Designed by: Naotaka Shimamoto
Crash Octopus is, as you might have guessed from the name, a fairly silly game. In it, players are trying to collect various treasures – and stack them on their boats – whilst avoiding the occasional octopus attack.
A piece of string with a cluster of beads on it defines the playing area – the ‘sea’. In the sea sits the octopus head, its eight tentacles, and the players boats, each with their anchors. At the start of the game a number of treasures are dropped onto the octopus head, bouncing them to random positions in the sea.
On your turn you’ve two choices: move your boat, or gather treasure. You might want to move closer to treasures, or further away from the octopus, but fortunately moving is very easy: you simply flick your anchor (using a flag!) and move your boat next to it. Collecting treasure is almost as straightforward: flick any treasure you like – apart from the closest one to your boat – into your boat. If it touches during this flick, you can stack it on top. If it knocked any other treasures off – bad luck! Bear in mind you can’t have more than one of each treasure ‘type’, but you can re-organise any stacked treasures when adding a new one.
When a treasure is added by any player, the crab piece hops over one of the beads at the edge of the sea. A blue bead: nothing happens. A black bead? The octopus attacks! All players get to drop a die onto the octopus head, potentially careening into someone’s boat and knocking the treasure off. If the die doesn’t hit a boat, it makes the octopus move instead; either a tentacle, or the head itself!
The game ends either when the crab has hopped over all the beads, at which point the player with the most treasure wins – or the instant any player collects all types of treasure on their boat, in which case they win instantly.
The main focus of the game is getting the treasure. But the octopus attacks come thick and fast, and you may well find your carefully-stacked treasures tumbling!
Low - turns move fast, and you find yourself invested in what's going on on the 'board'.
Nothing to be too concerned about - it's a risky game of grabbing what you can whilst staying out of the reach of the octopus, who seems permanently furious!
It's a pretty chaotic experience, where the winner can be decided as much by a stroke of luck than shrewd play and accurate flicking. But it's so bananas it feels like it doesn't really matter.
2-5
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It's ludicrously silly fun - almost the diametric opposite of the same designer's Tokyo Highway, which is a longer, more cerebral undertaking. In contrast Crash Octopus flies by in a flurry of flicking, stacking, die-dropping and collapsing - a bunfight at sea. For some players, the progression and lack of control may make it seem overly-arbitrary. For others, getting bulldozed at the death just means you want to play again. Good silly fun.