Lifeboat 25th Anniversary Edition

Almost 25 years ago a small game hit the scene called Lifeboat. This simple card game sees you and a group of strangers try to survive out at sea. Jeff Siadek’s small, simple card game with a side dose of bite and backstabbing is back in a new deluxe edition aimed to revitalise the brand with all content in one box.

Every Man, Woman and Kid for Themselves!

At its core, Lifeboat revolves around a group of survivors stranded in a lifeboat after a shipwreck. Each player will randomly receive a character with a set of statistics telling you what their strength/health level is and also how many points they are worth at the end of the game. For example you might have the ‘Kid’ who is small so only has a health/strength of 3 but is worth 9 points if you keep them alive. They also have the ability to mug other players with ease due to their small hands. Or you could be playing as ‘Frenchy’ who is an even 6’s across the board but does not take damage from falling overboard as he is an excellent swimmer! There are a nice mix of characters that all offer something interesting to focus on without ever getting complex. However what sets Lifeboat apart from other social deduction or survival games is its focus on specific ethical dilemmas. Each player will also be given a character that they hate and want to see dead by the end of the game giving them sweet sweet hate points but also a character they love and must therefore keep alive. Players must make tough choices about who to save, who to sacrifice, and how to allocate scarce resources and the game certainly encourages an element of role play to add life to the experience.

Row, Row, arrow your boat…

Based on your character you will be placed from the front of the boat to the back. Placement is important in this game and you will be forever wanting to change position. Being at the front means you get the first choice of provision cards in the Quartermaster phase. Provision cards are essentially the tools that allow you to survive or stop someone else from getting off alive. You may take items such as water that stops characters taking ‘thirst’ damage, or a life ring stopping you from taking damage if ever flung overboard, or points in the form of cash or jewels. The most fun cards come in the form of ‘Chum’ which you throw overboard when another player falls attracting sharks to double their damage. My personal favourite, from one of the micro expansions, is the Cannibal card. You may use this to prepare any unconscious player to eat in order to heal everyone else by one. This can be fought which is interesting and you can debate/persuade everyone to get on board (puns always intended!) and chomp away! So the person nearest the front takes as many cards as there are players and takes one card, passing the others along with the one nearest the back, getting whatever is left. However, being at the back also has an important role which I will come back to in a moment.

Once the Quartermaster phase is over, in order, the players have a choice of actions. First you may do nothing, not very exciting but may be the most sensible thing you can do. You can also choose ‘Row’. You simply select two navigation cards, selecting whether to place them in the active row deck or bury them. We will come back to the row deck and that pesky character near the back of the boat later. You may play a special action from a card you have, however once played it may often stay in front of you allowing it to be stolen by another player later. Then comes mugging or changing seats. Mugging is simply taking a face up card from in front of a player or one from their hand, however the person you are stealing from might decide to fight. This also goes for changing seats. You can try and force a swap with anyone but they have the right to fight you for it. Fighting is simple but thirsty work so if you are going to do it it will make you more vulnerable in the final phase of the round. First you ask if anyone is going to join in on the fight. You can offer anything return but you can’t trade anything until after the fight and nothing is binding…so be wary! Once everyone has decided if they are in or out and on which side they are helping, the strength totals are added up and the highest wins.

Splash Splash!

We now hit the Navigation phase. The closest conscious character to the rear of the boat takes the row deck and decides which card to reveal. These cards will do up to three things. First of all they will dictate whether a bird is sighted. Once a fourth bird is sighted the game ends immediately. Although this can go on for a long time so there is a suggestion in the rules to lessen that amount. You may also be knocked overboard and anyone who can’t swim or doesn’t have a life ring will take damage. Finally you will see who becomes thirsty. Anyone who took the row or fight action in the previous phase will be thirsty and if they don’t have any water on them they will take damage. If any player has the same amount of damage as their health they are unconscious until either they are healed or killed by someone else. If the damage exceeds the number then you die. It is worth mentioning you can still win if you are unconscious!

Lifeboat is a fun enough game but definitely can go on longer than it needs to be. Yes there are ways to shorten it but it feels something that they could have fixed with this new edition easily enough. The artwork also feels a little dull which again felt like it needed a spruce if bringing the game back to market. There are a lot of social deduction/traitor-like games that have come out since this was first released and whereas most anniversary editions take the opportunity to revamp and revitalise for a modern audience, this sadly feels like it washes up on the shore a little dehydrated after 25 years at sea.

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