Futurewolfie

Eruption is a great gateway game. It has familiar elements like dice rolling, as well as bright colors and friendly art, that attract non-gamers, but it introduces concepts such as tile laying and strategic choice. It also has a lot of balancing mechanics so that no one gets left behind.

I’ve found, in introducing it, that it works really well because things happen in sort of unnofficial “phases” that other players can see and teach. Here’s usually how it goes; new players decide that I, the teacher, must be ridiculously good at the game, so they all immediately target me with lava. So initially, I fall behind. But then I reach the next danger level quickly, so all the players see the powerful benefits of being the first to access a new ability as well as place the eruption tile. It also gives me the chance to access a wider variety of cards, and then use them strategically. This allows the new players to see examples of how the cards can be used – but instead of me pulling ridiculously far ahead to do so, it’s me catching up to everyone else (and evening out some of the overwhelming lava flows.) After that the players start to realize that they need to spread out the lava, earn cards for themselves, and build walls strategically. The higher the danger level, the more you can do in a single turn – often when you get up to the 3rd danger level you can take long turns and play 10-15 cards by placing and rotating tiles to gain new cards, so the complication escalates – but it flows pretty well since turns start off simple, and players get to learn things little by little.

It’s an “attacking” game in a sense but it doesn’t lead to a lot of spite since the point is to attack everyone all the time. Ganging up on someone usually just leaves them in a powerful position with lots of abilities and cards to play.

The game only lasts about 45min-1hr. It’s strategic enough to be fun for a gamer, but light enough for newbies to participate and even win. You’ll never be able to pull too far ahead, but your choices do matter and can make that 10 degree difference for the win.

For a complete review of Eruption including a second opinion, visit iSlaytheDragon.com. Here’s a direct link to the article: A review of Eruption