A slippery slope to success
THE SPILL
Designer: Andy Kim | Publisher: Smirk & Dagger Games
No other cooperative game manages to make removing cubes from the board as satisfying as Pandemic. A newcomer to the scene has to offer something extraordinary to escape Pandemic’s gigantic shadow, and The Spill definitely gives it a good try.
The Spill’s most compelling success is the tight interweaving between the game’s theme and the mechanics. Players are a response team coming out to the ocean to a recent accidental oil rig spillage. They will have to contain the spill, while attempting to save the local sea wildlife. In The Spill, ‘the cubes on a map’ take the form of black dice (representing oil) that can populate the circular board of four sectors each divided into six lanes, corresponding to the six-sided dice values. Players will be rolling these dice by using the oil rig dice tower and placing them according to which sector the fall and which value they show. If the dice lands on the animal, they become contaminated and if not saved immediately will have to go into a sick bay. If all three spaces on a lane are covered in oil – dice – the spill occurs, which may increase the number of dice players will need to drop in the dice tower on subsequent turns. If the spills get out of hand or there are too many animals in the sick bay, the players lose.
Every round of the game, indeed, feels like a constant fight against an ever-worsening disaster. Although player characters have a range of abilities that make them versatile as well as efficient at tasks that correspond to their strengths, every action in a turn is precious. A single timely removed oil dice can make a difference between an end of the game and getting one last winning condition. These also vary from game to game, depending on the objective cards players pick up at the start of the game. Although they will all involve some form of removal of oil and saving the animals, the number of them and the manner or sequence of their removal adds varying difficulties to the game. Upon receiving their objectives, players can select certain resource cards to assist them with achieving them. Resource cards offer bonus actions, however, a certain number of oil will need to be removed or animals saved before they can be activated. So, while powerful and much-need in clutch moments, players will still need to work to earn them.
The game’s weakest point are the components, the quality of which is frustratingly uneven. The oil dice tower rig has an amazing table presence, but its construction is a little clumsy, sometimes making the tower, although visually almost imperceptible, lean slightly one way encouraging more dice to one sector. Kwanchai Moriya’s artwork is second to none, but it also feels used very sparingly in the game. Animal tokens, especially, could have used some love because they look a little too cartoonish. A more realistic style could have enhanced the theming and underlined the weight of this manmade disaster further. There is also some unwieldiness with the initial set up, when all animal tokens must be placed on the board, or with arranging weather tokens (used to handicap character abilities) on each character board. In the game mechanically this straightforward, this fiddliness feels a little excessive.
Yet these are minor shortcomings that get easily outshined by everything The Spill does right. It has a fantastic theme, tackling an issue that needs more awareness and attention, which is coupled with easy to play mechanics that, nonetheless, make for a hard to win game.
ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA
WE SAY
The Spill’s gameplay shows in a powerful way just how destructive to the natural world human interventions can be. It is made accessible by an easy to learn and pick up gameplay, while requiring highly coordinated teamwork to win.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗36 Marine animal tokens
◗13 Resource cards
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Situation board
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5 Specialist mats
◗20 Orange activation cubes
◗5 ship tokens
◗60 Black oil dice
◗4 Blue weather dice
◗ Dice bag
◗ Spill out token
◗Oil rig dice tower
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED PANDEMIC…
While it does not eclipse the slick gameplay of Pandemic, The Spill’s theme is strong enough to make it standout in the ocean of other Pandemic-likes.