Kraken Alert

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Kraken Alert
Game data
author Oliver Hedgehog Skin
graphic Michael Menzel
publishing company Cosmos games
Publishing year 2010
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 20 minutes
Age from 5 years

Awards

Kraken-Alarm is child's play by the game designer Oliver Igelhaut . The game for two to four players, ages five and up, lasts around 20 minutes per round. The players take on the role of marine researchers who explore a marine region with their boat and have to find different animal species. There is also a large octopus in the region who wants to protect his son "Kuno" from the researchers and can capsize their ship.

The game was published by Kosmos Spiele in 2010 and won the German Children's Games Prize in the same year . In addition, it was nominated for the Children's Game of the Year Critic 's Prize in the same year and received the French As d'Or - Jeu de l'Année enfant as SOS Octopus the following year .

Theme and equipment

The game is about exploring a region of the sea to find as many animal species as possible in the form of chips without being hit by the octopus's arms. The other players explore the different areas and have to memorize the images on the chips so that they can find them when they are supposed to search for them.

In addition to the instructions, the contents of the game box consist of:

  • a game board that is set up in the empty game box. It consists of four sea fields and a central disk.
  • 12 ant tokens in four colors (three of each color)
  • a large octopus figure on a stick with a pendulum that ends in a wooden ball,
  • a small octopus figure "Kuno",
  • a ship with a sail designed to tip on its sides,
  • 16 sea chips with images of animals
  • 24 animal chips,
  • 12 provant chips and
  • a reef as a chip holder.

Style of play

To prepare for the game, the game board is set up in the game box by placing the four sea parts and the central disc in the recesses provided. The big octopus is put on the upper end of the pendulum mast and this is erected in the middle of the field. Then the sea chips are mixed without the porthole chips and distributed evenly in the darker animal zones over the four parts of the sea, a porthole chip is also placed in each zone. The ship is placed in any sea zone in the light area, the small octopus figure is placed on the raised position to the right of the field with the ship. The 24 animal chips are also mixed and then placed in the chip holder. Each player receives three provision tiles, which he places in front of him.

Beginning with a starting player, usually the youngest player, the other players take on the role of captain one after the other in each round in a clockwise direction and carry out the respective actions of the turn. The captain takes the reef with the animal chips and then tries to find the animal species above in the sea. He has to move the ship and may move one or two sea spaces clockwise and put it there in the light ship zone. In the target space he may reveal a sea chip and if he shows an animal that is up in the reef, he may take the animal chip from the reef and, if he likes, reveal another sea chip. If he reveals another animal, his turn ends and he must turn over all the open chips in their positions. If the chip shows a porthole, the ship is flushed one sea space further and the player may, if the octopus child is not in that space, reveal another chip there. If the revealed chip shows the octopus, the player must move the octopus figure one sea space and, if the octopus is not in the same space as the ship, may reveal another sea chip.

Whenever the ship and the octopus figure are in the same sea region, an octopus alarm is triggered. In this case, the player to the left of the current captain takes the pendulum and lets it fall so that it swings in a wide arc; he may not aim directly at the ship. If the bullet hits the ship, he can tip it on its side, but also set it up again. As soon as the pendulum comes to a standstill, the players look to see whether the ship is lying on its side or standing upright - if it's on its side, the current captain has to hand over a provision chip. After the octopus alarm, the current captain's turn ends and the ship is returned to the light sea zone, and it is the next player's turn.

The game ends when a player has collected a number of animal chips depending on the number of players (eight with two players, seven with three players and six with two players) and thus wins the game. The game also ends if a player has lost their third provision package; in this case, the player with the most animal chips who still has provisions wins.

Development and reception

Kraken-Alarm was developed as a children's game by the German game author Oliver Igelhaut and published in 2010 by Kosmos Spiele , the graphic implementation comes from the illustrator Michael Menzel . In the same year, the game won the German Children's Games Prize and was nominated for the Children's Game Critics' Prize of the Year , and in the following year it received the French As d'Or - Jeu de l'Année enfant as SOS Octopus . In 2012 it was also nominated for the Danish Guldbrikken game award as the best children's game.

SOS Octopus was published by the French publisher Filosofia Éditions, another translation was published in Russian by Zvezda.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d Instructions for the Kraken-Alarm game ; accessed on May 13, 2018.
  2. ↑ Julia Klinkusch, Annelen Geuking: Trends: Games fair - Octopus alarm in the children's room. Westdeutsche Zeitung, October 21, 2010; accessed on May 13, 2018.
  3. ↑ Kraken Alert on the Jury 's website for Children's Play of the Year ; accessed on May 13, 2018.
  4. ↑ Guldbrikken 2012 , presentation of the winners and nominees; accessed on May 13, 2018.
  5. ↑ Versions of Kraken-Alarm in the board game database BoardGameGeek ; accessed on May 13, 2018.

Web links