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Review. Quicksand
Common Quicksand Flow
By STEFAN DUCKSCH
line in an almost leisurely fashion. What’s more, in the next levels—with faster tim- ers, or up to five of them, or longer dis- tances—an experienced group can still manage to keep its cool. Everyone waits to play the next card until the timers have run out just enough so that there is more sand on the right side after turning. A game lasts five to ten minutes.
Should a timer run out on the way, that’s no disaster. It is flipped over and placed next to its current space. We can use one of our few jokers to bring it back into play—but we only have exactly one timer-turn to do so. Also, the space next to it must be empty. But there is no sav- ing grace in the danger zone at the end of the track: If a timer runs out here, we lose the game at once.
Quicksand initially only places one limitation on communication: We are not allowed to show each other our cards. Soon, each group finds an appropriate system. We ask whether the next player can solve a specific problem. Or we play a card on our turn without flipping the timer immediately, so that the others can see what is going to happen.
Some of the higher of the 21 levels won’t allow any communication. Or block spaces at first. Or remove the cards of one type completely from the game. There
them out at the other players’ prompt. All while the sand is running, mind you! The game is great fun with the right team, especially when it gets into a flow.
The theme with the ancient apparatus hidden under the quicksand, from which we are supposed to free ourselves, is ab- surd and irrelevant. Quicksand is an ab- stract game, that’s all there is to it. The design is excellent, and so it is very un- fortunate that once again, as so often in sand timer games, at least one of them doesn’t work well or at all. This will pull the plug on any game group and also stands in the way of a better rating for this exciting task. (cs)
G
completely stressed out after just one— usually disastrous—game and find every- thing just terrible. And then there’s that small group who will always enjoy games like Quicksand.
A little more than a year after Kites by Kevin Hamano (published by Floodgate Games), along comes the next cooper- ative real-time game to test our nerves. Instead of kites in the air, we now liter- ally keep sand timers running. Meaning over a distance of around ten spaces. To do this, we lay out tiles in three colors with four symbols to form a track. At the end of the course is the “danger zone,” to which we must transport all the hour- glasses.
On your turn, you play one of the three cards in your hand that shows either a color or a symbol. You then check the timer that is at the very front: Is it on a space with the matching color or symbol? If so, you can turn it over and advance it one space. Should the forward space be blocked by another timer, yours remains in place after being flipped over.
With a highly focused
ames with sand timers cause some people to panic. Quite a few will
reject them outright. Others are
Title: Designers:
Illustration:
Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Quicksand Hjalmar Hach, Lorenzo Silva Fabio Frencl, Maxime Morin, Noa Vassalli Horrible Guild 1– 7
about 8+ years about 15 minutes about 25 euros
group of people, you can move the hour- glasses across the finish
was one task in particular that threw us off our stride—the one where you can’t see the cards in your own hand and lay
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Photos: Asmodee, Ducksch, Horrible Guild
Reviewer
Stefan Ducksch
Udo Bartsch
Playing appeal
7
6
Great how the level of difficulty can be tailored to the group.
Maren Hoffmann 8
Poetic and musical: It’s all about finding the right rhythm together.
Fabian Ziehe 7
Nice group dynamics.