SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton Rising
Published by: The Op
Players: 1-4
Age: 8+
Play Time: 45-60 minutes
Overview: Take charge of SpongeBob and his friends to serve up customers while thwarting Plankton's evil scheme to steal the Krabby Patty formula.
Main Mechanics:
Dice Rolling
Dice Allocation
Components Review: Walking in our FLGS the other day my daughter lets outa big gasp and yells "SpongeBob!" She's seen one episode... but that's the reaction that SpongeBob brings and its the same reaction I had to the components. It's SpongeBob art... It's SPONGEBOB ART!! If you are a fan of the show you will love the art of the game, plain and simple. Like the other Rising games, this one includes a Plankton figure, which is great quality. Being a dice game, I love to see custom dice, and these ones are well done. Quality and easy to read. The burger board is cool though I would have really preferred it to be dual layered, something all the Rising games could use. Overall however, the components are quality and really do look great.
Gameplay Review:
Plankton Rising uses the same mechanics system as the other Rising Games. Each turn, players take four basic actions: 1. Place team token, 2. Flip and resolve a Plankton card, 3. Roll and assign dice, and 4. Resolve dice. Placing the team token is quick. Players decide rather to send their team to the Kitchen or the Dining Room. Once there, a Plankton card is flipped. This will determine what ingredient he is trying to steal and how he moves, either to the Kitchen, Dining Room, or back to the Chum Bucket to scheme. Where he moves will effect players and friends. If you are at the same location as Plankton, every friend on your team receives a time counter (basically damage), and once they have a certain amount they must be discarded. Next players roll and assign dice. During this phase players are trying to match symbols on customer cards or villains in the restaurant, to either get them on their team or set them back to the chum bucket. Lastly, dice are resolved, making customers into new friends or sending villains on their way. The game continues in this way until players successfully serve 10 customers (win), lose 10 friends (lose), or Plankton steals the formula (lose).
The past year I have realized that I enjoy dice games and Plankton Rising is a fun dice game. Though definitely on the easy side, the fun of rolling dice is still there, with the pressure of bad rolls and stress of present villains. Like other Rising games the difficulty can be modified, making this a great game to buy if you have kids. It is streamlined and simple to understand with enough depth and variability that you would want to play it again. It also has a solo variant that I have yet to try.
Final Thoughts:
If you are a SpongeBob fan this game will hit you with all kinds of nostalgia. I can not express the joy I felt to recruit Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen and serve up a Krusty Krab Pizza. While I mention the nostalgia, I do think there is enough here to warrant buying it even if you aren't a fan, though since all of the Rising Games have similar mechanics, I would suggesting buying the Rising IP that you like the most. These are my honest thoughts, but BIG thank you to The Op for sending me a copy for this review.
Purchase SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton Rising https://amzn.to/3r7HLdp
Comments