Alarm! A home is on fire and there are people trapped inside. Your team is at the scene and now it is up to you to fight the fire and rescue those inside. There is no time to lose, the fire is going strong. You have to hurry. Be careful, because the fire is not in control and explosions could happen at any moment.Flash Point: Fire Rescue, designed by Kevin Lanzing and marketed by Indie Boards & Cards, is a cooperative game for 2–6 player (you can also so solo play) where you are the fire crew. There are eight specialists to choose from and the group can also decide to have more characters help, but only up to six active characters at any time.
When the game starts the fire has already broken out. You know where the first three victims might be located—these points of interest might also be false alarms. There are also places in the house where hazardous materials have been stored that will explode if the fire gets to them. You have to decide if you leave them or get rid of them.
Players decide where their characters start outside the building and in what order they are going to go. It is a race against time to get the survivors out before too many of them are killed by the fire or the building collapses.
Flash Point requires teamwork. Cooperative games always require teamwork, but some of them allow for players to take their own actions without concern of others. This is true for this one also, however, unless the group talks it out and works together as a firefighting team, your chances of winning are slim. You have to combine fighting the fire back and getting the victims out. Too much emphasis on one without working on the other doesn't work well. The cooperation goes right back to the beginning after setting up the board.
The fire is the timer for the length of the game. I don't think you are capable of putting the fire completely, it keeps flaring up. We played multiple games and were never able to save the building from destruction. There isn't a win situation for putting the fire out either. You have to keep the fire in a controlled state and rescue the victims.
There are four levels of play. The introductory, or family, level works well for learning the basics of the game and for those who want a better chance of winning. With younger players (maybe even below the listing of 10+) these rules provide a lot of fun. There are also three levels of advanced play.
Advance play use the same rules. The difference between recruit, veteran, and heroic is how advanced the fire is when the game starts and additional places to spawn flare ups and additional hazards. These additional levels allow the game to remain challenging as you get better.
The fire is raging and we have to get back in there.
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Originally published with Utah Geek Magazine.
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