March's Game of the Month
Abducktion: A spatial challenge with ducks that's easy to learn, quick to play, and full of chaos and laughter.
Welcome to Jigsaw's game review!
I had a completely different game in mind for March, but I was absolutely taken by Abducktion!
This 1-4 player game will challenge you to think spatially (pun intended) as you attempt to arrange your randomly drawn ducks to match the cards in play. From the Big Dipper to Orion's Belt, you get a little astronomy lesson while using your actions cards to arrange the ducks to match one of the objective cards in play on your turn.
How to play:
Draw 10 ducks from the spaceship and randomly arrange them on your playing card.
Shuffle the objective cards and count 12 to be used; placing them face down near players.
Each player draws 3 action cards and the last person to have seen a duck goes first!
On your turn, use your action cards to move the ducks on your player board trying to create one of the 3 objective cards that have been turned over from pile. The challenge really becomes apparent when the ducks can only move "downstream". This requires visualization of the player card as it changes with the action cards.
You can use all of your action cards if needed, but you can never have more than 3 cards.(I personally liked using the action cards to make a mess of other player's cards when I couldn't do anything to make my player card better - the black hole card was my favorite. It removed all the ducks of the same color from all players. Bye Bye Birdie!).
Your turn ends when you have used all your action cards, collected an objective card, or elected to pass.
The game ends when all of the 12 objective cards have been met. Add em' up and see who Abducked the most ducks.
This game has all the elements of a great party game! Easy to learn! Quick gameplay! Challenges you to think strategically. Makes you laugh! Encourages chaos! Artwork was simple and entertaining! I played it for the first time and immediately asked if we could play it again. Abducktion is a keeper. Already working on a better strategy! I definitely lost...twice!
This game proves it is not necessarily better to have your ducks in a row!
