Reef Rescue Game Review

0:00 this episode of brains on games will talk about Reef rescue a memory game from the folks over at origami games welcome to brains on games I'm Dr Brian McDonald in this episode we're going to talk about a memory matching game for the younger kids that has a reef diving theme a game that was sent to me a while back by Daryl Chao over at origami games a game called Reef rescue now Reef rescue is a game that can be played by kids age 7 and up I think even the younger kids can figure this one out for sure so seven and up though a game plays in about 20 minutes and you can play with between two and five people let's take a deeper look at Reef rescue so we're talking here about a very light like I said memory matching game and you're probably familiar with these kinds of games when my kids were little we'd put a deck of cards down and you'd be trying to flip over cards to find a pair but in this case you've got these square tiles that fit into that small box that I showed you earlier it's a game where what you're trying to do is earn points by rescuing either gigantic creatures or little creatures from around a coral reef and you risk coming across garbage along the way I don't know if I have any Trash tiles here that I can show you now you're earning points by rescuing gigantic creatures you're in big points for Gigantic creatures but

1:31 you have to get two halves of these creatures so they're all like a little puzzle there are smaller creatures that are on a single tile you're in some points for them as well depending on how many of those little fish are on that tile and there are three tiles that together build the coral reef it's a little puzzle you're building the coral reef from those three tiles and you get big points for those as well now you're trying to earn those points through that set collection the game's going to end when there are 10 tiles or less that are remaining and then you finish the round so everybody has an equal number of turns and then you're counting up points based on how many of the gigantic creatures in little creatures and maybe the coral reef you were able to collect without coming across those garbage tiles like I said but Daryl Chow who also designed Wok and Roll which we talked about before is pretty clever in the way that he puts these things together so one thing that's that's different from the memory matching games that my kids played when they were little is that you do have those garbage tiles that have plastic bags on them or and those are that that turns it into a push your luck kind of a game because there are several of those tiles in this grid of 40 tiles and if you come across one your turn is over and you don't get to collect any of the creatures you found prior to flipping that one up the other thing that's unique about this game so you're you're collecting sets

3:02 using memory skills you're you're pushing your luck and trying to avoid the trash and you're also doing some action selection so each player has two of these little double-sided tiles and these are the actions they're going to take now there's one C scope that lets you peek at the tiles without collecting any so if you're trying to be a little bit more careful you might use this one but you choose your action and then you flip it over so that you can't do you've got a choice of two actions every turn but you can never do the same action twice in a row so you might use that c scope just to Peak you might use this turbine which is going to allow you to flip over any five cards in the grid up to five cards so you can stop any time so if you're worried you're going to come across one of those garbage tiles then you can stop before you hit that one so you are definitely pushing your luck but with this little turbine you are only grabbing the little creatures that you find along the way and little creatures are going to be on just a single tile um if you use the bright beam you're going in a straight line so you have to pick three adjacent tiles either horizontally or vertically adjacent tiles now if you do that you and you find two halves of a gigantic creature you get to take that or if you find a small creature so if you flip over three and you get two pieces of a gigantic creature plus a small one you get all three of those and you're taking them off the board

4:32 the the final one is uh this fast fin where you do get to flip over any five up to five tiles and this time instead of like the turbine where you're looking for the little creatures with the fast fin you're going to be able to rescue the gigantic ones I flipped over a bunch of these tiles here to give you an idea of what the artwork looks like and it is super cute artwork all of the creatures have big googly eyes and and you might remember some of them from Finding Nemo I think everything I learned about Reef ecology I learned from Finding Nemo so here are some dories that I managed to track down while flipping these guys over so you're taking those actions you're flipping over some tiles five tiles maybe up to five up to three in a straight line maybe you're just peeking at them and not letting the other players see if you're using that c scope and then you're collecting the ones that match the action that you've taken so if I flip over three and I'm trying to collect those small creatures I could take this one and this would be worth three points now the tricky part is avoiding the trash tiles there are several of these tiles and it's all like plastic bags and plastic rings and things like that that you would see it's it can be a little bit tough yet you may have to look closely to recognize that it's plastic and it's not like a jellyfish or something because they're not a different color from the rest it's sort of if you put these all together you could almost make a puzzle I think but you're trying to avoid that plastic

6:04 pollution because that's going to end your turn and it gets harder as the game goes because if I'm collecting these puzzle pieces and putting them in front of me because that shows that I've earned some points I'm if if I hit one of the trash tiles instead I don't get to collect anything off of the grid everything flips back over so as you start to to make matches and players are taking tiles off the board you're not taking the trash tiles off of The Reef so the proportion of these garbage tiles to the fish it starts getting oh it gets harder and harder to find what you're looking for because there's more of these things you have a greater chance of hitting one of those garbage tiles which is exactly what you don't want now as I said everything I know about these these kinds of fish I learned from Finding Nemo there is a clownfish tile in here somewhere and I didn't happen to turn it over when I was flipping these guys at random but you did get to see Dory over here but it's a game where kids who who like those kinds of saltwater fish maybe who are interested in marine life might look at these and wonder well what kind of fish is that maybe you'll you'll want to do some research to find out maybe they'll be inspired to learn about you know is is this kind of plastic garbage threatening uh the coral reefs and so it's a game that might inspire you to do some research or or get your kids to ask questions and that's my question for

7:34 this episode have you ever found yourself Googling something based on something that you learned a card that you turned or a tile or something in in the theme of A game that you've played I'd love to hear about that and you can leave a comment in the comment section below the video but what skills are you working on when you're playing a game like Reef Rescue of course this is a visual memory game you are really trying to flip these things over and find those those matches but you're not always going to match one and those things are going to get flipped back down so you want to remember where they are especially if you're trying to get the big points by collecting these great big creatures the gigantic ones that's worth a lot more points than if you got two little creatures instead so you're trying to remember where the pieces are so that you can find them later and flip them back over you might learn something about the kinds of trash that is threatening coral reefs Around the World perhaps you might start to do some research about the marine life what kinds of fish here are we talking about when we look at these pictures because I mean it is like I said appealing artwork and if you're playing a game like this maybe you're interested in well what kind of fish is this what what was what would this one be called and then you're learning something new maybe uh about Reef ecology and the creatures that live there so we are talking I mean primarily

9:06 it is a memory game but there are those ancillary potential ancillary benefits of sparking some curiosity uh about the the sea life and ecology final thoughts about Reef rescue well this is you know it's just like those kinds of memory matching games that my kids played when they were younger but of course it's a design by Daryl Chow so there are some clever twists it adds the push your luck element which I really like it adds the action selection so you're looking for different matches or you're you're flipping over cards in a line or or randomly around the board so uh the action selection adds something to the game I'm going to be very very honest with you I played this only at a two-player count with my son who's 19 and this is a game for kids like I said it could probably be played by kids age six and up but we had some laughs as we were playing this game when one of us made a mistake there was lots of Trash Talk he was trying to distract me while I was trying to remember where the pieces were you know we had a good time playing this thing that's meant for very young kids so for families if you want to practice that visual memory skill uh this is one that I think might be appealing I love the artwork on the tiles as well and they are thick cardboard tiles so they're not going to get bent up they might get scuffed up perhaps but they're not going to get bent up as easily as playing cards might when younger kids are flipping them around that being said we are talking about a

10:39 big 40 tile grid and adjacent tiles are important if we're you know using that bright beam to take three tiles in a row so they do have to stay organized and that's always the hardest part for me in these games that have a lot of tiles is keeping you can see even now I've flipped a few over and things are starting to get crooked organizing the tiles is the hardest part of these kinds of games but that is a very nitpicky thing to complain about and I have to say here we're talking about a small box with great artwork components that are sturdy and it is a great iteration I think on those old-fashioned memory matching games that my kids always used to play and I think we'll play again when my older son comes over I'm sure he'll like the artwork and his girlfriend will like the artwork and when it's about uh that that eco-friendly kinds of stuff they're into that theme so I think this is one that they'll probably pull out as well so thank you so much Daryl chow and and the folks over at origami games for sending Reef rescue my way if you have any questions about this game suggestions for the show if you want to answer my question from earlier on you can leave them in the comment section below the video or you can email me at Brian brainsongames.ca brainsongames.c is the website that's where future episodes ago the previous ones are up there already brains on games is the Twitter handle and the

12:10 Facebook page and the Instagram feed so we're all over the place and if you enjoyed this video and you want to be notified of future ones you can head on over to YouTube and click that subscribe button thanks for joining me and hopefully I'll see you next time