Flashpoint: Fire Rescue - first outing

Played Flashpoint: Fire Rescue for the first time this weekend. Bought the game in late May, from Gameslore, and finally got it to the table on Sunday.

Played four games of the Family Game setting - basic rules, suitable for kids, and probably the first game any gamer will want to play as it teaches the basics.

Have played Forbidden Island and Castle Panic with my son (soon to be 7, which I admit, is a strange name), so the concept of competitive play wasn't new to him. Flashpoint plays a little more crunchy than Forbidden Island, and is more random in the "Oh no, it's all going wrong" category - but not as random as Castle Panic can be. This adds to the tension, rather than takes away as you have to adapt the plans on the fly.

Pieces in the game are very good - thick cardboard, and good sized Pawns/Meeples. Rule are simple to learn, but would recommend playing a learning game by yourself, first, rather than sitting down to play cold. I did this and  played through a game and read the rules to a point whereby I could teach it in about 30 minutes. There is a video on the publishers (Indie Board and Cards) website that teaches the game - I found it a little too dry to watch it all!

After the games I played with my son, we expanded the number of players to four, with two of my nephews who visited. They are 14/15 and picked up the game quickly - sadly we lost - the faster pace of disasters happening in a four player game drove out the collapse of the building a lot quicker than in a two player game. Don't quite understand how that works out mathematically, but it did. To me this means that you need to play more as a team with four players (we were evolving a strategy of two fight fires, two rescue, by the end) than you do with two players.

Hope to take it upto the club soon, and get the game played by some adults to see how it goes, and then add in the advanced rules.

Overall though I'd give it a solid 5/5 as a family game, and can see it competing with the likes of Cash n Guns, Survive: Escape from Atlantis, and Zooloretto as family favourites

Also, got in a game of Carcassone, with five players, and revisited Castle Panic, at the weekend. Had gone cold on Castle Panic due to its random nature, but my son has got a new taste for it so we played three games. All were good fun, and quite close run victories. I have the Wizards Tower expansion, but haven't learnt how to play that yet.  As ever got a few games of Ticket to Ride in on the iPad and also a game of Roll Through The Ages on the iPod touch. Bot excellent apps.

Games planned for this coming week are Risk Legacy, where we are unto game 5 out of the 17, The Resistance, and Shogun