Let’s say that you and a squadron (or even fleet) of ships were flying through space minding your own business when suddenly, your sensors collectively warn you of impending doom. We’re not talking space pirates or meteor showers…rather, a wormhole that is sucking you all in that leads to who knows where. Heck, it could even crush your ship like an egg. All you know is that you want to be the LAST one to enter that thing and you guessed it, that’s the primary goal of “Wormhole!”. Before we get into the details, I’d like to thank Andrew Needles from Epic Penguin Studios for providing me with a press copy for review purposes.
Wormhole!: 2-8 players, Ages 12+, Average Play Time = 30-60 Minutes
Editor’s Note: I opted to overview gameplay in the video featured at the end of this review.
The Review
“Wormhole!” plays a little bit like “Gravwell” in the sense that you’re moving pawns along a spiral path only here, the goal is reversed. In “Gravwell”, the first player to escape from the 9th dimension (by reaching the last outermost space) wins the game. Here, players are aiming to be the last one standing by being the last player to NOT reach the center. It’s an interesting twist, I’ll admit, and it had our group fighting for their lives much like they do in “Tsuro“.
Gameplay itself is fairly straight forward, though no less exciting. The mass system acts as a ticking clock as the more you acquire, the more dice you roll and the faster you speed toward your untimely demise. For those of you curious, ships start at 100 mass (which requires one die to be rolled) and for every 100 mass you acquire thereafter, you roll an addition die. This makes acquiring mass a really, really bad thing. Luckily, some cards you draw (like the green ones) can be played to help you out and/or screw over someone else. Acquiring mass is done through cards as well, so let’s hope lady luck favors you as you’re drawing from the deck.
Along those lines, I did take issue with a few things. Luck, to which I recently referred, plays a big factor in who wins. Sure, playing those green cards at the right time may just indeed save your bacon, but that’s only if you’re fortunate enough to draw them. You could run into the problem of drawing mass and or negative red event cards every turn, making the chance of winning the game almost nil. I also took issue with the $39.99 price tag on the game’s The Game Crafter page, though the developers mentioned that they may do some sort of crowd funding campaign to lower the price in the future. To me, this felt more like a $20-$30 game, which happens to be roughly what “Gravwell” goes for on Amazon (at least, at the time this article posted).
On the plus side, “Wormhole!” supports up to a whopping eight players, ensuring that no one at home is left out. It’s also very easy to play…heck the PDF rulebook is only a page long. “Wormhole!” came across as if “Tsuro” and “Gravwell” had a child together, the end result being a rather fun & casual last man standing space-themed game fit for all ages.
Final Verdict: 7/10
Purchase: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/wormhole-
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