LogFAQs > #932568525

108. Yeti Slalom (2001)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Point-to-point movement, take-that
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 0
Game length: 15-30 minutes
Experience: 2 plays over 2 sessions with 4 players (2019)
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - Each player manages a team of four snowboarders (of different point values) and places them at the start of a grid-shaped mountain. On your turn, you move a snowboarder around/down the mountain or place a new snowboarder, plus can play a Yeti card onto the board, based on the coordinates that Yeti is allowed to take. Then, you roll the dice to see which snowboarders near that Yeti you can knock off the mountain. You gain points for enemy snowboarders you knock off the mountain and for your own snowboarders that make it to the end.

Design - Yeti Slalom is almost certainly the most poorly designed game on this list, though I haven't scoured it deeply. Obviously not a ton of care went into the ruleset, which is barren, and the gameplay is hilariously devoid of strategy. The strategy seems to focus mainly around playing a game of chicken with your highest-valued snowboarders coming on last, while you boldly slide your lower-value snowboarders down the slope and hope no one ejects them immediately. Usually playing a Yeti is a pretty trivial decision, and they're incredibly mean. Oh, and because you can move sideways, the game can theoretically stall out forever. Players can definitely be eliminated, though usually the game ends very, very quickly afterward.

That said, while I have little respect for the design, it's pretty fun to play, thanks to its incredibly breezy playtime and average time per turn. One of the funner parts of the design is probably the art, which is goofy as hell. I think I favor the team of alligator snowboarders. Everyone knows to expect Yetis and where to expect them; the only real question is who you think has them, and whether they've decided to play them yet. Yeti-players can also use snowball cards to reroll their dice, which is inherently fun when you're trying to knock off three snowboarders at once with a 5 or 6. There might be some strategy with juking and trying to deny other snowboarders "safe" passage but let's not make it more than it is - it's just dumb, and vaguely fun.

Experience - I was at Origins in 2019, and this game was pretty much foisted upon me as a "prize" at the end of the raffle for people who played games in the Origins gaming library. So yeah, I own it, and I got it to the table twice. Neither time did the game actually embarrass me or give me a negative experience. That said - I was also the winner of both games, responsible for taking a single shot and KOing two separate snowboarders of a single player in each game. That could be a pretty feel-bad experience too, though the novelty and simplicity still provided laughs at the time.

Future - This could get really old, really fast. I'm hardly looking to wear it out, but as a filler game with absolutely no stakes or strategy, it's not the worst. And honestly, its relative highness in the rankings might just be due to the fact that I own this unique, non-hobby, 4.9/10-on-boardgamegeek game.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness