Happy Campers Review: Trees, Toilets, and More!
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Transcript
Hey guys and welcome back to the Dice Tower. I'm Camila.
I'm Z.
And today we're going to be taking a look at a small little roll and write game. This is going to be Happy Campers. I enjoy camping.
I enjoy rolling rights. So I was definitely intrigued by this one. It has a player count. One of those games that it can go from one to 99, right? Uh but what really intrigued me was the six plus player count. So, this is definitely I was looking for something more in that young kid or I guess
you said six plus player count. You mean age?
Oh, I meant age. Yes, you're right. Yes. Six plus uh age that you can play. So, definitely looking more for that family weight maybe and looking into some of your um you know middle middle-aged kids. So, so excited to take a look at this one. Let's take a quick look at how to play and then we'll come back and let you know what we think.
To set up the game, you're going to give one of these to every player as well as a pencil. You'll be using two dice, but anybody can roll these. Everybody will be using the same die roll. If you want to, you can do the advanced setup in which you are going to shuffle up these cards and then put out one or two of them. They'll give you new things you can score based on. And so, for example, I we might put out dangerous animals here and the river town. There is a difficulty and a max number of points you may gain or lose based on what it says. You can also take one of these and flip it over. That can be your player aid there. That explains a few different things that I'll go over in just one second. Again, everybody has one of these and a pencil. The players are going to be simultaneously putting in shapes onto their campground here based on the die roll. And the game will be over when somebody cannot uh put in a shape. That will trigger the end of the game. And then we'll figure out what the scoring is and who wins. You are going to roll these two dice every round.
These two dice are going to be used by all the players in one of two ways basically. One of the dice giving you a shape, the other one giving you a feature. And we can all select this individually. If I choose to have my shape be a single square and my feature be the water feature here. Then everybody else could do the opposite of that if they so choose. So you have your shapes up here which can be mirrored and rotated when you put them into your campgrounds. And then you have down here the uh trees, toilets, water features, tents, entertainment areas, and this will let you pick any one of them you'd like to use. At the end of the game, you need to make sure that you have at least one of every kind of feature. Otherwise, you'll score literally nothing in the game. And then you are going to be scoring for each of those features here. If you have these objectives that you're choosing to play with, you'll score that there. You're going to be losing some points down here. And then you'll have your final total at the bottom. Your largest cluster of each of the features is what becomes victory points. So if I have a my largest cluster of trees, for example, is a group of seven. I'll get seven victory points for that. You lose points for empty squares. So you'll lose one point for each of those. And again, these two might or might not be in play based on these. Right now, we have dangerous animals here where we lose victory points for camps on the outside.
And then you've got a river town over here where you're trying to get uh these rivers all the way across and you'll get victory points for that. So perhaps my first turn then would be I'll select this for the shape. Obviously you would not manipulate the dice since everybody needs to do this. Uh and I would do this shape. And then since this is a six down here, I can pick whatever I want. I'm going to go ahead and select the uh the water feature. Maybe trying to go for that. And I would do something like this. I'll do the water there, water there, water there, and there. That's the shape I picked. That's the feature I chose. Once we've all done that, I'll roll the dice again. And we'll do it one more time. Again, either one of these shapes and that feature. I'd probably choose to do that so I can keep my river going. Or the opposite of that, that shape with trees. Okay. Now, one final thing I want to point out here. If you roll doubles, you are going to give your uh your camp sheet here to either the player on your left if it's double ones, twos, and threes, or the player on your right if it's fours, fives, or sixes, and they will put in that feature anywhere they want to on your cam sheet. They will mess you up most likely a little bit.
Uh, and then they'll give it back to you for the next roll. So, be aware of that. They do have to follow the correct shape and the correct uh uh feature, but they can put it anywhere they want to. So, it'll be disadvantageous. Once this is all over, you'll figure out your final score, tally all that up, and whoever has the most points will be the winner of the game.
All right. Off the bat here, I will just say that the theme pretty much disappears as soon as you play the game. It really could be anything.
Yeah, I agree. It's a cute theme, but there is not thematic in any way. I guess it's better than writing down numbers, but
but it really is. I mean, there's some trees, but even at that, if you had a campsite, you'd want the trees like spread out. You wouldn't want necessarily like we keep our trees over here and our toilets over here and the water doesn't, you know what I mean? Like, so, so the theme disappears pretty quickly in this. Um, in Roland writes, I sometimes struggle with ones where you have to do drawing a lot. I don't like that. I'm not a very good artist and I feel like it can quickly get in the way. So, I do appreciate in this that it's very simple
simple little drawings that you're doing, you know. A lot of times it's just circles and sticks kind of things, you know. So, it's very very basic. I do think you could play this um with those younger kids or someone that's not an artist like me.
But looking at that six-year-old that's just kind of getting those fine motor skills down, I definitely think that they're going to they're going to struggle with some of them, especially like the water, which is the two wavy lines or the I think it's the toilets that's spiral. Um, so I think that is probably the biggest thing that pushes it. Maybe maybe a six plus wouldn't quite work for that depending on those fine motor skills. Uh, but I did appreciate it. It's themeless though, I guess, is a lot of what it comes down to. Um, on the other side of that, it does have the cards that come with it for the kind of more advanced mode, which is going to give you the scoring opportunity.
Yeah. And to be fair, I think the game is way too simple. If this wasn't in the game, this I would write this game off immediately. I'll say it that way. Uh like this it just it needs these cards. It's super super simple. There is nothing to it, right? Um
there's that idea which I do think is cute of rolling the two dice and you pick this shape with this thing or this shape with this thing. Okay. But that's it. It needs these cards.
I think so as well. I I and I'm glad you said that because I was going to ask what you thought of it on um if it was still comfortable, you know, was there enough game there without the cards. So, I definitely agree. I I think to the point that I feel like
playing without the cards should be the module.
That should be family mode. That's what brings it down, you know, instead of that being the standard. Then it's like, hey, when you're ready, you're ready. Jump into it. Don't don't use it without. as well as that I think really helps it when you're trying when when you roll the doubles and you have to switch sheets to the player next to you if you don't have the cards. It's kind of like you don't get in each other's way as much. So, it takes away from that player interaction.
Right. Right. Right. And I do like that rule. I think it's actually okay. I tend to not be a fan of I know there's a few other Roland rights that do this idea of give your sheet to somebody else, they're going to mess you up. In this one, it's not too bad because like whatever this player is doing to you, you're doing to this person over here. Like
and the most you can do is like, oh, houses on the edges are negative one. Here's negative3 points and this group is not connected to your big group. That's kind of it. It's doesn't have a lot of teeth, I guess, is my point. And that's okay. I wouldn't want it to be meaner than it is, you know? Um
I feel like you're poking the other player. You're not slapping them. Yeah, it's okay. It's not so bad and it might not happen a whole lot. It happens when you roll double, so it's not that big of a deal. Um,
there's a few things I do like. The small footprint in this I think is very nice. It is very approachable unless, like you said, you have uh problems with the with the
the motor skills with the writing or the, you know, the little sketches. Um,
not too mean, like I said, but it does feel a little basic at the end of the day. You know what this game reminds me of is all the the plethora of print and play rolling rights. Yes.
That we see on Kickstarter and game found all the time now. There's like two of them a week out there. This feels like those games. In fact, many of them I assume are more intriguing than this game. Have more going on. Okay. You know, there's more to it.
This one's very simple. It is a good backpack game.
Yes.
Right. It is a game that is funny enough perfect for camping. You can throw it in your backpack and go hiking or whatever. Stop off there and then uh you know play this game out. You don't need a lot of room. But it's repetitive. It's simplistic. I would love a little something else. I would love a little more in this.
Right. I think what you say it's a great backpack game. Completely agree with that. I think that what I was thinking of with this game was airplanes as well. I think this would play fantastic on an airplane because you can even use the box here as your little dice tray so your dice aren't going everywhere and then each player just has a sheet and you know two cards out and so I think that roll and rights while it is basic and very simplistic a lot of rolling rights we see are kind of getting ahead of themselves where it's more and more components or more and more space or trading the dice back and forth something that takes it out of those small confined spaces that you can play it in. And so I do appreciate it with that.
It feels old school in that way. It's like, oh, you like Yatsi,
you're gonna you're I think you'll really like this if you like Yatsi because it is
it has a theme. It's barely there, but compared to Yatsi, it has a theme.
It's cute. It It does have nice artwork on it. Um Yeah. And there's interaction in it for goodness sake, right? Like, oh, I get your I'm gonna write on yours. Yeah, that's that's gonna be fun, I think. But if you have even even, you know, some experience with Rol and rights, this might just be a a little too simplistic.
I agree. I agree with that. Yeah. Uh, ultimately, where do you come down on
I'm going to come down uh at a six on this one. I think it's cute. I I like it fine. It's so inoffensive that I would not ever be opposed to playing it. It's also going to be 15 minutes, very 10 minutes.
It's very, very quick. Uh, great for airplanes like you're saying. good to you have a few minutes while you're waiting for the dinner to come out at a restaurant, whatever. It's it's good for that. And you can scoop it off the table in a second, right?
But is it going to have any staying power? Does it have, you know, some lasting interest? Not really. It's not one that I'll remember.
Yeah, I'm similar to you. I am going to come in at a seven, though. And that's because I think that this is one that feels like it honors, like I said, like you said, those print and plays or those simplistic games of the past, but it does somehow still feel fresh. And I think it comes down to that player interaction that doesn't cross into mean. So, this is definitely one that I would recommend that I would have in my collection to take on a trip if I'm going backpacking or if I'm going on a plane, something like that. So, it's not going to be a a general recommendation like, "Oh my gosh, this you got to wait. this does something really really unique. But I do think that it fits a unique category of games that we're just not seeing as much of. You know, everything wants something new or flashy or big. This one doesn't get ahead of itself. It knows what it is. It's a very basic, a very simple role and right that you can teach to anybody um that's going to have some player interaction and you can play in small little spaces. And I think that that is pretty unique in in a crowded kind of market here. Yeah. So, I don't think it's going to really excite you ever to play like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." But it definitely feel fills a niche, and I like that. So, for me, it is a seven.
Cool.
It's going to be happy campers. Thanks for joining us here at the Dice Tower. I'm Camila.
I'm Z.
And we'll see you next time. Hey, uh, thanks for watching another video here on the Dice Tower. Uh we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at the Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support the Dice Tour. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video. We've links to lots of other things we do down there. So definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched us. Tell your friends about the Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vassel, and I hope you enjoyed this video.