River Dragons

In River Dragons we, the players, are the dragons in question, albeit not particularly terrifying ones as our goal in the game is to get across the river.

In the box is a double-sided board (one introductory, one for expert reptiles) and a deck of cards for each player. Everyone also gets a set of Planks and there’s a shared supply of Stones for them to rest on. During play, you’ll be placing these stones on the board, laying planks to connect between them, and – hopefully – moving your dragon piece along them, from their ‘starting’ island to the one on the opposite side of the board. But while the concept is simple, in actuality things can become comically chaotic.

The game takes place over a series of rounds in which you kind of program your actions. Everyone chooses five cards from their deck and lays them face-down on the table, from left to right in the order they want them to activate. What do the cards do? As hinted above, they allow you to add stones, place planks, and move. In more detail the cards are add one stone, add two, add one plank, add two, remove a plank (anyone’s!) or stone from the board, move one space (ie one plank to another, or one plank to an island), two spaces, or leapfrog another player.

The reason we’re going into a little detail here is that you can only activate a card if you’re able to completely do so – so for example if you can only move in a direction you don’t want to go, you must still move. You can only leapfrog another player if there’s one next to you, and only lay planks if you have them in the supply. Should you not be able to make a legal move, you fall in the river and go back to your starting island! And not only do players individual plans turn out to overlap a surprising amount, there are also the Dragon cards in your deck, which you can play to prevent another player from taking an action: normally, everyone activates their cards in turn order, but the Dragon cards ignore this rule – even if you’re last to activate, you can still play a dragon card on any player.

The result is fast-moving river-based carnage, as players find their way blocked or their plank removed or their actual action blocked by someone before them in turn order. It’s worth noting that turn order is very important in the game, as while everyone reveals their cards simultaneously, they get resolved clockwise around the table. The starting player’s actions can never be blocked, but the starting player also changes each round. There’s a few building restrictions worth mentioning too: once you pick up a plank you’re not allowed to change it, so judging distances by eye is important. Each stone can support a maximum of three planks and whilst the planks can double up on the stones, they’re not allowed to cross each other anywhere else. The instant anyone lands on their destination island, they win the game.