Image Credit: BoardGameGeek
Designer: Tim Fowers
Artist: Ryan Goldsberry
Publisher: Self Published
Number of Players: 1 – 4
Playing Time: 90 minutes
Last weekend, I promised Ari (6 years old) that we would play a game. I told him that I had a “new” game for him to try and described as “stealing game”. We sat down together and broke open Burgle Bros. by Tim Fowers.
I was amazed to see the Tim was able to get the game into the same box size as Paperback — another great game. Ari helped punch out the tokens while I opened the cards and start to scan the rules. We didn’t have it in us to stick on the stickers to the wooden tokens. I set the game up in a modified format and we only played one floor. Ari selected our characters and we had at it.
Burgle Bros. has the players sneaking through a three story office building — in our case a one floor building. The player are looking for a safe on each floor which has loot that needs to be stolen before all the players exit the building through the roof. However, the building is very secure and has a sentry on each floor who is moving around. Players have done enough scouting that they know the general movement patterns of the sentry. However, they are not aware of the security systems installed on each floor. Players may peek or move on their turns looking into adjacent rooms. Some rooms are good — i.e. the safe. Some are bad — i.e. motion detectors, lasers, keypads, etc. Players have to work together to keep pressing forward thwarting each obstacle and making their way to the safe. Once at the safe, players will need to find the combination to the safe which is located on the tiles for the same row and column as the location of the safe and roll that combination of numbers before getting caught. After the safe is cracked, the players will head for the stairs to move to the next level or out of the building for the win. If a guard lands on your space, the player loses one stealth token as they attempt to blend into the surroundings.
Ari and I worked through the floor, although the guard did not make it easy at all. Ari discovered the safe first and began cracking it, while I ran around revealing the combo to the safe and pulling the guard away from Ari by triggering alarms. Eventually, Ari had to bail from his space so as not to get caught, and I finished cracking the safe. We both got out, although we both lost one stealth token a piece. Ari wanted to continue, but it was past his bed time.
Image Credit: BoardGameGeek
My overall impression was that Burgle Bros. was very well done and we will be breaking this game out again — definitely a keeper for us. The art, the theme, and general game play are superb. I cannot wait until my high-rise kit comes in as well. The only drawback was dealing with the stickers for the wooden tokens, which I guess cannot be helped but definitely is a drag.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Availability
GameSurplus: n/a
CoolStuffInc: n/a
Time Well Spent Games: n/a
Miniature Market: n/a
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Funagain Games: n/a
Publisher’s Site: http://www.burglebros.com/