Game Review: Antler Island

By Greg J. Schloesser
January 11, 2008

Publisher: Fragor Games
Designers: Gordon and Fraser Lamont
Players: 3-4
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Rules Language: English / French / German

The always jovial and friendly Lamont Brothers have developed a reputation of using clever and adorable components in their games. Their first release, Leapfrog, featured colorful rubber frogs, while their last two releases have included wonderful three-dimensional sheep and rats. Their latest release is Antler Island, wherein player’s pieces are whimsical stags. The presence of these special components never fails to generate considerable excitement amongst gamers and no doubt helps boost sales.

The theme of Antler Island, while perfectly natural, may be a bit too mature for younger audiences. Players represent stags whose main purpose is to mate with does, called “doeples” in game parlance. Victory tends to go to the player who is most successful in this task. Along the way, stags must gather food for sustenance and antler growth, both of which help in the inevitable conflicts with opposing stags. The theme is certain to cause sophomoric chuckles and jokes from most males, but can be changed to “kissing” as opposed to mating in order to make it kid-friendly.

Animal Training

The game is played on a three level board, with each level divided into various territories. Each turn, all does move up one level, and a die is rolled to determine the territories that will receive new food tokens and does. Players then secretly plot their actions for the turn on their player mat, allocating three tokens valued 1–3, one “x” token, and one bluff token amongst four possible actions: move, eat, rut, and grow antlers. Players can perform the same action multiple times, but must execute them in numerical order. The only exception is the “x”, which can be executed at any time, thereby interrupting this order. Thus, players must pre-plan all of their actions and hope situations don’t arise to spoil those plans.

Players alternate taking one action at a time until all actions are performed:

• When moving, a stag may wander to an adjacent territory, moving up a level if desired. Stags cannot enter wetland territories, all of which are scattered about the second level, so does are temporarily inaccessible when they are on these territories.

• A stag may mate with a doe if it is located in the same territory and the rut action was chosen. The doe is removed, and the player tracks his “mating” progress on the doe track. Moving up on this track not only progresses one in terms of victory points, but is also the source of some good-natured boasting!

• The eat action permits the stag to eat all food tokens present in his territory. Food tokens range in value from 1–3 and can be used in conflict or to grow antlers. Players cannot possess more than five food tokens, so excess hoarding is not possible.

• When the grow antlers action is chosen, the player may surrender as many food tokens as he desires and add an amount of antlers to his mat equal to half the value of the food tokens surrendered. Players can get creative adding the antlers to the picture of their stag, creating an impressive or bizarre rack. This is reminiscent of Phillip Keyaerts’ Evo, wherein players can get creative when placing new body parts on their dinosaur caricature.

Some spice is added to the game with the wily tiles. These grant special abilities to the stags, such as earning extra movement or food, calling does in adjacent spaces into a stag’s territory, or even mating with multiple does with one action. That last tile is humorously titled “Rut Your Stuff”! These tiles are earned when winning a conflict, and every time a stag’s antlers are increased to an even number. They are quite valuable, so it is wise to attempt to collect a few of them.

The game ends at the conclusion of the round when at least one player has successfully mated with twelve or more does. Players receive points for the number of does with whom they have mated, as well as points for the level of the island they occupy: three points for the top level or one point for the second level. The player with the most points wins.

An advanced version of the game adds fighting cubes, which are confiscated from opponents when conflicts are won. Points are earned for capturing cubes from each player, as well protecting your own cubes. This version does place a greater emphasis on conflict, and makes for a more interesting and interactive game.

The Rut Stuff?

Make no mistake, Antler Island is more suited for casual gamers and families. It is NOT a deep game. The mechanics are quite basic, and the decisions to be made are not very taxing. Turns generally consist of quick movements to adjacent territories in order to gain food and mate. Amassing numerous food tokens and growing antlers relatively quickly are important tactics, as one must earn at least one fight token in order to be eligible to win the game. Due to the generous placement of new does each turn, there is usually an ample supply of females with which to mate. Food can be a bit scarcer, but there usually isn’t a dire shortage.

Fortunately, the game plays to completion quickly. Otherwise, the basic strategies and mechanisms would likely cause it to grow stale. Even using the fighting cubes, there isn’t much here to entice gamers seeking deep strategies or tough decisions. Rather, the game is much more likely to find its home in the family setting, where it should shine.

Comments: