Push Push Penguin
- Nicola Bridge
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
In Wacky Wizard's Push Push Penguin you are racing along an almost linear board toward a dangerous penguin-eating Orca. The game is designed by Christopher Ryan Chan, David Gordon and Tin Aung Myaing (aka TAM).
While at heart a simple roll & move game, making it accessible to young children who can cope with the likes of Snakes & Ladders, it has various ways in which you get some autonomy and control over your movements. And, excitingly, you get to push the penguin in front of you forward when you move behind it - which might sound like something you don’t want to do until you get used to the premise that the winner is the penguin who comes in second! Pushing a leading penguin forward towards their Orca-led demise certainly gave my children joy!
Each turn, players roll their own two dice, hidden underneath a cup, and choose which of the two they play and which they don’t. Movements are chosen secretly so as not to influence other players. This gives a little choice as you can think carefully about which special spots you land on and whether you want to. Seal spots allow a dice roll that might advance you on, which is not always wanted, or move the Orca or even move you to the front of the pack. Slides allow you to overtake other players if they are being pushed. Each turn, the Orca dice is rolled so that the Orca gets closer and closer to the players.
In our plays, we found the order of players swapped lots initially but then one player took the lead and, despite having dice choices and re-rolls, they could not stop their inevitable progression towards being in first place, reaching the Orca first and thus losing. My 4-year old daughter took great delight in having the lead and then losing. Whereas my 6-year old sulked at being in last place and did not fully appreciate the overtake into second place that in the end allowed him to win.
This game was rated age 6+ but, as is frequent with board games, it can be enjoyed by a younger crowd too, just so long as an adult can read the rules to themselves quickly enough.
The game did take roughly the 15 minutes advertised to play, tho' would take a little longer with more than three players.
The artwork and penguin theme pulled in my daughter to play, and the strange expressions of the penguins matched mine playing as I tried to figure out my tactics. I suspect the game was enjoyed more by my children playing without tactics but, as ever, it is good to see a children’s game where you can actually consider your tactics, despite the main movements being randomised.
In short, Push Push Penguin is an enjoyable little game, but one which sadly won’t be played again in our household due to our already having a fair few young children’s games and this one only pleasing one of my picky progeny.
(Review by Nicola Bridge)
