Shipwrecked Review

Lost has been an incredible success internationally, and has a pretty original premise for a TV series. Stranded on a desert island with weird goings on that are as yet unexplained, the survivors of a traumatic plane crash must learn to get along with each other while dealing with lots of Twilight Zone style creepiness. With the current interest in Lost, now seemed to be a good time to revisit the charms of the game Shipwrecked – which sees players stranded on a desert island and competing for food, shelter, companions and water in order to become the most content castaway.

Shipwrecked is a blind bidding game, but quite unlike any that have been released before. Players have a hand of cards which they use to bid for different resources, with the object of the game being to own 100 points or more of one particular type of resource or 150 points in any combination of resources. Gemstones are used to pay for the winning bids, with many resource cards earning income for players at the start of every turn.

At first, Shipwrecked is a very confusing game to play – due to the unique mechanics of the secret, symbol-driven bidding. The terminology used and the bid resolution are incredibly tough to work out for new players, but a handy chart is included – without which players would be very lost. Despite the very steep learning curve, Shipwrecked is an interesting and enjoyable game to play – each turn is very tense as players are never quite sure what everyone else is up to. Attempting to trick everyone into either paying lots for a particularly desirable card or trying to win a card very cheaply for yourself become highly fraught games of pushing your luck, bluff and double bluff.

Aesthetically, Shipwrecked is superb – John Kovalic’s cartoony illustrations are highly amusing, and the general visual feel is very bright and breezy. Even though the theme is fairly thinly applied, there are certain mechanics that do make sense – the income and value of certain resources, for example, do help to make the game feel like more than just an abstract exercise in blind bidding. It’s a very hard game to learn, and once learned the blind bidding means that poker faces are needed - it can be pretty easy to second guess the intentions of the other players if you know them particularly well.

Shipwrecked is an enjoyable, fast paced game but – and I can’t emphasise this enough - it does take a little time and patience to learn. If the players aren’t worried about trying to get their heads around the tough to learn concepts that the blind bidding is based around, they will find much to enjoy here. Much like Lost, as long as players don’t expect all of the answers straight away they will be very entertained.

Summary

Presentation: The small package is fairly heavy, with lots of gemstones and nicely designed cards along with a sturdy but slightly redundant board. 9.1/10

Clarity of Rules: The designers obviously realised that the game would be incredibly tough to learn, so many clearly illustrated and well written examples and charts are included to ease the strain on the players as they learn the game. The learning curve is still a pretty steep one, however. 8.4/10

Game Length: After the first few games, Shipwrecked is usually fast paced and fun. However, bidding can degenerate into several ties which drag out the game considerably, leaving a player or two out of the proceedings. 7.8/10

Value: Lots of replay value as bidding becomes increasingly addictive and competitive the more that players get used to the unusual mechanics. The well made components are built to last too. 9.2/10

Overall: An unusual game that rewards patience when being taught and learned. Blind bidding is not the most common or well-loved of genres, but Shipwrecked succeeds in making it interesting and highly enjoyable. Players looking for a totally unique game experience would do well to give it a chance. 7.9/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown