Valley
of the Vikings

Valley of the Vikings (2019) is a dexterity traversal game where real barrel bowling fuels a race for gold. Along with the fun of knocking the barrels over is a looping scoring track where the sequence is all important and strategy abounds. It's a great balance of fun and tactics for players of different abilities.

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Each player has a colour-coded ship and a Viking token that progresses along the dock. You take turns knocking the ball into the barrels. The colour of the knocked-over barrels determines which player tokens move forward. This means you move other players' tokens, not just your own, but you can control the order of who moves first which makes a big difference.

As your Viking token moves along the dock track you land next to different scoring symbols. These award you coins or permission to steal a coin from other players or from a specific player. But there's a twist. You are only awarded these things when a Viking has moved off the end of the dock and into the water, whereupon they are then put back at the start.

This looping scoring system leads to some interesting tactics because the current player can determine the order that things happen. You also get to position the barrels before bowling so you can make it more likely to hit just the colours you want.

The result is a simple game that makes it easy to see what's happening. The bowling is fun for younger players, but there are enough tactics for older siblings and parents to enjoy as well.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Valley of the Vikings 23 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 3 weeks ago.