Jul 24

A Look at Skyrockets Festivals of Fire

It is summer break at the Mage Academy and you have found the book Magical Recreational Aerial Explosive Devices and You. What is a person to do with this? Well I think its obvious let light the wick on these Skyrockets. Skyrockets is a fast paced and stressfull game for 2-5 players. When I say stressful I mean it in the most fun way possible. So lets have a look at our review of Skyrockets Festivals of Fire from Floodgate Games.

Setup

There are 30 senarios in the box and each is setup differently with some senario specific rules. There is a specific terrot style card for each senario with the setup and rules for the senario on it. In the box there are also 6 sand timers a deck of cards with colors/symbols that mach the sand timers. There is also a countdown track for the orange timer. Last thing in the box is 3 crowd tokens and a start player token.

The setup card for each senario tells players how many cards to deal each player and how to setup the timers. All the sand times should start with all the sand on one side of the timer. Timers start either standing or on their side. This is a little different than games I have played with sand timers but it adds to some of the strategy of the game. The senarios are great in this game there are a lot of unique mechanics thlike stacking timers and stacking cards on the countdown track.

Game Play

Skyrockets if fun and gives the players of the game the feeling of that classic circuis trick where all the plates are spinning. The basics are you do not want to let any of the timers run out. Except the countdown sand timer , Ill get there in a moment. On a players turn they play a card from their hand and then flip over the two timers shown on the card. If a sand timer is on its side then a player will stand it up with the sand on top. As soon as a player flipps the timers on the card they played then they draw a new card and the next player can go immediately.

When the game starts and players are flipping the timers this is when the panic sets in...

The countdown timer is tracking the win state. When the sand has run out of the countdown timer players may now play the matching card and flip it over but they will also move it one place closer to the end of the countdown track. Players will have to move the countdown timer 4 times to win in a basic scenario. Each timer has a different amount of sand making the timers all different times. they very from 30 to 80 second timers. When the game starts and players are flipping the timers this is when the panic sets in because players will have to track where the timers are and make a deceive desicion on their turn.

If players happen to run out a timer they have not lost the game yet. There are three crowd tokens that represent the quality of the players win. If a timer (not the countdown timer) runs out players will flip a crowd token and the timer. This is not a players turn it just happens when the timer is out. If all 3 crowd tokens are flipped then the players have lost. If the countdown timer is moved to the last spot on the countdown then the players won the game! In the box there are tracking sheets so that players can record how many tries it took to complete a senarios and how may stars they earned. The stars are the the crowd tokens that havent been flipped. So if players had to flip one crowd token durning the senario but they finished the senario sucessfully they would get 2 stars.

Thoughts

The 30 senarios in the box keep the game coming back to the table. Each senario has some interesting varient of the game. When I have been introducing this game at game nights I let then know that the game is a little stressful but in a fun way. The game is real fun and dont let yourself get bogged down in winning. It will take you a try or two to get into the flow of the game and thats ok there are 30 senarios to play. I enjoyed that they thought to make each timer a differnet amount of time.

Skyrockets is a fun fast paced game that will keep you coming back to perfect each of the 30 senarios that are included in the box. The sand timers were real fun and kept all the players attention throughout the game. This co-op game is great for the family game night, the brewery (you are going to get a little loud), or just as a appetizer for a more robust game night.

Players: 2-5

Year Published: 2024

Recommended Ages: 10+

Time to Play: 10 minutes