Sea Monsters

My wife and I are always on the lookout for new and interesting games, regardless of their theme or their target market. Sometimes, we actually find something!

Sea Monsters, from BriarPatch, is one such game. The packaging is delightfully whimsical and it caught my eye immediately-- just the sort of thing that would have caught my eye thirty years ago. Flipping the box over revealled a pretty map, nicely done cards, and some interesting-looking dice. In short order, we had it home and laid out on the family room rug.

I should warn you, dear reader, that there will be a number of puns in the upcoming review. None of them are intentional; I normally try to avoid that sort of thing. The problem is that many of our colloquialisms and idioms have nautical origins. So with that, let me begin....

On the surface, Sea Monsters only appears to be a child's game with little to offer mature, calculating minds.

In short, the players attempt to sail their three ships from one side of the map to another, through a perilous sea of monsters. The first person to have all three ships succeed wins the game. This seeming lack of depth dissipates quickly, however, once you've played the game a couple of times. That being said, I'll call out the most interesting aspect of this game: the sea monsters.

Sea monsters rest peacefully in the sea until one of the players wakes one up-- which occurs randomly during a player's turn, around 20% of the time. Once awakened, the player must move the monster (as opposed to one of their ships) a randomly-determined number of spaces-- though they can't move into a space that has any land on it (they prefer the deep ocean, like Leviathan!) If the sea monster moves into a square that has a ship in it, the ship is sent willy-nilly back to its starting port. Ships, I might add, can move onto a square that has some land in it, such as an island.

This small set of rules absolutely explodes with emergence, creating a lot of eureka moments and delight as it happens. For example, when a player gets a chance to move a monster, they can either move it further from their own ships or they can move it toward the enemy. Or they can do both. Or neither. It is a political and strategic choice that has no single answer.

To our shame, it took my wife and I until the third game to realize that we could protect our ships better by landing at islands-- where they are safe from sea monsters-- even if it means not taking our full move. One can always split one's move points among your ships, anyway. It took us until the third match to realize all of this because we only realized that monsters could only move in deep ocean during the second game!

Now that we know the rules, we may not get the same thrill as we did when we were first learning them, but the end result is that the game model is fun, interesting, deep, political, and strategic. It's a very satisfying game to play while not being so abstruse as to not be able to teach some of the finer points to a child.

Speaking of playing with younger or gentler souls, one can still play this game with a kind heart-- you can go easy on people if they're going easy on you. It doesn't have to be an absolute blood-bath.

The Review

The Mechanics

As I said, the mechanics to this game are great and they unveil themselves slowly and in a digestible manner. One can play casually or one can make the most of each rule and strategy. For a casual game, the mechanics really stand out as having a lot of unseen depth that scales with your mood. Moreover, a clever kid or parent could add a few new rules to spice things up.

The Pieces
The pieces are top-notch, if simply designed. Durable, colorful, and made for small hands. I would have prefered that the ships were die cast or molded out of a single piece of plastic, but for all the fun we had, it is hardly worth mentioning. The board, though lovely, had some spaces were a little confusing at times as far as whether or not they were valid spaces to move onto... but we ironed all that out ourselves with limited argument.

The Play
As an adult, I really enjoy playing this game-- because it genuine felt like play, not work. As a kid, I can imagine the whole thing coming alive as it is played since the game mechanics supported the milieu-- nothing felt out of place or arbitrary. In so doing, it is ultimately an easy game system to model in one's mind.

Final Notes
If you have kids or want to enjoy some light-hearted fun with playful adults, at under $20 (don't forget your Bing cashback!), this is a must-play. Now get out there and sail the seven seas!