Click & Crack Board Game How to Play & Review

Click & Crack is a simultaneous action selection game.

Title: Click & Crack

Year Published: 2013

Designer: Jun’ichi Sato

Publisher: Junias

Players: 3-4

Game Time: ~20 Mins

Set-up Time: >1 Mins

Ages: 8+

Theme: Penguins

Mechanic: Simultaneous Action Selection

How to win: Score the most points.

Game Description

Click & Crack is a simultaneous action selection game in which the players control two penguins each, walking around on a big ice floe.

Set Up & Game Play

Put ice floe tiles in a 5×5 grid and give the penguin and action tokens of one colour to each player.

Starting with the first player and in turn order, place a penguin on an intersection and then players repeat this with their second penguin in reverse turn order.

Click & Crack Game Play

Choose the facing and side of your action tiles and cover them, players reveal them simultaneously

Walk Action – This is moving either of your Penguins.

Penguins only move along lines and stop at intersections in the direction your tile is facing, including the intersection on the edge of the board.

If you move into another penguin you push it to the next intersection and this can chain. If you push a penguin on the edge of the board, move it along the edge instead. (You pick the direction)

Break Action – Add a Crack to the board.

Put a crack marker on a line between 2 tiles, in the direction of either of your penguins the way the action tile is facing. If cracks fence off an area, break off the smallest part of the floe… If the Floe breaks into 2 equal parts, the active player chooses which part is lost. The player that made the last crack keeps the floe tiles.

Penguins on the smaller part of the floe are removed from the game. If the broken floe is 3 tiles or bigger, the Penguin making the last crack is lost too.

When all players have played 2 actions, pass the first player marker to the left and repeat.

Scoring
You get 1 point per tile you collect…
Lose 1 point for each penguin you lose but you do not lose points for Penguins lost when you cause the last crack that breaks the ice floe.

Game End

The game ends immediately if
– a player has 7 or more points
– the floe is 6 or fewer tiles
– there are less than 3 penguins on the floe

Click & Crack Round-Up

How cute is this game? All in a tiny box too and it was only a few Euros at Essen 2014, great value. The game itself can be set up, taught, played and put away in less than 10 minutes easily.

The way you push each other around the floe and mess each other plans up is pretty funny. You notice a player is ready to crack a large part of the floe so you send one of your penguins in to give them a little nudge along the ice out the way.

It actually requires more strategy than you think. However, it’s quite easy to be left unchecked and just cut off a couple of small chunks and take a good lead. You have to constantly be on each other’s toes.

Rating

A very simple game to play.

I give it 7/10