Entry 90: Week 46- Sharks Feeding Frenzy

        My wife and I were all geared up to play a different game for this week but because our daughter didn’t want to get ready for bed and she wanted to hang out with Mommy and Daddy in the game room we picked a game that we felt might be good for our daughter (after all, when we got the game she wanted to claim it as hers). 

        So how did we like the this game and how did our daughter do with it? Read on to see… 

SHARKS FEEDING FRENZY (2022) 

BGG Description 

 You and your friends (or people you hire off Craigslist) each take the role of a competitive shark, battling it out to eat tourists, locals, or even a dead whale carcass in a race to get 50 points. There's tricks and treats and fights and bites along the way. It's a back and forth tile-laying-take-that-oh-no-you-didn't finfunfest (I think that's German for shark-party.) With so many different tile types and draws, each game is delightfully different, like the friends you hire off Craigslist. There's luck in the tile pulls and dice rolls. There's strategy in tile usage, plans of attack, and fight or flight choices. Adults and kids and hobos alike will love the quick-natured fun battle of Sharks Feeding Frenzy! 

—descriptions from the designer 

No Weight provided at this time (still to new of a game) 

A Little More Info 

        The game board is a 10x10 grid and at the top of it is a crate that you fill with the action tiles. Each player selects a shark character and roll the two d10 dice to see where the head is placed and then a player will fill the crate with file tiles you draw. If you draw a food tile you roll the two d10’s and place it on the board. 

        On your turn you draw tiles until the crate is full, then select one of the tiles to either keep in your collection or play (or any tile from you collection). 

        The last thing to do on your turn is to roll the d4 die and move your shark. 

        The object of the game is to collect the food tiles anyway possible which includes fighting another players shark (both players roll the d10’s and the highest number wins the battle and randomly draws a tile from the other players collection). 

        There are over a 100 tiles to draw from with most of them being various action tiles and not as many food tiles. 

What we like about the game 

        The creator is a professional illustrator so the artwork of the game is wonderful. The gameplay is simple and easy to understand but that is where it ends. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        Due to the number of food tiles to action tile ratio, the game does take a long time to play. What could help with this that there should be at least one food per player placed on the bord at the start of the game. In each game has been played so far there has been zero food on the board for the first few turns so basically your shark is swimming in circles waiting. 

         Speaking of swimming in circles, rolling a d4 for movement on a game grid that 10x10 is not really fun and draws the game out even longer. Yes, there are a few tiles that can increase your movement but those typically only last for a single turn. A standard d6 should have been used for movement instead. 

        The next thing is the whole battle mechanism is wrong for the game. Instead of rolling two d10s for battle, each player should roll a d6 each with highest number winning. Certain tiles in the game you do battle against that have a set strength to it (the one I am thinking of has a strength of 75), why not have those at a strength of 5 and a roll of 5 or 6 would defeat them? 

        Another thing that is AWEFUL with the game is the rule book. It is hard to follow and it needs to be simplified. There is too much extra text in crucial sections of the book. For explaining the rules and the tiles, please, please, just give us the information that we need. Save all the “fluff” and jokes for an appendix telling us more of a story. The section that tells the story of each shark was nice because it didn’t contain anything we needed to know about playing the game. 

        The last thing that to mention is getting a score of 50 is possible with just a couple of tiles. We feel that if the highest tile value is 15 instead of 25 (and there are more food tiles) the game would be more engaging. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

         So, the question of the day is how did our daughter do with the game? She likes the pictures, rolling the dice to place tiles and move the sharks around but after about 30 minutes she became disengaged with it because there wasn’t much food out to go after (yes, she is only 3 so that is understandable). 

         We actually brought the game with us to our FLGS and had a friend play the game with my wife (I was busy taking care of our BGG Secret Santa gifts) and got about the same feedback from the game.

        With some tweaking and revisions this game could be one that would more positive attention. 

        *** Sidenote: Rocky’s other illustrations (seen from his website) are great and impressive. Just that this was his first game he designed and does need a bit more work to make it better and more playable. 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game a 5 out 10. 

        Will this game get more table time? Probably, but it is not one that we would immediately grab off the shelf to play. It is one that we could keep our daughter occupied with for a little while.