This morning I finally sat down to play through Koala Rescue Club. It’s a print-and-play game from Postmark Games and Joey Games themed around koala conservation. It uses a die roll to set parameters for each of 30 turns of circling trees or koalas. I was impressed by the game’s balance of randomness, simplicity, and meaningful choices.
Welcome to Koala Rescue Club! Koalas are an endangered species so it’s our job to protect them. In this roll and write game, you will plant new trees for koalas to live in and then rehome them safely. Each turn, a die roll determines which configuration of trees or koalas you can draw. Fill in areas to score points, and complete rows and columns to claim special bonus actions. Volunteers will help you by changing the shapes you can draw, and skybridges will open up new areas to plant in. And don’t forget to build hospitals to keep your koalas healthy!
Koala Rescue Club is a puzzly polyomino game with two layers of decisions. First, you need to draw trees in specific shapes. Then you need to draw configurations of koalas on top of those trees. Cascading bonuses give you extra actions to work with, and merit badges give you goals to plan toward on each map. Koala Rescue Club can be played with any number of players, and provides exciting simultaneous play with an important message.
Koala Rescue Club
The game isn’t available to non-backers yet, but once it’s out it’s an easy recommendation from me.
