The inconspicuous looking box and the goal of the game, i.e. the placement of passengers on the plane, seem to indicate a simple game that you can even play alone. Nothing could be more wrong - Boarding is a puzzle game that requires concentration and good spatial vision.
We get on board
When I suggested playing to my friends board geeks, they looked at the title with a grain of salt. We expected a short, uncomplicated gameplay, without thinking about each move for a long time. Don’t be fooled by the pack size! The content itself is quite large, there are 96 cards (including 81 with passenger requirements and 15 events), 150 wooden markers (representing travelers: children, lovers, tourists, businessmen and environmentalists), 24 food vouchers, the first player token and four double-sided charts presenting the interior of the plane. All elements are solidly made, although there are many small parts, so be careful not to lose them during the game.
The rules
Boarding is for 1 to 4 people. The board showing the board of the plane is double-sided and is selected depending on the number of participants. We can choose from humorous and innovative airline names such as: Nielot, SOS, RadomGlobalAir and Brajanair. In the game – just like in real life – you have to put lovers next to you to score points, children require adult care, and groups such as tourists, businessmen, environmentalists want to be among themselves. Each player gets 6 voucher tokens, and from the pile of passenger cards we reveal four and put them in a row. Taking the furthest card from the pile is free, while for each next one we have to pay one voucher and put it on the omitted ones, i.e. if we take the second card from the edge, we put the voucher on the fourth and third card.
Ladies and gentlemen , we’re starting boarding
Each group has its own color and you have to place them in the plane as skillfully as possible. We earn the most points for placing the lovers next to each other, but it is also important to place the pawns of tourists, businessmen and ecologists in the largest possible concentration. Interestingly, children are the least “profitable”, they require care for as many as 4 adults!The farther into the cards, the harder it is, because the board begins to fill up and you may need to ask someone to leave. This situation obviously results in negative points, so it is important to fill as many seats on the plane as possible in strategically selected groups. The box says that the game time is 30 minutes, which is not entirely true at the beginning of the game. A lot of time is spent figuring out which card to choose from the table and how to match it. An additional facilitation is the possibility of turning it in a way convenient for us and its special effects – seating passengers in the corridor, removing an uncomfortable passenger from our board without consequences, or the possibility of resigning from seating one passenger from the card.
We fasten our seat belts and take off!
When the pieces of any of the groups run out, the game is over. We get positive points for two lovers next to each other, children surrounded by adults, the largest groups of tourists, businessmen and environmentalists, full sectors, saved vouchers and each card with a star that we used to fill seats. Negative, on the other hand, is obtained for empty seats and forbidden passengers. Additionally, if we want to diversify the game, we can use event cards , which in my opinion are unbalanced in terms of the difficulty of meeting them and the points awarded.
