You’re sitting there at home minding your own business when all of a sudden you smell smoke. A fire has broken out in the kitchen and is quickly spreading through the house threatening you, your friends, your pets, and your game room where you left that game of checkers half finished!

Today we look at Flash Point: Fire Rescue where you and up to 5 other players take on the role of firefighters who must battle smoke and spreading fires in an attempt to save the 7 occupants of a home before the structure collapses killing everyone inside.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue is broken into two games, an easier “Family” version and the more difficult “Experienced” version which adds more options but also more danger (because SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to keep cans of gasoline in the bedroom and propane tanks in the shower). The game board is double sided giving a different challenge each time and with the added randomization from the dice gives this game a lot of replayability. For this review we will be focusing on the Family version of the game since the younger gamers here aren’t quite up to the advanced rules just yet.

The game starts with a pre-set fire starting in middle of the home and with 3 Point of Interest (POI) markers on the board identifying where there might be a person in need of rescuing. The players must balance the need to reach these POI markers and rescue the people while putting out the fires that quickly spread through the house if left unchecked. Each turn every firefighter gets 4 action points which they can use to move around the board, carry out victims, extinguish fires, or chop down walls if needed. After moving the player then rolls a set of two dice to determine where the fire spreads to next. Sometimes this can cause an explosion which causes the travel to travel in multiple directions destroying everything in its path. If too many of the walls are destroyed the home collapses and the players lose the game.

This game has quickly become a favorite in our home when we are looking for a co-op game that is easy enough that the children can play but still offers enough excitement especially near the end.

Wynken’s Thoughts:

I liked this game a lot, my favorite part is working as part of a team to get the people to safety. The game gets harder as it goes along because the explosions can cause the walls to become damaged which lets the fire spread faster. I didn’t like when I put out fires only to roll the dice and have them come back in the same place again.
8.5 Stars

Blynken Thoughts:

I liked how it was a team game instead of getting points or finding out who got the most people out and that we won or lost as a group. I enjoyed putting out the fires most but kept getting trapped in rooms when an explosion would happen which caused my player to get knocked out…a lot. I do not like how quickly the fire can spread in the house making things more difficult.
9 Stars