Playing the Survivor Board Game: Love the Show? You'll Love the Game

Survivor is a popular reality-TV show in which producers strand contestants on an island and force them to fend for themselves... given only rice, forced to sleep in the rain, eat worms, and challenge themselves mentally and physically.

Survivor the board game is exactly the same! Survivor the game strands people in a kitchen and forces them to fend for themselves... given only chips and dip, forced to go without sleep (b/c the games only an hour), eat gummi-worms, and challenge themselves mentally.

You can see why people would rather play the game then go on the TV show! But is the game really worth it? Why don't you read on and find out.

Setup
The setup for this game is relatively easy. There is a roundish board with a big hole in the middle where the "island" goes. Everything's labeled so you can line it up easily.

The game pieces are little individual people pieces for the second round, and boats for the first round. You put the outlast, outwit, and outplay cards in each of their respective spots, and you separate the "survival item" cards into the 4 spots on the board. The immunity idol goes at the end of the course.

Game Play
You must have 4-8 players for this game to work as it is supposed to. Note: You can easily play with more people if you just create your own game pieces or use monopoly pieces. You divide into 2 teams, and each team takes a boat piece. For the first half of the game, your team must stick together and help make it around the board.

When it's your teams turn, you roll the dice and move around the outside of the board. You then pick the card that corresponds to your place on the board and do whatever it says (outwit, outplay, outlast...I'll explain later)

This goes on until your team reaches the Teams Merge space. Once one team reaches this spot, the other team joins them. The survival items are split up among the individuals and the game continues as usual... except this time, you're on your own! Now you will really see who you can trust.

Individual Play
As an individual player, you have to try and move toward the immunity idol (go around the inner circle). The inner circle has less squares so it is easier to get around. Once a player reaches the idol, all players vote for someone to get booted off the island in a 'secret' ballot. Just like the show, you can't vote off someone who has immunity.

Then voted player is kicked off, and all the remaining players return to the start of the inner circle. This is repeated until only two players are left. Now all your evil deeds will come back to hunt you b/c NOW it is up to all the booted players to decide who is the ultimate SURVIVOR!

Short Game
This game is LONG if you have a lot of people, and therefore there is a shortened version. You can just go around the outer circle as usual, then go around the inner circle only once. And at that point, vote for a winner. I think that version needs to be edited in order to be fun. The fun part of the game is voting off people!

The Cards
There are 3 different card types as I mention, and they all have complicated rules. I'll just describe an example of each.

All cards have a blue side and a brown side. The blue side is for team play, and the brown side is for individual play. Getting through the challenge on the card will allow you to move spaces, get survival items, etc. Survival items are needed for some of the cards challenges.

Outwit
These are mental challenges like riddles. You have figure out what the riddle is describing). eg: "The part of the bird that is not in the sky which can swim in the ocean and always stay dry" . Answer... "It's Shadow". These can be really tough, or really easy. But I guess it test your brain to it's limits!

Outlast
These can be good or bad for your team or yourself. eg: "Someone trips and knocks over the shelter. Return to the island 1 of our survival items". These basically just tell you to do things, their's no real challenge involved. This is where certain survival items will help you.

Outplay
These include Pictionary things as well as questions to see how well you know your teammates. eg: Both teams draw a monkey. First team to say what it is wins this challenge. Sometimes the things you have to draw are tough, like "Tourniquet"

The questions for this section are more are like the following example. eg: (Know thy Neighbor) Guess what your partner would say to this: "If I go on a long trip, it's most upsetting if I don't (a) Eat well (b) sleep well (c) do fun things. You write down your answer, then the player will say his answer. If you match, you get rewarded.

Conclusion
That is basically the whole game in a nutshell. The concept is simple, however the rules for the individual cards can get quite complicated. So complicated that they even made a few extra cards for the rules alone!

This game is fun b/c of...

--It's diversity, you can play Pictionary, 20 questions, and more all in one game!

--Voting. What other game is there where you can vote off your friends and family.

--Long. I like it b/c it last long. Not as long as monopoly (which can go on forever!) but long enough so that most players are satisfied in the end (except those who got voted off first)

--It allows team play for a while, then individual play. Just like the show you can work with your team to get 1/2 to the end, and then you can prove that you are the best by winning in the end.

--You can eat/drink and be merry. No bugs on this island!

Possible improvements
--Give those who were voted off something to do so they aren't just sitting around waiting.

--Add some "physical" challenges like charades! Or make them drink a lot of water, I don't know, it just needs a *little* something extra.

--Give breaks during the game so the teams can chit chat and form alliances.

Overall
I did like this game BUT it's mostly b/c I was always a huge Survivor fan. This game is for those of you who watched the show and fell in love with the manipulation. Anyone who thought the show was stupid would probably think this game was too. If you liked the show, you won't be disappointed. Just create some improvements of your own to prolong the fun!

I purchased this game at areyougame.com but I don't see it there anymore. I see it now on amazon.com.