One thing that kids games do a lot better than most games aimed at adults is convincingly take over the table and, in the case of playing them out at gaming cafes or events, draw in a crowd. Stomp the Plank is an incredibly easy to understand, and great to watch, board game that really encapsules Push Your Luck mechanics.
The fact that you’re reading this means that there’s a high chance that you know what ‘Push Your Luck mechanics’ are, but if you don’t then don’t worry, I’ll explain it. They’re not car repair workers who keep trying to overcharge you for simple work — no. Push Your Luck mechanics are when you have an option to keep going, but the risk increases exponentially with each attempt. Stomp The Plank does this well, but you might well know the style of risk-taking from classic card games like Blackjack (draw!) or Poker (raise!).
There’s no betting in Stomp The Plank though. Instead you’ll, on your turn, choose to flip over a treasure card and then, if you’d like, another card. There are enough different cards in the game that you could get six different cards sequentially, which actually instantly wins, however, the odds are that a duplicate will crop up, and if that happens then you lose the treasure and have to walk the plank. The plank, in this case, is a piece of magnetically-attached card that hangs off a central ship-space… but, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Set up for Stomp the Plank is incredibly simple. You’ll draw the small weight tokens out of the box, place the ship component, shuffle the small deck of treasures and attach the four (player dependent) planks to the board. Then, each player takes one of the (really cool) elephant pirate figures and the first player takes the treasure board. With that, the game is ready to start.
On your turn, as I mentioned earlier, you’ll want to draw treasures from the deck without getting a duplicate face-up card. If you stop then you won’t ever have to move your elephant pirate along the board, but, the further along you get the more weight tokens each other player needs to carefully place on the end of their plank. If you get two different treasures then they place one weight, if you get five then they place four. When you’re ready to quit you simply say as such and then play moves on to the next player. It all continues until one player falls off of the ship at which point you can simply reset and play again… or, you might — as a house variant — play until only one player remains.
Stomp The Plank is incredibly straight-forward to play, but that’s no negative because, combined with it’s great look and the risk-taking element of drawing treasures, it makes for a great game for all ages.
Stomp The Plank seems to not currently be in print, although it is available on the Thirsty Meeples store.
Love board games? Check out our list of the top board games we’ve reviewed.
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