Disclaimer: I was provided a prototype copy of Ocean's Crisis ahead of its Kickstarter launch on the 29th of March 2019. No money changed hands for this preview.

Like all great co-op games, each session of Ocean's Crisis starts you off with a sense of (completely false) confidence. Only how many trash tokens to clean up? Easy!

w r o n g

Ocean's Crisis is Shepherd Kit's best game to date. The adorable Adventurer's Kit and Paleolithic (which I also reviewed) have great toy factor but will probably get repetitive for older gamers. By making the game co-op, Ocean's Crisis gets to surf up the difficulty level and put real pressure on its players.

Each round forces choices between clearing trash, building paths, or completing (optional) bonus objectives. The paths lead to upgrades which make the game significantly easier, but overfocusing on those will lead to you being completely overwhelmed.

Trash has a nasty habit of doubling in volume as it travels downriver, meaning one failed cleanup near the start of the board can compound into massive problems later on. Failing to stop the flood will lead to an early game over.

There are of course variable difficulty levels (although, let's be honest, most of them make the game harder) that you can tune to your liking. Most of these additional objectives take the form of cute animals you have to rescue.

All the adorable animals you will (mostly fail to) save.

There's a great opportunity here to spark age-appropriate lessons about conservation and responsible consumption, while of course being a perfectly reasonable way to make the game way more difficult for challenge-seekers.

Ocean's Crisis is a delightful game with no player downtime. It's push-and-pull between short term crises and long term objectives is its greatest strength. I see this as a quick cleanser to tide you over between more complex games, a way to wash out your game night, or just as an introductory co-op for the whole family. I'm really heartened by the direction that Shepherd's Kit is taking its line of games and I can't wait for what's coming next.

Overcome a tsunami of trash in Ocean's Crisis; a co-operative family-friendly board game.

Calvin Wong

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