Lead the pack to victory – a review of the game “Lupos”

Play as wolves and summon ghosts to finally meet the legendary Chief Lupos. It will not be an easy task, because the right specimens must be in specific places. Will you be able to achieve the goal together?

Jedna wataha

Cooperative games are not my forte, but I never refuse to try another item in this category. Lupos from the Piatnik publishing house belongs to it  . The box captivated me with its graphics and beautiful night landscape from the very beginning. Inside you will find a board with the Wolf’s Rock on a platform and a lot of tokens – places, owls, wolves, forest, movement and Lupos, as well as two bags and instructions. The components are thick and solid, so they shouldn’t wear out quickly.

The game is intended for children from 7 years of age, so the rules are not too complicated. During the game, players have a common goal to achieve. There are four wolves on the board that we can move. After drawing a movement token, the active player chooses one of the characters and decides which space with the same symbol to place the figure on. Of course, everyone can and should help and suggest what they think would be the best choice, but it is one player who makes the final decision. In the following rounds, everyone will have the opportunity to do so, because the role of the decider passes to the next players in a clockwise direction.

In the bag, in addition to stones, mushrooms and stumps, to which we can move, there are also small wolves forcing the player to place one of the wolf juniors in the lake, as well as owls and their departing counterparts. If we draw a bird, place its token on the appropriate space, and after drawing the third one, the round ends. The owl figurine lands on Wolf’s Rock. The fourth individual on the branch ends the game and everyone loses.

How to win? By completing tasks from place tokens. These are randomly selected and placed on the appropriate places on the board. To achieve the goal, we need to reach this location with the indicated number and type (small and large). On the back of the acquired tile, there is the wolf spirit summoned in this way and place it on the platform. After seven completed missions, the conquered ancestors will make the legendary chief Lupos appear. Then we win the game together.

Collaboration is the key to your goal

I liked the wolf game with its design, theme and simplicity of the rules. It is a title aimed at children and families rather than at advanced players. In an accessible way, it teaches cooperation and planning of movements with a random selection of permitted actions. It may seem that running joyfully on the board is trivial, but appearances are deceptive. Careless movements will waste precious time as the owls can be drawn at any time.

Our mobility is also limited by the symbols on the paths. A given individual, if we draw, for example, mushrooms, may move up to the nearest square with such an icon, and not any one on the entire board. Markings are drawn on the board or on forest tiles. If we find the second type, pick up the tile and perform the action shown on the back. It can be another move of the wolf to a given space, adding a move token to the bag or discarding it, as well as a spider scaring the wolf away and returning it to its original location. For balance, Lupos tokens will help us, that is, they will drive away owls, summon one wolf to another or allow us to move through tunnels. However, you have to use them sparingly because we have a very limited number of them.

Lupos offers different levels of difficulty. Place tokens can be selected randomly, but if you want to try the advanced gameplay, you can use those marked with two and three wolf heads. It will take us more time to implement them. Additionally, removing one or two movement tokens from the bag will result in faster owl draw, thus bringing players closer to the end of the game. At the beginning, however, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the basic rules.

One for all, all for one

Although I don’t like cooperative games personally, I think they are a very good way to learn different mechanics. Self-planning of movements could be difficult for less experienced children. By making decisions together, they learn from each other, and in case of failure, they don’t have all the responsibility on themselves.

I already praised the performance of the game, but I did not emphasize the great impression made by the three-dimensional Wolf Rock. It adds atmosphere to the gameplay and looks cool, especially when it slowly fills up with ghosts. Their characters on the back of the place tokens are my favorite art. They remind me of Indian-heavenly animals and they are just lovely.

Lupos is a game in which randomness dominates us to a great extent. Starting with the forest tiles, through the available moves and adding places to the board. This may irritate adults, but it works very well with kids. Choosing pucks from the bag causes great emotions, especially in the second half of the game, when each new owl inexorably heralds the end of time to summon all the necessary wolves.

I recommend this title to children and their parents, because adults themselves will not find enough challenges for themselves. Anyway, the whole setting, graphics and workmanship scream that it is a box intended for children. Lack of competition, group decision making and the satisfaction of winning together are things that Lupos can offer young players.