Game Reviews

Wooden Shoe Game Reviews: Flashlights & Fireflies

Flashlights & Fireflies

Welcome to the exciting game of firefly powered flashlight freeze tag! Players hide in the woods then charge up their flashlights with fireflies they have caught and attempt to find each other. If you remain un-frozen you get to sneak a little closer to the finish each turn eventually (hopefully) winning the game. This game by Gamewright is for 2-5 players 6 and up has been a hit among our family on those nights when it’s too hot to actually go play outside.

The game starts with two piles of tiles, a ‘woods’ pile and a ‘firefly’ pile players start the game with 3 randomly selected woods tiles and their player tile which they shuffle and lay out to simulate their ‘hiding in the woods’ then the game begins!
Taking turns players roll a die to see how many fireflies they can try to catch, they draw the number of firefly tiles equal to the number rolled (1-3) and place the fireflies on their flashlight to power it in the next step. Any mosquitos drawn are mixed back into the pile for the next sucker to draw (maybe). After all of the players have rolled and drawn they try to find the other players by using the fireflies they drew. Players select some of their fireflies and place them in front of their opponents that they want to try and find that turn and flip over one woods tile to see what it reveals. The woods tiles have trees (no one is here better luck next time), players (you got lucky and found them, they are now frozen) and pests (you found a critter in the woods and got scared making you forget all about finding that player this turn).

Once everyone has taken their turn looking for the other players any players who were not frozen move up one space closer to the house (end) and those who were frozen get to draw two (or one, depending on the number of players) woods tiles to increase their chances next turn. This mechanic balances the game out quite by making players who were found this round harder to find next round while the players who moved forward will have less tiles to hide in next time making them easier to find. Play continues until one or more players reaches the house.

Wynken Thoughts:

I didn’t like that you could freeze someone else and they could still try to freeze you when it was their turn. I liked that when you got frozen you got more tiles to hide which made the game more fair but when you don’t get frozen you got to move up. I like this game.
9 Stars

Blynken Thoughts:

I liked that you can get other players frozen but they still get to try and find you on their turn. I didn’t like getting frozen because it meant I didn’t get to move forward that turn. I liked this game a lot.

9 Stars

Nod Thoughts (translated):

I don’t like this game! (I enjoyed playing at first but my brothers made some very lucky guesses of where my tiles were and I made some poor guesses causing me to get no fireflies on some turns)
This game is boring! (I ask to play this game a lot but right now I’m a little upset at my poor luck, this is actually one of my favorite games and I will probably play it tomorrow)
OK maybe I like this game (despite my bad luck I won). I want to play it again tomorrow (I want to play it again tonight but mommy says its bedtime)
10 Stars

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