Page 51 - Spielbox_2_2020

Krasserfall lives on the fascina- tion of the moving water strips; they often develop their own dynamics, sometimes regard- less of any die roll. This is pure phys- ics and always a matter of weight and traction that in any case cannot be calculated within the scope of a game.
This lack of pre- dictability makes
you shove in a new tile and thus make the line move forward; consequently, one robot tile falls off the line and the dice deposited on them tumble down as well. The player with the highest total
Weber’s idea special, but it requires assis- tance from a grown-up who sees to it that empty boats don’t start sliding when there are no passengers in the boats (which happens especially if weights have been added). This is fiddly for children’s hands and can be difficult since unoccu- pied strips often develop a life of their own. But once the starting situation has been controlled, Krasserfall unfolds an exceptional atmosphere and thrill.
Krasserfall (Ravensburger) by Bernhard Weber; for 2–4 children, about 6+ years; duration: about 20 minutes; price: about 35 €.
Außer Rand & Band
In Ausser Rand & Band, it is not a waterfall but an assembly line that keeps everything running. As in Griz-
zly, tiles are moving along a track, but in this case, they are robot parts that finally slide as a head or leg or
torso from the end of the
line into the production hall.
The assembly line stands on the game table as a three-dimensional structure. It conveys five building com- ponents for robots at a time, and the children try to gain them by dice roll. Here, the role of the dice is consider- ably more significant than in the two aforementioned games. Each player has ten dice in his supply and uses two of them each turn.
According to the dice-roll- ing result, you place these dice in the first four seg- ments of the assembly line, i.e., on the robot tiles lying there. Then you put a third die on one of the action spaces at the edge of the assembly line in order to make an impact on the course of the game. This way, you can relocate dice, modify dice-rolling results, or accelerate the assembly line. At the end of your turn,
dice result gains the robot tile. Over time, everybody tries to collect as many robot parts as possible and to assemble them into complete robots. In the end, sin- gle-color robots score more points than multi-color ones or individual robot parts. Ausser Rand & Band ends once all 27 tiles have been evaluated.
The robot workshop doesn’t quite match the lightness of the two water games. If the game is played by elemen- tary school children, they need to have an eye on a lot of parameters. The placement of the two dice you roll is simple, but the decision of where to put the third die for an additional action provides access to ten different options. The iconography may be easy to understand for adults, but children need some time to get accus- tomed to it. What’s good and well-done is that all players are constantly involved. Even if you have only one die at the front of the assembly line, you have a chance to win if you roll a “4” as your best result and the other players get only three points with their two dice. The assembling of the robot parts in the end and the interim evaluations make Ausser Rand & Band a sound debut game by Holger Schmidt.
Wieland Herold/sbw
Außer Rand & Band (Zoch) by Holger Schmidt; for 2–4 children, about 7+ years; duration: about 30 minutes; price: about 25 €.
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