Dodo Review

I was treated to a few rounds of Dodo recently over Easter with family and what a treat it was. I was very impressed with how exciting this game is and how involved you quickly end up with the game, it was intense. It is a wonderful game for the family to try out.

The Mountain.

The most striking thing with this game is how visually impressive it is. Set up involves building a 3-dimensional cardboard mountain that the Dodo sits on top of and it looks magnificent when assembled. Given I’m an adult and can appreciate this, I can only imagine the thoughts of the children in our family group and how cool/fun this looks to them. It’s vibrant and detailed and very much brings the game alive.

The Dodo.

On top of this great mountain that you have assembled sits your Dodo in its nest, protecting that egg, that incredibly wobbly egg.

You continue set up by placing the 6 bridges with their backs face down in their set order. There is a boat to be set up at the base of the mountain near the mooring area and then lay the 58 tiles around the mountain.

Players sit around the mountain fairly evenly distributed. You are ready to play.

The Race.

Release the egg! Lift the Dodo up and this carefully weight egg starts to roll off the mountain and down the first bridge, already placed as part of the set up. Now the pressure is on!

The key to success now is teamwork. That egg cannot fall from the mountain and you as players must work together to gather resources (tiles around the mountain), to build more bridges so that the egg safely travels down and around the mountain, to the boat waiting at the mooring point.

Sounds simple but it is intense as the egg shuffles down. Players take it in turns to roll the dice. They then must match a resource in the middle (turn it over) to what they rolled on the dice. If they do, they form part of a new bridge and when enough resources are collected for a new bridge piece, this piece is added to the mountain. It is a memory game though and under pressure my memory is not the best. Plus, you cannot see every tile being turned as there is a great mountain in the way. Not helpful in the slightest that.

The egg has been very cleverly designed to slowly roll down the side of the mountain. Occasionally it sticks so the mountain needs a little nudge but generally it rolls well. You cannot have any more than 10 minutes for the time it takes to roll to the bottom. The game will end sooner if you cannot get those all-important bridge pieces in play before the egg arrives. That is your game limit so it allows for a few games to be played in a relatively short time.

The Victory (or relief)

Communication and teamwork are everything in this wonderful cooperative game. The team will win if the egg safely lands in that boat and doesn’t fall off the mountain earlier. It is a wonderful game to introduce to children as a way of learning to work together to complete that task. It very much encourages the need to talk to one another, lead and be part of a team for success, as you simply won’t win if you don’t. Adults can help guide them here as well as you will not win every time and that also teaches the importance of winning and losing to younger ones, which I believe is a critical lesson these days. The good thing here though, either everyone wins as a team, or everyone loses and that is nice way to build this lesson in.

I found that it was more a relief when the egg successfully made it to the bottom, more than a victory, just because of that intensity.

Final Thoughts

Dodo is a wonderful family game that I very much feel privileged to have got the chance to try out with my family. Given how well it went, it is on the list of games to pick up for my children as well, it was a huge hi