Hamsterrolle Review

boardgamequest.com:

Sometimes all you need for a fun game is a great idea. If it’s a concept that players haven’t seen before or that’s never been tried, you are already ahead of the curve. Donald X. Vaccarino had that with Dominion when he came up with the idea for a deck builder.

And now we have Hamsterrolle. A dexterity game where designer Jacques Zeimet clearly drew some inspiration from a furry animal’s exercise furnishing. There is no questioning that Hamsterrolle is unique, but a clever idea only takes you so far, as the gameplay must also hold up. Let’s find out if it does.

Playing a game of Hamsterrolle is just as easy as you’d expect. The goal of the game is to get rid of all seven of your pieces. On your turn, you must place one of your wooden pieces inside the giant wheel.

Placement rules are simple: The piece must be in the active segment (where the previous player played), or in one of the two segments further along the wheel in the chosen direction. Also, two blocks of the same color cannot be placed in the same segment. Any pieces that fall out of the wheel on your turn are taken back into your pile. And that’s it!

Hamsterrolle looks both equally goofy and intriguing on your tabletop. On one hand, you are playing a game on a giant hamster wheel. Yet on the other, there is no question that people walking by are going to stop and wonder just what exactly you are doing. And thanks to Hamsterrolle’s accessible nature, just about any of those people can jump in and play with minimal instruction because the rules for Hamsterrolle are ridiculously simple. Place a piece and hope it doesn’t cause others to fall off.

Part of the fun of Hamsterrolle comes from the tension that builds. As pieces get placed into the wheel, you can watch it slowly rotate after a player’s turn. This feeling builds as pieces get closer and closer to the top of the wheel, just begging to fall out. These are the moments that make Hamsterrolle enjoyable.

You can also play as mean or as nice as you like in