Duck! Duck! Go!
Duck! Duck! GO! is a racing game from APE Games that involves ducks, bird dogs, buoys, life belts, a drain (although we liked to think of it as a plug hole), and quite a lot of bonking (though not bonking in the English colloquial sense…). It is designed for two to six players, aged eight and up, and can be played in under an hour. The aim is get around the three buoys in the bathtub by any means necessary and then dive down the drain/plug hole. The first rubber duckie to do so wins the game. The most notable fact about this game is that it comes with six – count them – real rubber duckies, and if that is not enough reason to buy a game about Bathtub rubber ducky racing, then what the duck is? So unpack your rubber duckies and get ready to race in the annual Kenducky Derby, the premier bathtub ducky race.
The game comes nicely appointed with high quality board sections and counters, in addition to the actual rubber duckies (did I mention them yet?). The rules are easy to pick up, and just as easy to impart, although a little difficult to read in places. They come in basic and advanced versions, with all but youngest of players probably wanting to move onto the advanced rules after a couple of goes at the basic game. In play the game feels like a cross between Wings of War: Famous Aces and RoboRally, primarily because rubber duckie movement is programmed using movement cards, but without the machine guns, or the lasers, or the crushers, or the conveyor belts, or the rotators, or the pits (take your pick as which element comes from which game), and just like those games, Duck! Duck! GO! is all the better because it is played with miniatures, or rather rubber duckies! Duck! Duck! GO! also lacks the complexity of either of those games, and that will make it appealing to a younger or a less demanding audience. At the same time, that may make the game too light for the average gamer who will want something more demanding. Nevertheless, Duck! Duck! GO! is a light game that is quackier and more enjoyable when there are more rubber duckies involved.
Open up Duck! Duck! GO!’s box and you will find six individual rubber duckies, a rubber bird dog (mine is actually an Old English Sheep rubber bird Dog), a set of movement cards and tokens, a set of modular board sections, a bird dog movement card, and a rule book in both English and German. My box included a Fireman rubber duckie, a pirate rubber duckie, a Mardi Gras rubber duckie, a mad scientist rubber duckie, a rock drummer rubber duckie, a train conductor rubber duckie, and a Christmas rubber duckie (although my daughter was positive that was a penguin that had got in by mistake). There are a total of a hundred available to collect for the true Duck! Duck! GO! duck’votee, but the six in my boxed set will be fine for me.
The modular board sections are hexagonal, comprised of six smaller hexagons around a central one. Green in color, they are double sided and variously marked with buoys and life belts. The latter are the starting points for the various rubber duckies, while the buoys are the points around which the rubber duckies must race. The board sections are modular, so that the layout for the annual Kenducky Derby can be different every time. The rulebook comes with several example layouts of varying complexity. The movement cards are marked with a number for initiative – lower numbers go first – and a route that the rubber duckie has to follow, along with a direction that the rubber duckie has to face at move’s end.
A game of Duck! Duck! GO! starts with laying out the board, the players choosing their rubber duckies, and each receiving three movement cards. Players then place their rubber duckies on any empty life belt starting point. At the beginning of a round, the players each select a movement card, which is revealed simultaneously, and then the rubber duckies are moved according to card order – highest to lowest. If a rubber duckie collides or bonks with another rubber duckie or the side of the bathtub, his movement ends right there, and the bonking rubber duckie is spun around to face another direction. The life belt spaces also act as teleporters, enabling a rubber duckie to move over one life belt and jump straight to another, facing in another direction. When a rubber duckie lands on a buoy, his player can use a second movement card, but once a rubber duckie has passed over (or landed on) each of the three buoys it can head for the plug hole and so win.
The advanced rules add just a little more to gameplay. First, if there are only two or three players, they each control two rubber duckies, not one. Second, the rubber duckies can be chased by the bird dog, which is controlled by the player who has reached the least number of buoys or if there is a tie, then the player who played the movement card with the lowest value. This player can move the bird dog by using one of his own movement cards or two of the four standard moves available to the bird dog and marked on his movement card. When the bird dog catches a rubber duckie, it is bonked and sent back to a life belt starting space. This also happens if a rubber duckie bonks into the bird dog. The choice of life belt starting space is always up to the player controlling the bird dog. Control and movement of the bird dog is determined at the end of every round and is retained until the end of the next round.
The last thing that the advanced rules add to Duck! Duck! GO! is action tokens. Each player starts the game with one Action Token that can be played to refresh his hand of movement cards, but for each buoy a rubber duckie successfully passes over or stops on, his player can draw another. The various action tokens enable a rubber duckie to use another movement card, change places with the bird dog, to rotate or move forward, to bonk like the bird dog, or to pass through the other rubber duckies and the bird dogs without bonking! The use of these action tokens adds an eddy or two to the rubber duck racing and rubber duckie/bird bonking game play.
Duck! Duck! GO! is too light for the more serious gamer, but for the younger player or family audience it is about right. They will certainly find the components not just attractive but tactile, and the game’s “take that” bonking about the right level of challenge. Overall, Duck! Duck! GO! is a likeable game.