by Odgeuk
Picked this up from eBay a while back, on a nostalgia trip to playing this in the late 80s with friends.
Managed a game last night with my 10 and 11 yr old, and other-half. Very enjoyable and one of the first times the kids have applied attention for a full game that was more complex than Uno!
Some Rule queries came up though and I know the designer frequents these boards.
1) "When a Dolphin is moved onto a sea space occupied by a swimmer (or vice versa) a player may use his move of three spaces to resuce his Atlantean with the Dolphin"
Wait? For a Dolphin to 'move onto a sea space occupied by a swimmer', we must be on the spinner part of the turn, so there won't be any moves left to complete the move this turn right?
And if it's Vice Versa, then the Swimmer must've used a move already, to share the space with the Dolphin (whether by jumping off the island, or swimming to the Dolphin), so that 'ain't happening till next turn either right?
2) Any Atlanteans on a sinking Island peice are removed and placed on ANY OTHER ISLAND PIECE (Green, Yellow or Grey). If, when sinking an Island Piece, there are no spaces left on the Island, then any Atlanteans on the sinking island piece hace to dive into the sea and become swimmers on any sea space ADJACENT to the sinking Island Piece.
Ok...who moves the displaced Atlanteans? The person who removed the Island piece? If so, do they also control where in the sea the poor chumps have to go if there are no more spaces on the Island? What if at least one of the Adjacent sea spaces has a shark or sea monster in it? Can the Atlanteans all huddle on the same 'safe' space? Or is it one chump per space? Can the person moving the Atlanteans deliveratly move them into sea monster squares (even if a safe space is available) and thus have them eaten (muhhahhhahhha!) and what if ALL available spaces have Sharks or Sea Monsters in? I guess it's curtains for the swimmers?
3) Boarding Boats
I assume you can swim to a boat and board it? And I assume it's one move to move into the boat space AND board it. That's all a swimmer can do, as they have one move only. HOwever, once they are in the boat, they aren't a swimmer any more. So can you swim to an adjacent boat space with one move, then move the boat on 2 more spaces to complete your move turn? What if you move a boat to a swimmer space, is it one move for the swimmer to board (I say yes).
This is a fab game for younger players, and 4 works much better than 2 players. The ability to stitch each other up is a great way to develop a ruthless streak in your children who are otherwise conditioned to be 'fair' in every other aspect of their life ;-)