FLASH POINT: FIRE RESCUE

Players: 1-6
Game Time: 45 min
Ages: 10 and up
Complexity: Moderate
Strategy: Moderate
Luck: Moderate
Cooperative Adventure Game
Detailed Game Info
Download Official Instructions

Flash Point: Fire Rescue is a cooperative game designed by Kevin Lanzing.  In the game, each player plays a fireman.  Working together as a team, players are attempting to rescue 7 of 10 victims from a raging building fire.  As the players attempt to rescue the victims, the fire spreads to other parts of the building, causing structural damage and possibly blocking off pathways through the building. Each turn a player may spend action points to try to extinguish fires, move through the building, move victims out of the building or perform various special actions such as moving emergency vehicles. If 4 victims perish in the blaze or the building collapses from taking too much structural damage, the players lose. Otherwise, the players win instantly when they rescue a 7th victim.

Players have four actions per turn, which can be used to move, open or close doors, extinguish smoke and/or flames and/or chop walls to create an opening.  Moving from space-to-space generally costs one action point, but this cost is increased to two if entering a space engulfed in flames or carrying a victim.  Smoke is the precursor to fire and can be removed by an adjacent firefighter by expending an action point.  It takes two actions to remove a fire marker, or just one to reduce it to smoke.  Chopping walls can be useful to create openings, thereby allowing quicker access to a victim or an endangered location.  However, this damages the wall, and if the building incurs too much damage, it collapses, ending in the loss of the remaining victims and defeat for the firefighters.

The game is very accessible and easy for newcomers to grasp after learning the basics.  However, players do need to spend about 15 minutes learning about the game before they can get started.  Therefore, there is a moderate learning curve.  Since the game is fully cooperative, everyone works together to put out fires, break down doors and rescue victims.  So, if you are new to this type of game, you can lean on more experienced players the first few rounds.  There is no one winner in a fully cooperative board game – everybody wins together or everybody loses together.  The mechanics of the game itself is your primary competition.