‘Flashpoint’ board game review
By Ed Appleby, Illustrator
Cooperative board games require many players working together against the game. Be it saving the world from infectious outbreak, monsters from beyond, or mysteries unimaginable, each player has their strengths and the whole team works towards the goal through careful planning and strategy. These games usually encompass a grand quest where decisions work in the range of hours or days rather than seconds.
Flashpoint is a cooperative board game for 1–6 players designed by Kevin Lanzing and published by Indie Boards & Cards in 2011. In the game, players control firefighters of various specialties trying to save people and pets from a burning building before it collapses. Players must do what they can with their limited actions to control the fire, remove hazardous materials, and explore points of interest.
The gameplay comes down to coordinating all of the players to fight a fire that is completely random and can get out of hand very fast. The gameplay is fast, working in a much tighter area with simpler actions than other cooperative games like Pandemic, and the fire’s randomness and intensity means you can’t plan too far in advance.
I would recommend this game to everyone, from solo enthusiasts to families. The fast turns and cooperative gameplay make this a great game to play among friends, and the fast pace and very human life-or-death nature of the gameplay makes wins exhilarating and losses crushing.
