placement there to gain as many lottery points as possible. These lottery points are exchanged for lottery tickets in the “Grand Final”. The more tickets I do have the more often I can try to pull out the main prize from the bag. The first player to do so wins the game. Admittedly, this victory condition is miles away from creations like “A Castle for all Seasons” or “Cuba”. Well, be that as it may, join me on a little rumble ramble and let’s find out what crazy attractions the Fair Ground has to offer. At each stop we have a choice between two attractions – which one we must enjoy is always decided by the player currently holding the fewest lottery points.
Station 1: „Ring the Bell“ oder „The Soothsayer“
Don’t be afraid, there is no hammer in the game box and you need no special demonstration of sheer muscle power to make the bell ring. All you need to do is to stack dice according to the demands of a task card, so that the front of the resulting tower corresponds to the picture on the card: There is only one rule: The number of dice dots and the colors of the dice sides touching each other must be identical. The player who can set up the highest tower corresponding to these rules within the time set by the sand timer included in the game, will gain the most lottery points.
The soothsayer on the other hand demands poker face and bluff. Following the traditional game play of “Cheat” or “Bluff” or “Lie” or whatever the name of this ancient game may be where you come from, you must offer a card to your left neighbor stating the alleged value of the card, he can accept the card and place it on the table or he can deny it. In this case the card is offered to the next player in clockwise direction. Each player has two turns in the role of the soothsayer and when all cards have been distributed the outcome is scored. If you have the most points on your cards you garner the most lottery points.
The funny thing here is the soothsaying topic: you don’t offer a card of value -3. But tell him his fate, as in “I can see …. a lack of toilet paper!” And should I accept this trick of fate it would result in scoring -3! A nice trick for a good mood, resulting in quite a few laughs and some fond and emotional memories for experienced games, when Madame Déjà-vu suddenly espies a Samba School including the original design of the corresponding building from „Cuba“ in her crystal ball.
Station 2: „Horse Racing“ oder „Claw“
The Horse Race is a veritable orgy of dice that could have originated directly from a children’s game for five year olds. Players are teamed two by two and roll 3 dice each simultaneously. For each triple of three identical numbers the partner advances the horse marker 1, 2 or 3 steps. The winner is the team who gets its nags across the finish line first; the roles are swapped after the first half of the track! Challenge? None! Hustle and bustle? Yes!
The Claw, in contrast, needs a bit of coordination. On a real Fair Ground you use a joystick to move a grappler as exactly as possible to make it grab a pretty plush animal and drop it into the winning slot. In the game of course there are neither joystick nor grappler nor some electronics, therefore players have to stand in for grappler and joystick. Aim of the game is to fish out jewels of the highest possible value from the box bottom without line of sight and only by using thumb plus second and third finger. A fellow player is steering you using the command syllables of „Mib“, „Mab“, „Mub“ und „Mob“ for the four directions and command you to grab with “Klick” and hopefully you will grab a gem of high points value. The player with the highest total after two tries wins the game.
Station 3: „Bumper Car“ oder „Swing Boat“
When a trick-taking card game using normal playing cards seems much to boring, you simply call the game „bumper car“, brighten up the design and add a stack of little bumber car tiles and the next mini game is ready for play. In this case, however, you do not win the trick if you place the highest card, but lose the round and are jostled into uncovering one of your 9 bumper car tiles in your stack. This is continued until the first player uncoveres his “tilt” tile and thus immediately quits the game. As you can decide for yourself where in your stack you place your „tilt” tile you can influence your time in the game, even if you hold bad cards. But at the same time a low placement for “tilt” reduces your score, because each tile below “tilt” scores you 1 point. So you can only rake in points when taking some risk!
Only thinking about his experiences in a swing boat makes the reviewer feel queasy, but this is definitely not the only reason why he believes this game to be the lightest and palest in the Fair Ground collection. For this game the topic is that far-fetched that all resemblance to the original has been lost. Each player receives 10 crystals to represent stamina points and places his marker in a free row of the boat. The further near the outside the more fun points you can gain. Then each player in turn rolls the number of dice indicated by his row and must discard one crystal for each “One” rolled, a place in the middle does not yield points, but an additional stamina crystal. In each new round players relocate their marker, receive points and roll again until either the first player is out of stamina points or somewhat has reached or topped a score of 22 points.
Station 4: „Roller Coaster“ oder „Haunted House“
The Roller Coaster is the most fun when there is an animated group playing, because the game brings action and more animation. Two players sitting next to each other play together and try to memorize as many action cards as possible within 30 seconds. Then they intertwine their arms and simulate a roller coaster ride bending to the left or to the right, rise their arms or clap their hands over their mouths for being frightened. The more actions you can repeat correctly from memory the more points you get. Crazy, but lots of fun!
Screaming is also allowed in the Haunted House, it is even necessary because that is the whole point of the game. Each player receives two secret “Fear Triggers” which he must remember. They come in the shape of cards featuring spiders, ghosts or other such fearsome things. During the “Ride” a total of 15 cards is turned up showing a selection of those fear triggers. If you spot one of yours, you scream as loud as you can and try to remember what might frighten other players. When you emerge again in daylight a score is taken and each player must guess who is afraid of which creatures. You score points for each correct guess, but the person frightened by your correct guess scores, too.
Come on! Draw a lot!
The Grand Final at the lottery booth is not nearly as pompous as you might have imagined it. Basically, it is a pure luck, only mitigated a little bit by the fact that players owning more lottery points may draw from the bag more often and so, from a statistical point of view, have a bigger chance to win. In reality it happens as often that a player with few draws at his disposal finds the purple crystal in his first try and so nullifies all efforts wasted on the attractions in the run-up to the final. If you aware of this huge proportion of chance in the game and do take it too seriously you will have lots of fun at the Fair Ground, the RUMMELPLATZ, dogged experienced players whose only aim is to win might have less fun. Therefore the target group for this game clearly is the game and fun loving family. And in this category the eggert jubilee game can score in contrast to the common game boxes featuring Mikado or Checkers. Maybe already only due to the beautiful design, that immediately makes you want to play.
Dear reader, please pardon this lengthy introduction of the single elements, but in a game that consists of eight independent single station with their own rules and victory conditions each it seems simply a must to present them individually. So you can make up your own mind if there is something for you in this plethora of mini games. And, please, do allow me a few final comments:
In love with details
If you take a close look, you can spot any number of cute details in the components, on the cards and on the game board, which again prove that the creators of RUMMELPLATZ were not looking for doing a game quickly, but to create a real game on occasion of the jubilee, where loving pains were taking with each single part. My personal favorite are the mice queuing up at a mini cashier booth for entry, some one else might smile at the position of a frightened Haunted House visitor‘s hand or at the green hair of the person closely resembling a certain Mr. Friese whom the soothsayer spots in her crystal ball. Or yu might love the tiny comic characters in the rules which closely resemble a pair of game designers wearing glasses or a black-haired, moustached publisher from Hamburg, or… or … or ….
The end justifies the means!
RUMMELPLATZ is a special game anyway you look at it, culminating in the fact that all designers and artists involved in the project have waived their pay and have donated it together with a contribution from the publisher to the Kindernothilfe. That really is the icing on the cake and an example that should set a precedent, because when all is said and done the ladies and gentlemen together with CEO Peter Eggert show us what really is important besides the chase after victory points: The fun with games and in playing games.
(Please note: The points given in the evaluation are related to the overall impression of the game, as all 8 individual independent games ask for different aspects from the players).
in jeder Hinsicht ein besonderes Spiel, was in der Tatsache gipfelt, dass alle beteiligten Autoren und Grafiker auf ihre Honorare verzichtet haben und diese gemeinsam mit einer Spende des Verlags stattdessen der Kindernothilfe zukommen lassen werden. So wird die Sache wirklich rund. Ein Beispiel, das Schule machen sollte, denn letztlich zeigen die Damen und Herren rund um Verlagschef Peter Eggert mit diesem Engagement, worauf es doch eigentlich – abseits von verbissenen Jagden nach Siegpunkten – wirklich ankommt: den Spaß am Spielen und an Spielen!
(Anmerkung: Die Punktevergabe in der Bewertung bezieht sich auf das Gesamterlebnis, denn im Grunde handelt es sich um 8 einzelne, unabhängige Spiele, die alle unterschiedliche Anforderungen an die Spieler stellen.)
Stefan Olschewski
Spieler : 3-6
Alter : ages 8 and up
Dauer : approx. 30 Min.
Autoren : Inka und Markus Brand, Peter Eggert,
Philipp El Alaoui, Friedemann Friese, Michael Rieneck, Martin Schlegel, Stefan
Stadler, Tobias Stapelfeldt und Birgit Stolte
Grafik : Michael Menzel, Alexander Jung, Harald Lieske, Klemens Franz,
Franz Vohwinkel, Dennis Lohausen und Birgit Stolte
Titel english : identisch
Preis : ca. 35,- Euro
Verlag : eggertspiele 2010
www.eggertspiele.de
Genre : Games collection with cute ideas
Zielgruppe : For families
Mechanismen :Win points for the final playing mini games
Kommentar:
Lots of components
Umfangreiches Material
Inviting design and graphics
Fun, challenging and cute without huge strategic demands
Simple rules
Nice, short game play
Vergleichbar:
Many other party games, but first game in this combination of games
Stefan Olschewski
A fun mixture of simple, not always new ideas without big demands, where the actual winner is not important in the end, provided all have lots of fun.
Atmosphäre: 6
Zufall 3
Taktik 1
Strategie__
Kreativität
Wissen_
Gedächtnis
Kommunikation 3
Interaktion 3
Geschicklichkeit
Action 2