Lifeboats
- Board's Eye View
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
Lifeboats was originally published in 1993 by Z-Man Games and Argentum Verlag. It was designed by Ronald Wettering. This edition from Broadway Toys has the subtitle Plank of Carneades and has new art from Pedro A Alberto but it's essentially the same game. This version incorporates a few variations to the rules and allows for an additional player: it makes it a game for 3-7 players (it was 3-6 in the original game). That's actually quite a big plus because Lifeboats is at its best at higher player counts.
You can think of Lifeboats as a party game; and certainly it's best not to take it too seriously because it's very much a 'take that' game where you'll be condemning other players - or at least their meeples - to the mercy of ravenous sharks...
Play is simple enough. Players place out wooden boats and then take turns allocating their captain and sailor meeples to any of the boats (ie: not necessarily their own colour boat). Players then vote (simultaneous reveal of colour cards) to determine which boat springs a leak. If there's no vacant spot on the boat to place the leak token, those players with a meeple on board vote among themselves which meeple to throw overboard. If ever the number of leaks on a boat exceeds the number of meeples, the boat sinks...
Players also vote on which boat moves forward. There are just three spaces to traverse to get to the safety and scoring opportunity of an island, and if the boat that moves has a leak then it moves forward two spaces rather than one: evidently having a leaking lifeboat incentivises the sailors to row harder! If on the previous round, a boat advanced two spaces then there will be two leaks on the next round (one each for the boats with the most and second most votes).
At the end of each round, each player must have one of their crew members change boats, and if there's no space to which a meeple can move to in another boat then, again, that meeple will be consigned to Davy Jones locker...
There's more. Players' captain meeples each carry two votes when determining who should go overboard. In addition to their colour cards for voting, players also have three captain cards. If just one player plays a (single use) captain card it overrides all the colour cards and that player gets to decide the outcome of the ballot. However, if two or more captain cards are played they cancel each other out and are discarded without effect.
Lifeboats then is a negotiation and voting game with a small push-your-luck factor and large element of 'take that'. The double movement of leaking boats and the doubling of the number of leaks speed the game up, so it plays in around 40 minutes - certainly a shorter playing time than the original version. And Broadway Toys have even included a sand timer, just in case players get overly bogged down in negotiations and/or pleading. You'll inevitably end up throwing your friends overboard and/or yourself being thrown over the side, so this isn't a game to play with those who sulk or bear a grudge when they find themselves 'betrayed'. Play it as a a party game, tho', and it's a lot of fun!
