Skate Summer

Skateboarding is so very ‘rad’ but also so very hard and should only be attempted by people young enough that they heal quickly. When I was a kid I tried for years to achieve something other than complete failure but settled with just holding my board and looking ‘cool’ (I did not). Then Tony Hawks Pro Skater was released and all of a sudden I was able to live out my skateboarding dreams on my TV and finally pull off that ‘ollie’. But what do you do if you want to get the feeling of skateboarding in our favourite hobby, board gaming, the answer (thanks to Pandasaurus Games and designer Randy Reiman) is to play Skate Summer.

But does the game achieve the fabled 900 or does it fail to land a single nose grab? Read on to find out.

Skater Not Hater

I will start this review a bit differently by saying I recommend Skate Summer and am giving it a score in the mid 70’s (out of 100) but there are some problems and I want anyone thinking about purchasing it to be aware of them.

Firstly there is the setup and tear down time which is fairly significant due to the amount of components the game has. There are two sets of cards, dice, goal tokens (single, double & quad), flame tokens, manual tokens and more just for the main board. Then you get to the player set up which requires a player board with character and skill cost tile, then you have the skater meeple, score marker, landing marker, skill cubes, balance marker, checkmark tokens, special trick draw tiles, special trick blocker tiles, hand size tiles, and even more. Obviously the more you play the game the quicker and easier it will become to set up and tear down but for new players it can be quite daunting.

Next up on the negative list is the bailing. Of course in real life if you bail whilst skating you will feel pain, embarrassment and probably a trip to the hospital but what I wasn’t expecting was to feel the same pain when playing a game. The penalties for bailing in Skate Summer are so punishing that just one bail at the beginning of the game can make you feel like you will never catch up (which you probably won’t).

When you bail you will lose the last card you played (used for scoring and moving around), lose half your flame tokens rounded down (used for increasing your scoring tracks and for picking up goal tokens around the map), and you will lose the benefit of landing safely which is a free increase on one of your scoring tracks. This is a lot of penalties and they all hurt.

I hardly ever ‘house-rule’ a game but with Skate Summer I have started to tell new players they only have to take one penalty of either losing their last card, losing half their flame tokens or not getting a safe landing bonus.

This leads me on to another issue which is if you bail and everybody else lands safely then they will be able to get around the park a lot easier and will more than likely upgrade their boards, which in turn will make it even easier for them next round whilst you are still struggling like a newbie.

When considering the push your luck element in this game I can’t help but think of Quacks of Quedlinburg which has a much fairer system of punishment for failing, which means you never feel you are out of the game until the last few rounds.

Finally the last negative point to make about Skate Summer is the variety between games. There is no randomness to the set up (except the goal tokens) and in most games you will be able to upgrade your board almost to the maximum (as long as you land most of your tricks) so you may have seen all the game has to offer by the fourth or fifth play.

Just Roll With It

So you may be asking why am I recommending this game if there are so many negative points? The answer is simple, Fun. This game is so much fun to play and when you are balancing all of your tricks, landing safely, getting around the park and upgrading your board with ease there are very few other games which give you the same massive smile on your face.

Each round is played with the same four phases:-

1. Combos. You play a card on your board (either to the left or right) and you take any bonus shown on the corresponding side (left bonus for left side of board) and move the balance marker in the direction the arrows point (by the number of arrows). Then the direction die and a balance die are rolled and everyone’s balance is adjusted. As long as you haven’t bailed you can push your luck and play another card to your board. Once again taking bonuses, adjusting balance and finally rolling the direction die and then one more balance die (so it will be 1 balance die per card played). Continue playing cards until all players have either landed or bailed.
2. Skills & Points. You then adjust your skill levels by spending flame tokens and then score your cards. So if you had a skill level of three for red and played three red trick cards then this turn you would score nine points.
3. Moves. Players take turns moving around the board by spending the played trick cards to move from one hex to another. So if the next hex has a red trick icon on it you would need to spend one red trick card.
4. Round End. You reset your board and then draw new cards up to your hand limit.

Playing cards to your board, adjusting the balance and seeing if you stay on with the balance dice is so much fun. You will hold your breath as the dice are rolled and will hope that you haven’t pushed your luck too hard. Getting rewards for every card played as well as scoring points and enabling you to move more freely around the park entices you to play more cards.

A little bit of decision making occurs when you have to decide if you want to spend your flame tokens to upgrade your skill points or save them for the goal tokens located all over the park. As you score your points everyone can see how many you have and how close you are to the end trigger point of the game. This occurs when one player reaches seventy points.

As previously said moving around the park is relatively easy and despite the main board looking very busy it is actually very easy to see the three colours you need to identify (red, blue and yellow matching the trick cards). You can also spend a manual token to move into any space regardless of colour.

When you reach a space with a goal token you can spend your flame tokens to collect it (two flames for a double goal and four flames for a quad). These goal tokens provide two benefits. Firstly they provide an immediate bonus such as another manual token, immediate points, an increase in your skill points, etc) and then at the end of the game the player with the most and second most of each of the three types of goals scores bonus points.

H.O.R.S.E

Fans of Tony Hawks will remember the mini game H.O.R.S.E and Skate Summer replicates that with eight locations around the board which spell S.K.A.T.E.R. Any player that has reached all of these locations by the end of the game will receive a bonus ten points.

However that isn’t the only reason for trying to get there as each letter also upgrades your board. For example the K space allows you to increase your hand limit to seven cards (up from five) and to also hold three special tricks rather than two. You will want to get to as many of these locations as possible as all of the bonuses significantly increase your ability to play more cards, or receive special tricks earlier, or receive double landing bonuses, or to balance further to the left and right.

Go Big Or Go Home

As previously mentioned there are special trick cards which are gained by playing several cards to either the left or right of your board as well as on the back of goal tokens. These specials sit in the slots below your board and can be used in a few ways.

Dotted around the park are Revert Ramps. If you discard one of your special trick cards here you will jump back to the middle of the board and into the Big Air space. From there you roll the Big Air die and then move that number of spaces in a straight line in any direction. This is a brilliant manoeuvre to pull off and will help you navigate the park like a pro. You can also enter the Big Air space when you are adjacent to it by playing any of your trick cards.

Another way you can use your specials is by playing them during the combo phase. These have several benefits including allowing you to decide how much balance to apply (one, two or three), it could also double your score for a particular colour trick, reduce the impact of some of the balance dice, and lots more useful benefits. Some of the specials are also wild and can be used to move into any space on the board adjacent to where you are.

Eat, Sleep, Skate, Repeat

So to recap, I like the game a lot. It has been played many times since I received it and I intend to play it a lot more. But there are some problems that you need to be aware of. However this is a game made of passion and fun. I love the art style and whenever I am playing I have the music from ‘Jet Set Radio’ (Sega Dreamcast game that is over 20 years old now, look it up it is awesome) going around my head. I don’t mind that there isn’t much variety between games and I can live with the bailing as the game only takes 30 to 45 minutes to play. But the card play, push your luck, engine building, and moving around the park make this a great game.

Later Skater.

(By the way I realise I sound like a middle-aged Dad the whole way through this review and for that I am sorry)