Goblin lobbin’ fun
FLYIN’ GOBLIN
Designers: Corentin Lebrat, Theo Riviere | Artist: Tomasz Larek
This should have gone so wrong. This should have been a game that gets reviewed as being about picking up meeples that have been flung across the room. This should have been about the game not being as deep as others in the Iello family game catalogue.
And yet, here we are. It’s great. Yes, there is a small amount of goblinfetching from the floor. And certainly, it’s not a deep game. But it is highly competitive, and feels a lot better than it has any right to.
It’s a dexterity game about using a well-proportioned catapult (the seesaw kind) to chuck some custom goblin-shaped meeples into the castle of the king. The castle is built into the box, a tidy trend in gaming we’re happy to welcome in this case. The castle remains robust because of this, and there’s almost no set-up time beyond dishing out the different coloured goblins.
Each room you land in has an effect, such as collecting gold or diamonds.
Some effects are negative, like losing diamonds, while others influence your army board – the area you use to recruit your other, sometimes more advanced, goblins. This area is also where you buy in your totems, which, if they remain standing on the roof of the castle, allows you to claim victory.
The game is played out of the box, with some punch out inserts quickly forming a tower and the various rooms of the castle. Then the catapulting begins, all at once.
You simultaneously lob your goblin meeples over the castle walls and into the various rooms, with each declaring they’re done as they run out of goblins. The last person flinging (if you miss and the goblin lands near you, you can re-shoot) gets one more go and then everyone activates the rooms they’re in. Taking their bounty, or penalties.
Next, players can buy things in to play from their board like captain goblins that double the effect of a room.
And most importantly, players will be buying and then placing parts of their totem on the castle. You can only buy one piece at a time, so your totem has to survive a round of goblin barrages to remain on the castle. There’s usually a concerted effort to knock off the leader’s totem at any one time.
It’s surprisingly quick to get to grips with, and soon you’ll be taking meaningful shots at your opponents’ towers, or into the room with the bonus that’s going to help you the most. Once you do, and knowing that your competitors are probably doing the same, it’s very much a game of praying your totem doesn’t fall in the chaos. With highs and lows in any single round, Flyin’ Goblin provides edge-of-your-seat moments as well as the desire to do a premier league level celebration for smashing the winner’s tower down with one, perfect, shot. It’s a game of ‘having the knack’ in some ways, which might put some off, but once you’ve got the faintest grasp on it, it’ll give you back catapults full of fun.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
WHAT’S IN THE BOX
◗ 4 Catapults
◗ 4 Army boards
◗ 20 Goblin soldier pawns
◗ 6 Goblin captain pawns
◗ 8 Goblin looter pawns
◗ 16 Totems pawns
◗ 50 Coin tokens
◗ 50 Diamond tokens
◗ 1 Integrated castle
◗ 1 Tower
WE SAY
Hopefully this is how all worker placement games will ask you to place your meeples in the future. Fast, highly competitive, and just feels right – which is pretty much exactly what you want from a dexterity game.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TUMBLE DICE
Falling, rather than flinging, Tumble Dice offers some of the high-flying family fun of Flyin’ Goblin