Oil Rock Board Game Review - Does It Strike Oil?
Transcript
I know we've all wanted to strike oil, right? Either figuratively or metaphorically. Today, that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be trying to strike oil, uh moving our assistants and managers around, building offices in places, building drillers, and trying to extract uh the the oil and make some money. Today, we're talking about Oil Rock. Uh this is a game coming out at Essen here in 2026 from Cranio Creations. Uh let me show you how it's played and I'll see you on the other side.
Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to tell you about finding your grill game at Noble Knight Games. Grill games are games that you've always wanted, but are no longer in print and very hard to find, hence finding the holy grail. Noble Knight buys and sells pre-owned games and developed a condition grading system from 30 years of experience from buying and selling games, so you know exactly what you're getting. Maybe it's the top 100 game Max vs. Minions and you don't want to wait a year for the next printing. Or maybe the slipcase version of the classic game Acquire from the 1960s. So, go on your holy grail quest at Noble Knight Games by clicking the link in the description of this video or on the eye up there in the upper right. At the beginning of the game, each of you is going to get a historical character and it's going to be giving you specific income and over the game possibly some abilities and you'll be able to upgrade these by getting different progress.
For example, this character will get you a coin, a coal, and three assistants to place at progress level one. And as you gain to the second level, you'll be able to flip this over, get better income like getting two assistants and a big manager plus some more resources. And all the way to level six where you'll be getting lots of resources, the best places, the workers to place, and you'll be getting a very special action as well. Now, after gaining income at the beginning of each round from wherever level your character's at, you'll be placing workers. And these are going to be getting you different actions and you'll be selecting them on this wheel and these are all sort of randomized where these are each game. This is a two-player version where the wheel is a little bit smaller than the bigger one, but you're going to essentially be taking actions with your assistants,
and then later on, placing your managers allowing you to take two connecting actions. Now, there are ways to take actions other players have already taken, but you're giving them a benefit of progress by doing so. And at the end of the round, this will turn, which will change which actions are linked to what for your managers. Now, some of these actions allow you to manipulate and move around the map. The map is randomized at the beginning of the game. You can be moving to different terrains and setting up offices and things like that. So, you might be spending coal to move to a different terrain, gaining an immediate bonus, and later, maybe building one of your offices there, which is going to allow you to get in-game points, but also be able to get an immediate bonus like three progress. And you start at this level, and over the course of the game, you're going up this progress, and these are the things that allow you to flip that board that book in your character to get better income and better actions.
You'll also be getting progress cards, which are three different types. Some of them are ongoing abilities like whenever you place a building, you have to pay one less and get a point, or an immediate thing like getting two coins, two coal, and a progress card, or some end-game goals like two points for every turbine you've built. Because over the game, you're going to be spending resources to be able to drill further and be able to get more oil barrels during the production. And those oil barrels, you're going to be able to run through different refineries and get different things for them. For example, turning a green into a yellow with two three wrenches which is going to help you build more, but you can also get turbines, which are going to allow you to also get things like progress. And if you're able to build all the way down through all of your first six refineries, the next one you build actually upgrades the first one to something even better, and now you're even spending lesser oil to get even better things. You'll also be getting patents, which you'll be able to spend a certain amount of those to get certain bonuses, but you'll also be possibly spending three to get a bonus of your choice on a specific round.
And speaking of rounds, there's four rounds and each round is going to have a randomized bonus that you get to see at the beginning of the game, like four points for each briefcase you've opened at the end of round one, or four points for each uh yellow progress card you have at the end of round two. Or in end of round three, five points for each yellow drill that you've been able to uh create, and three points for each level progress you made in the last round. So, it gives you some short-term and long-term goals as well. So, essentially you're placing workers to take actions to be able to do things like build refineries and you can produce oil and turn those oils into more resources and more points, trying to get goals, also trying to score by building uh offices in different areas. So, there's many different ways to score. At the end of the fourth round, whoever has the most points is the winner. Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is known for their high-quality game mats with over 38 styles and 12 sizes from some of the top artists in the industry like Vincent Dutrait and Ryan Laukat. They have the perfect storage solutions for all your mats like mat bags and mat racks. They just launched the Mats Game Bazaar crowdfunding campaign, which highlights the greatest mats on Earth including the new Victorian Steampunk mat and many others. Visit gametoppersllc.com or search Kickstarter for Game Toppers Mat Bazaar to learn more. All right, let me tell you uh what I liked about it first and then things that I didn't like as much about it. So, first is the asymmetric characters. I love that they're historical characters. I like the art on them. And I like that that that you're in you're getting income every round, but as you progress on the progress track, you're flipping that nice little book and you're getting better income, sometimes getting a special action. Uh
really cool. I like that you've got two different workers and the small assistant just go to a spot and they get that one action. But the managers, which you have to play later after all your assistants have played, basically go between two actions. And I liked that aspect that that that you do that. I also like that that you have the flexibility of hey, I can go where someone else, you know, is. I can basically copy an action, but that player is going to move up the progress track. If I place a manager that is touching an action someone already took, I can do that, but they're going to get they're going to get a bonus on the progress track. I kind of like that. I like that the action wheel, it's randomized at the beginning of the game, but then also it turns at the end of each turn. So, like the the way the place you place the managers, it's going to interact with different actions as the game goes on. I like that aspect of it. Uh I like that customizing the refineries with the different turbines, trying to figure out like which engine are you going to be running, which color oil are you going to be getting, uh and which means which one's going to be the most efficient to refine, and then which ones which bonus are you going to put there depending on your strategies. Uh I like that you are spending patents in different ways. For the briefcases to get these these different things, or once per round you can spend them to get your own little special action that you can take and give you a sort of an extra action.
I think it's interesting that when you get you build your sick your your your your seventh refinery, you flip the first one over, and it really opens the floodgates because it's like you only have to spend I think it's one yellow and one green for that one, but yet now you're getting like a better version of that, which is kind of cool cuz you're you're spending less, but you're getting than some of the ones down below, but you're getting uh arguably a better thing for than some of the other ones down below. So, it's kind of cool if you can go down that strategy to get that. I like that the improvement cards uh give you different things. Sometimes ongoing abilities, sometimes immediate abilities, sometimes end game scoring. Uh I like the arc of the game where each round you're going to be getting more and more because, you know, you're building all this stuff up, you're getting all these barrels, you're turning them into more and more resources and money. Next round you're spending those to do all sorts of better things. I like that aspect, and I like the randomized map set up that each game it's going to be different like how where you can travel to really easy. You start on different spots.
Uh so, overall I I think it's a solid game. I think a lot of people that like the sort of tighter, pretty straightforward worker placement Euro games are going to like this. Uh things I didn't like as much. There's not a good enough icon difference between uh the immediate points and the end points. Most of the points you get in this game are going to be end points. Building buildings, the upgrading your refineries with with with with the with the turbines, and there's just a lot of places building the drillers. There's lots of points. Most of them are going to come at the end of the game, but there are places you do get points during, and the only difference is like there's a little redness around the star. I wish they were more distinguishable uh between end game points and in game points. Um in this game, there's a lot of pieces. Each player basically has their own bag of all their very specific pieces. The not enough bags came in the game to properly store the game so that each player has their own bag of components, and separating out the other ones, that's kind of a pet peeve of mine when there's not enough bags for the amount of things need things need to be sep- separated out in. I'm not crazy. I like I can put some tokens in with other tokens, but here what you got, you really need to separate out the players, and there's no storing for that really.
Uh for me, I there wasn't anything I actively disliked about the game, um but I don't think it did it didn't do anything new, which is hard to do these days, but it also I don't think it did anything that was substantially like better than some of the other Euros that have come out lately that I really love. Um so and that's just a personal preference. And all of that could poss- possibly come from I saw an oil game, I looked at it briefly, and I'm like, "Oh, okay." And I naturally think it's an oil game, it's going to be an economic game, which I love. This is more your straight This is if if if you if you stray away from oil rock cuz you're like, "Oh, I don't like economic games, and oil games are always economic games," then for you, this game probably is for you. Because you're going to be cuz a very straightforward tight resourced worker placement game. If you're looking for that with the oil theme and some maps and things I showed, I think you're going to like it. If you go into it thinking, "Oh, good, this is going to be a cool little economic game and a lot of interaction," not really. There's not really much of that. Um so for me, I was a little disappointed, but that was more on me than the game. That was my expectations.
Um but I think it's a solid game. I think those that like the straight straight ahead forward uh Euro game without anything extremely new without anything that extremely stands out from others, but it's a solid game. So, then I can't say anything actively negative about it. But, that's what I think about Oil Rush. This is the Game Boy Geek breaking down barriers, growing relationships with board games, and helping you find the fun you love.