Review – Battle Penguins

We picked this game up for my son last Christmas. It’s got penguins, everyone loves penguins, and the description made it sound more like a deck building game in the vein of Sentinels of the Multiverse but less complex. Technically, that is true though it feels very different to what I imagined.

Production- B+

The cards are full of cute penguins. The artwork fits the game. They’re good quality card stock. Nothing to write home about but nothing to complain about either.

Theme- B

You lead a troop of penguins to compete for fish at different locations. You fight using different aspects of penguinness. Agility, Wisdom, Strength, and Cuteness. The mix here makes the game feel like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Are these penguins vicious fighters? The symbol for Strength is three red claw marks (which I have to wonder how penguins can do that considering they have no claws). But then they also fight with Cuteness. Which is cheesy but perfect for a game about penguins.

Gameplay- B

Two battlegrounds are dealt out along with two face up attributes and then one more battleground and attribute but face down. These are the three battlegrounds each player will compete over to acquire fish. Each player is then dealt a hand of seven penguin cards. They select one and pass the rest. This goes in turn until everyone has seven cards. You then divide your seven penguins up into three groups and assign each group to one of the battle grounds. Whoever has the highest in the attribute you’re battling with wins.

The penguins all have a value in the four attributes from 0-3.  Many of them also have one of four special abilities. Traveler (Thumbs Up) moves to the next battleground if he scores zero points. This can be useful as you have to put at least one penguin at each battleground. The Rogue (blue penguin symbol) gets +2 to all stats when he’s alone. The Present lets you draw a card from the present stack and give it to another player. These are risky as the present could be a positive or a negative for that player. Finally, the Intimidator (helmet) requires you to have another penguin in the squad with a background that matches the helmet’s color. If you do, you can switch an opponent’s penguin for a random one off the top of the deck. This could hurt or help them.

The basic idea is simple though it feels complicated. Most of the special abilities involve a fair bit of randomness. The Traveler and Rogue abilities usually feel kind of useless. The Intimidator makes the most difference but as it’s random it doesn’t always help you.

Expansions- TBD

None that I am aware of.

Conclusion- B

For a kids game, introduction to the idea of deck building and for some lighthearted fun, it works well. It’s not the worst game but I would skip it for just adults.