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Don’t pack away your bucket and spades just yet! And don’t worry; Paul Hollywood and his hallowed handshake is not involved. The Great British Beach Clean begins on 20 September, and our sandy shores need help! Top 6 Games For The Great British Beach Clean! is a week-long event that focuses on voluntary beach cleans all over the country, the marine life that lives in, on, and by the ocean thrive better without beer bottles and chip paper littering their home.
And what better way to celebrate those clean-up efforts than with 6 games that feature the shore in fun and different ways!
Beacon Patrol
Beacon Patrol from Pandasauras is a lovely co-operative, soloable tile laying game set in the UK North Sea. Surrounding beacons, lighthouses, and navigating around the shoreline using your wee ships, this has fast become one of my personal go-to single player games. And with its almost exclusively blue palette, it really does feel like we are exploring the sea as the tiles spread across the table. And with two expansions, the draw of the sea shows no sign of stopping.
Hellapagos
Party games aren’t left off this list, and Hellapagos is a fun choice about surviving on a desert island. Semi co-operative (but ultimately out for yourself), your goal is to secure a space on the escape raft before a hurricane hits the desert island you are shipwrecked upon. Surrounded by turquoise sea, those golden sands aren’t the paradise you imagined. With not enough food and water for everyone, tough sacrifices will need to be made. And the more you can make use of the wild and wacky items scavenged from all the luggage (old undies and crystal balls to name but a few!), the better your chances of leaving the island!
Dodo
Daft bird done a silly. It built its nest and laid an egg atop a mountain when it can’t even fly! Memory mixed with racing and dexterity, this is a brilliant co-operative kids game from KOSMOS that bigger gamers have just as much fun (if not more!) playing! With a crazy wibbly egg that wobbles its way down the mountain, your job is to find the tools needed to build the bridges that will lead it safely down to the boat waiting in the sea below. If you don’t, the egg will drop into the briny drink and you lose!
Reef Rescue
Another memory based game with a twist, Reef Rescue from Origame is a tiny box with a big message. Clean up our oceans! With set collection and push your luck gameplay, you’ll be switching, sneaky-peeking, and taking cards to try and rescue as many species as you can. The trouble is, there are garbage cards floating around which threaten the lives of the fish and marine mammals you are on a mission to save. When the game ends (hopefully with safe sea creatures aplenty!) you can piece together all of the cards to make a gorgeous underwater tableau.
Pacific Ocean
Another game set in the Pacific Ocean, this wee tin of cards celebrates the beauty of the beasts under the waves. With marine sanctuaries dotted around the Pacific Basin, you have just 18 cards to try and attract some to your own watery haven. In multiplayer mode, it is fun “I cut you choose”, set collection gameplay, and each card can either be used for its icons or as an additional scoring condition. In solo mode you are playing against an AI that can increase or decrease in difficulty to suit. I personally love multi-purpose cards, and these are not only clever but absolutely beautiful. Plus, with only 6 turns per game, every drafting decision counts!
Sea Salt & Paper
Origame artwork draws you into this card game which is in fact as sharp as salt in your eyes! Sea Salt & Paper is an explosion of drafting, hand management, set collection, and push your luck. Each round, you want to end with the most points. So far so obvious. But. If and when the round ends is up to you. Or an opponent. By that I mean that, once you have at least 7 points, you can decide whether to carry on playing, stop the round immediately, or give your favourite foes one more turn. Why would you do that? Well, if you shout STOP, everyone immediately scores the points they have. If you shout LAST CHANCE and you end the round with the most points, you’ll get your points and a colour bonus (i.e. points for your most prolific colour). Everyone else will only get their colour bonus. If you pushed and lucked out, you only get your colour bonus whereas everyone else adds their points to their total. A game ends when a player reached 40/35/30 in a 2/3/4 player game. Add in cards that have special actions (including omnipotent mermaids!), and this is a perfect way to honour our coastal regions!
6 games, 6 ways to celebrate the sand and the sea after spending a day clearing and cleaning. We hope you find a great way to get stuck into the Great British Beach Clean!