EruptionPublisher: Stratus Games
Release Date: November 2011
MSRP: $44.95
Number of Players: 2-6
Playing Time: 30 to 60 minutes
Age Rating: 10 and up
Product #: 3787STT
ICv2 Rating: 3 Stars out of 5
Eruption is a nice little competitive tile-laying game by Stratus Games, in which players accept the responsibility of protecting a tiny island village from encroaching streams of molten lava. The result is a fun, casual game suitable for two to six players.
Summary: The Eruption board shows a small, round island with a raging volcano in the center and a half-dozen villages along the shore. Each player is assigned one village to protect. On his turn, a player must draw and place a tile on the island, expanding the ever-growing network of lava streams. Then, he may choose to play cards from his hand to affect the island, and/or place a wall to restrict the lava flow or protect his village.
The purpose of playing tiles ultimately is to guide the lava towards the opponents' villages and away from one's own. If the lave reaches a village and is not blocked by a wall, the village "temperature" rises, tracked on a temperature gauge running around the edge of the board. The winner of the game will be the player whose village is sitting at the lowest temperature.
To protect a village, or to block the flow of lava across the island, players may build walls of varying strength. A bit of willing suspension of disbelief is needed here, if one is to believe that a wall built of "straw" can hope to even delay the onrushing flood of molten rock. Dice are used to determine if the wall holds, or is consumed by fire.
The game ends when one village is completely destroyed by fire, or when the volcano runs out of lava (the tiles run out).
The mechanics of the game are simple and easy to learn. Game play is quick-paced with little down-time between turns.
Originality: While tile-based games depicting the flow of fluids such as molten lava--and the use of walls to block them--have been around for decades, Eruption puts things together in a way that feels fresh. Particularly interesting is the way that the game naturally accelerates based on the temperature of each village. As the temperature rises, the player does not simply suffer a more punishing score. Instead, he receives stronger and stronger benefits. This serves to increase the pace of the end game (by allowing the player to take more actions on his turn), but also functions as a balancing factor, by giving a losing player more and better tools to damage his opponents.
The tiles are colorful and easy to read. The wall pieces are sturdy wooden pieces in easy to distinguish colors. The cards could have used more color, being grey tone with a blue border. The rulebook is quite nice, with glossy pages and many full-color illustrations, complete with helpful examples. The rules text could have been more clearly written in a few places, but anyone with experience with games will not struggle with them.
Quality: Overall, the quality of components in Eruption is quite good. The board is fully mounted and wrapped. The wooden pieces are excellent. The tiles fit together well. The cards feel a little stiff, but there is little shuffling required during the game so that should not be an issue. The composition is good, with components, artwork, and style of play fitting together nicely.
There is, unfortunately, a lot of air in the box. A cardboard insert fills the vast majority of the box, and the components could have easily fit a much smaller container. The wooden pieces and mounted board do provide some weight, but the game still has little "heft" in the hand.
Marketability: Eruption is a nice, fun, light-hearted casual game. The theme is presented in a neutral way that makes the game suitable even for families and children. It is a good choice for players who want a quick thirty to sixty minute game that doesn’t require any heavy lifting. Unfortunately, the $44.95 retail price seems a bit steep for a light casual game of this type.
Overall: Eruption is not a game for serious hard-core players. It is a light, fun, almost silly game, and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than that. It is easy to learn, with no complex rules. There is a high luck factor in the game due to the random elements and large number of dice rolls, but over the course of the game this tends to even out. Strategy and tactics are important, and a player's actions have a strong impact on how the game turns out despite the high level of randomness. Eruption is a fine choice for people who want something quick and fun. I give this game 3 out of 5.
--William Niebling: Freelance Writer and Game Developer