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If you put over-sized sand timers that look like war rigs from the Mad Max movies into a dice chucking game with a smattering of area control, put it in a post apocalyptic setting, and tell me it's by Prospero Hall, I'll put on my best Australian accent and say “No Deals. I want to drive that truck.”
This game is inexplicably not named “Guzz-o-lene.” Instead, it is named Kero, which is short for Kerosene, the fuel of choice in this release. This head-to-head dice chucker has you rolling dice as the leader of clan and using the symbols that come up to take actions.
Each player's turn can consist of the following steps:
- Fuel up with KERO. (This consists of one player flipping their timer to refill it while the other rolls dice until all fire icons come up).
2. Choose your dice and roll them. You have a default number of dice but you can earn new dice via cards or choose to spend resources to roll extra dice for that round. You start your sand timer and can re-roll the dice as many times as you want. One caveat being if a fire icon comes up, you can't re-roll that die.
3. Once you have finished rolling you collect the resources shown on the dice and spend them to take available cards from the row, claim Tuarek (ally) tiles, and send out Explorers to New Territories.
4. This is where you discard any burnt cards (fire icons you rolled burn up cards in the row). You then refill the row for the other player's turn. If a claim card is revealed, you end the round and everyone claims the New Territory card where they have the majority of explorers.
Dice, doing what dice do, can lead to some turns that are just flat out devastating. We've had turns where the first roll would come up with five fire icons. I have also had the very first turn of the game where I spent resources to roll two extra dice. Then, when I rolled my turn, I was able to purchase cards that give me two additional dice for the rest of the game. Mind you, this was after I followed the set-up for the deck to make sure that cards come out in a somewhat balanced order. (So, this means it's a repeatable occurrence, not just a one-off). One feel great moment for one player versus an entire feel bad game for your opponent game doesn't make for a good experience. We both knew they had lost at this point and we were only a single turn into the game. In order for dice to really “work” in a game, you have to have enough rolls for the randomness to balance out. But, considering I was going to be rolling at least two extra dice the rest of the game, Kero wasn't going to allow that to happen.
Kero does have the absolute best Sand Timers I have ever seen. The huge war rig/sand timers are started when you begin rolling on your turn and flipped flat once you are happy with your results (or have rolled enough fire icons that you can't continue). And if the timer runs out during your turn, you don't get to claim any of the dice/icons you rolled that turn. So, it's a “I made that mistake once...never again” moment, not really a push your luck mechanism. But, worry not, according to the rules a friendly local refills your sand timer/Kero for you...which is possibly the most thematically non-Mad Max thing to happen.
After I picked this up, I was looking for a good way to be able to speedily roll a handful of dice. I came up with a “solution” of picking up a couple of wooden trays from Dollar Tree for $1.25 (Don't get me started on everything at Dollar Tree costing at least a $1.25). This was a miserable failure on the noise factor alone. Not to mention that, while the edges held the dice in, they prohibited picking up the dice to re-roll in a timely fashion. Take it from me, just pick up some actual big dice trays that fold out flat when not in use.
You would think that real time dice rolling would make for a frenetic experience but the game still feels kind of, well, boring. You check out the tiles that are available for purchase, decide which icons you hope to roll and how many of each type..and start rolling. The other player just watches everything play out.
One of my biggest issues with the game is that it has an Accumulated Advantage problem. Once one player gets rolling (pun intended), it's nearly impossible for the other player to catch up. While the post apocalyptic theme doesn't actually state it, isn't the rich getting richer what got us into this situation in the first place?
The Area Majority portion of the game executes at semi-random times via the deck. The three claim cards are mixed into the deck with one appearing randomly in roughly each one-third of the deck. When a claim card comes out, that triggers the claim portion of the game, where you gain control of the territory's you have the most explorers (You have a total of seven explorers you can place). On the down side, it ends up feeling very abrupt and you never feel like you can plan for when they will drop. This is especially true for the end of the game which has an awkward “Oh, the game has ended but, ummm, take your last turn Player 2 and grab some final points if you can.”
Even at it's best, Kero never really thrills. Despite having excellent art, a great theme, and the world's best sand timers, that never overcomes it's faults. But, hey, I now own two cool ass six-inch War Rig sand timers.
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