Hey, That's my Fish! review

Fantasy Flight Games | Strategy | 2-4 players | 20 minutes | www.fantasyflightgames.com 

T hey say ‘never judge a book by its cover’ and that’s something that could certainly apply to tabletop games too. If you spotted Hey, That’s My Fish! during a stroll round your local game store you’d probably by-pass it immediately assuming that the Ice Age-style cartoon penguins on the box mean it’s a game for kids.

Of course the fact we’re mentioning it here means there must be something more to it and there definitely is because, this is a cracking little game for young and old players alike. The game board is made up of little icy hexagons with fish on them and you get to play as a charming penguin avatar. Your penguin slides along the ice in a straight line, gobbling up the fish on the last hexagon they slid over before they stopped. This leaves a hole in the board that, if you fancy getting tactical, can be used to block your opponents like some sad penguin-shaped iced lolly eating scraps of fish.

As such, for a game that’s got a cute cartoon penguin on the box it’s actually pretty cutthroat – after all, several players could gang up on someone else to leave them stranded on a lone hexagon drifting out to sea ready to be eaten by a killer whale. The other problem is that as you’re zipping about wolfing down fish, you’ve also got to think you’re potentially blocking off your own routes of escape too. Although we wouldn’t exactly say you ‘agonise’ over the choice, there’s still a sense of contemplation and planning ahead before each move.

As the game enters its closing stages, choosing the right path is key before you’re sent out into the Arctic to die a sad and lonely penguin death. This isn’t a game for kids, this is a brutal tale of survival of the fittest that would make Darwin himself proud… just don’t tell any kids playing that the penguins snuff it.

Buy a copy here

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