Game: Slide Quest
Year: 2019
Blue Orange Games are responsible for a number of the great family games in our collection, but they certainly put out more kids games and recently there's been a huge influx. After initially overlooking Slide Quest, it completely overtook our Twitter feed during Origins and really came across as a lot of people's game of the show.
Slide Quest initially seems like a dexterity version of the drawing game Loony Quest, with some cooperative elements thrown in from Magic Maze. Since both of these games are ones we love having on our shelves, Slide Quest looked like the perfect silly game to take for a test run.
Gameplay
Slide Quest is a game for 1-4 players, though one player may be a touch on the difficult side! Depending on player count each player has control over 1 or more of the levels around the outskirt of the box. The selected level is placed in top of the game board and all required components are slotted into the relevant spaces on the board. Players can then use their levers to raise their side of the board, doing so enough will encourage the knight (who stands on a ball bearing) to roll in the opposite direction. Players will have to work together to get the knight to move in the correct directions and complete their objective.
Slide Quest has a campaign of ever increasing difficulty levels. Most of the levels involve you having to following the glowing line towards an exit, if you fall off the line you have to put yourself straight back on, so precision and cooperation are the aim of the game. As the game goes on more hazards are added, though the most common are pits, fall into one of these and you'll lost a life, lose too many lives and your game is over. Conversely you can also find hearts printed on the maps, if you roll over one of those you will gain a life.
You'll soon find yourself facing minions, which you need to push into pits in order to defeat, and bosses which are like minions but have to be defeated last. In addition, there's dynamite, which typically loses you a life should you knock it in a hole, but occasionally you have to dump in into a pit after a boss to win. As you play more levels the challenge ramps up and the end of chapter levels (10/20) tend to have extra challenges.
Amy’s Final Thoughts
There is no denying that Slide Quest works on a gimmick, the question is is that gimmick fun? Undeniably, it's great fun! The level of cooperation required is fantastic with each player only able to control a single aspect of the knights movement. However at two player the game loses a little bit of it's shine, being able to control 2 levers means you need less cooperation, some challenges are simply down to one player, which slightly spoils the experience.
One of the fantastic things about Slide Quest is how easy it is to pick up, as soon as the board was set up in front of me I knew what was expected of me in this game. Playing the game was second nature to me, the only thing that had to be explained was how to win. While there are some variants of objectives, mostly the game is pretty consistent. This is actually a problem, the game feels a bit unexplored, in it's 20 levels there are maybe 4 different level variations which present themselves in ever increasing difficulty. I would have loved to see some more unique challenges, perhaps a princess meeple that you had to free from a "cage" or a second knight so you had to control two characters at once.
That being said Slide Quest is a great game to get kids or non-gamers into playing a board game, at first it is superbly light-hearted as the challenge level is low with little consequence for mistakes, but gets brutal over time. If you put this in front of 4 people I can almost guarantee that they will have fun! Unfortunately it's the longevity that the game lacks, unless an expansion comes out that dramatically increases the content the game is simply too short and has too little replay value. you will have fun playing it through once and then put it aside, only to bring it out when you want to show a friend just how crazy and different board games can be. Overall I don't think Slide Quest has inspired me. It's more of an activity that a board game and the gimmick, well it feels very gimmicky. But if you are simply to gauge a game on whether you had fun, there's certainly something to be said for it!
Fi’s Final Thoughts
Slide Quest has a great gimmick, but it only took about 15 minutes to explore that gimmick. Each game you customise the map and there are 20 maps in the box. We played five maps at a time and then saved our progress with the handy progress marker. However, by map five we'd really explored all of the content that the game had to offer. There's only really a couple of kinds of challenge and after that they're just made more difficult by having more trap holes in the board and keeping the bad guy meeples further from their corresponding traps. I was really hoping for more variety in mechanisms and perhaps pieces to keep my attention as we progressed through the levels.
Never has a game felt more cooperative than Slide Quest. It has been responsible for a few tense moments for this married couple playing a two player game. You have to communicate clearly and work together to travel in diagonal lines. As the maps get harder, precise control is key and with patience and communication there is not real reason to fail at any of the maps. However, it's when patience wears thin or communication goes wrong, that you'll end up rolling into a trap. As a team building and communication tool for kids, I can really see Slide Quest being a fantastic game to play.
Slide Quest is one of those games that is so eye-catching and engaging that it's perfect to introduce to people as an ice-breaker or for 15 minutes of fun at a party or get-together. I can also see it having a great application for families at a board game cafe. However, it's not something I'll ever get out again and again with the same audience. I'll share the joy of it once and then we'll move on to something with more substance and not just style. I can totally see why this was great fun for people at a convention - making friends over a shared silly experience, with a one-off game, but I struggle to envisage many gamers keeping Slide Quest for the long term.
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Slide Quest was a review copy provided by Asmodee UK. It is available at your friendly local game store for an RRP of £19.99 or can be picked up at http://www.365games.co.uk
Publisher: Blue Orange Games
Designer: Nicolas Bourgoin, Jean-François Rochas Year: 2019
Blue Orange Games are responsible for a number of the great family games in our collection, but they certainly put out more kids games and recently there's been a huge influx. After initially overlooking Slide Quest, it completely overtook our Twitter feed during Origins and really came across as a lot of people's game of the show.
Slide Quest initially seems like a dexterity version of the drawing game Loony Quest, with some cooperative elements thrown in from Magic Maze. Since both of these games are ones we love having on our shelves, Slide Quest looked like the perfect silly game to take for a test run.
Gameplay
Slide Quest is a game for 1-4 players, though one player may be a touch on the difficult side! Depending on player count each player has control over 1 or more of the levels around the outskirt of the box. The selected level is placed in top of the game board and all required components are slotted into the relevant spaces on the board. Players can then use their levers to raise their side of the board, doing so enough will encourage the knight (who stands on a ball bearing) to roll in the opposite direction. Players will have to work together to get the knight to move in the correct directions and complete their objective.
You'll soon find yourself facing minions, which you need to push into pits in order to defeat, and bosses which are like minions but have to be defeated last. In addition, there's dynamite, which typically loses you a life should you knock it in a hole, but occasionally you have to dump in into a pit after a boss to win. As you play more levels the challenge ramps up and the end of chapter levels (10/20) tend to have extra challenges.
Amy’s Final Thoughts
There is no denying that Slide Quest works on a gimmick, the question is is that gimmick fun? Undeniably, it's great fun! The level of cooperation required is fantastic with each player only able to control a single aspect of the knights movement. However at two player the game loses a little bit of it's shine, being able to control 2 levers means you need less cooperation, some challenges are simply down to one player, which slightly spoils the experience.
One of the fantastic things about Slide Quest is how easy it is to pick up, as soon as the board was set up in front of me I knew what was expected of me in this game. Playing the game was second nature to me, the only thing that had to be explained was how to win. While there are some variants of objectives, mostly the game is pretty consistent. This is actually a problem, the game feels a bit unexplored, in it's 20 levels there are maybe 4 different level variations which present themselves in ever increasing difficulty. I would have loved to see some more unique challenges, perhaps a princess meeple that you had to free from a "cage" or a second knight so you had to control two characters at once.
Fi’s Final Thoughts
Slide Quest has a great gimmick, but it only took about 15 minutes to explore that gimmick. Each game you customise the map and there are 20 maps in the box. We played five maps at a time and then saved our progress with the handy progress marker. However, by map five we'd really explored all of the content that the game had to offer. There's only really a couple of kinds of challenge and after that they're just made more difficult by having more trap holes in the board and keeping the bad guy meeples further from their corresponding traps. I was really hoping for more variety in mechanisms and perhaps pieces to keep my attention as we progressed through the levels.
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- Slide Quest is eye-catching and has a huge toy factor that should attract gamers to your table.
- If you want to learn to communicate better, then Slide Quest will push you to practice those skills!
- Slide Quest is a dexterity game like no other, perhaps most similar to Screwball Scramble, which you might remember from your childhood!
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The Verdict
6.5/10 Slide Quest is a well produced and innovative board game with lots of tactility and new and unique dexterity components. It's undoubtedly a gimmick, but it's a one-off, exciting cooperative game that with unite a group of friends around the table. It might not keep you amused for the long term, but it's a great activity for a school classroom, board game cafe, convention or party setting.- There are twenty unique maps in Slide Quest and after playing 20, we're done.
- There are not enough unique twists with the new maps to keep the game exciting.
The Verdict
Slide Quest was a review copy provided by Asmodee UK. It is available at your friendly local game store for an RRP of £19.99 or can be picked up at http://www.365games.co.uk
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