Outrun the Bear First Impressions

Outrun the Bear has you do just that…

…well, just outrun your friends.

Sometimes you don’t have to OUTRUN THE BEAR… you just have to outrun your friends.

Outrun the Bear Game Overview

Quick Rules Summary

Players each have a character with their own ability and a hand of cards.

Players will use these cards to move, push, pull and steal from the other players to scramble through a national park.

The spaces in this park each have different terrain that will provide different abilities at the start of your turn.

How do you win?

After the players move, the bear will move based on the cards in the discard pile. If it ever overtakes a player they are ‘out of the game’. The last remaining player wins.

Main Mechanisms

Next to hand management is take-that which is a huge part of this game.

USP

The bear standee is quite unique. It’s a tense feeling as this ‘barrier’ sweeps up the board nipping at your heels.

The bear moving based on cards in the discard pile means you can manipulate the bear’s movement too. If you’re at the back you can slow it down, at the front speed it up. it gives you an additional layer of thought when playing your action cards.

Theme

The “You don’t have to outrun X, just one of your friends” is a good idea for a theme that I would have thought would be used more.

Setup

Choose a character, get some cards, pick a start player and get playing.

Components & Artwork

The components are OK. The standees are pretty good, especially the bear.

The art is nice and cartoony. The art on the action cards is good fun, wish I’d taken a picture of them!

Ease of Teaching

This can be quite tricky to teach. The cards make sense but there are a few timing issues as to when you can and can’t play cards or trigger abilities.

Similar Games

I think of the team racing game Kingdom Run where you’re scrambling around a track, but that’s with dice.

Outrun the Bear Review

Positives

It’s a tense scramble up the branching paths.

Gameplay is not as straightforward as trying to move as much as possible. You can play cards and use abilities more efficiently, but you need to give it some real thought. The designer taught us the game and pointed out on several occasions where we could have made a much more optimal move.

It’s a fun theme.

Negatives

While the players get a decent head start on the bear, player elimination will occur.

Summary

A fun, tense game.

Jesta ThaRogue