REVIEW - Outrun The Bear

Outrun The Bear

(2023)

Players - 2-6                                 
Ages - 8+
Playing time - 15-35 mins           
Learning time - 3-5 minutes

"Sometimes you don’t have to OUTRUN THE BEAR… you just have to outrun your friends."


The tagline that advertises the game 'Outrun the Bear' sets the tone for the whole experience. At it's core, the premise of the game is very simple - use your turn to ensure you make progress across the board to escape the ever encroaching bear (for a more advanced How to Play? video - see the link to the excellent Meeple University below). Overall, as a quick-ish party game for adults and older children playing together, 'Outrun the Bear' has plenty of positives to make it worthy of purchase but there are a few things you may wish to consider.



Set up is quite quick and easy, with a novelty twist of rotating double sided boards (one of which isn't played every game), which leads to a nice change each game in the path to the end. Indeed, the board design is a strong aspect of the game as you don't need to follow a linear path and instead will move around based on your cards and the terrain at hand.


The game may appear, in terms of presentation and box art, that it veers towards the younger end of the market but, however, be warned if you are buying this that the movement is entirely card based (no dice) and hence children playing would need a decent level of literacy to truly take part. I thought my 4 year old may be able to have some sort of active engagement in the game but other than moving the actual playing pieces for us adults, she had very little engagement.

In terms of player numbers, this game works best at 3/4 plus. As a two player experience I found it to be lacking in certain parts and the cycle moved too quickly. With the amount of cards being drawn, and the need to constantly check the bottom of the discard pile to find the bears movements, I felt very little time to enjoy the game and plan strategies with the cards in hand.


Each turn a player draws two cards, from a starting hand of two, and as you move through the game these quickly mount up. Many of the cards are the same, and although they are used for currency to carry out certain moves, I do feel the game would have benefited from having less cards in play. It was too tempting at times, with a handful of cards, to just discard the entire hand to perform a sprint, rather than really plan out a gameplan. Indeed, as well as this, a lot of the cards have multiple copies and/or are very similar. Hence, I was often left with hands of multiples of the same action card. Cutting down the amount of cards in play would have certainly helped this.


Action cards are the main source of card laying and will aid you in your quest to 'Outrun the Bear'. The equipment cards provide ongoing aid, such as drawing more cards on your turn etc, and an in-box expansion brings in special abilities to help you in the game depending on the character you have chosen.

However, at the core is a very enjoyable, competitive game. With the winning conditions being not just to make it to the end of the board and 'Outrun the Bear', but indeed if all of your friends get eaten before you...victory is yours. This means several of your planned moves, action cards and planning must involve your opponents. Some people tend to avoid games where they can punish others and if that is your mindset then 'Outrun the Bear' may not be for you. This game springs to life when everyone is pushing each other back and using 'Reaction' cards to steal moments from opponents.


Indeed, these reaction cards are one of the most fun parts of the game. They enable you to play actions on another players turn, such as stealing cards, jumping over them and forcing them to take certain actions. In the right crowd who are confident utilising this aspect of the game, this becomes a hugely enjoyable experience.


In all, 'Outrun the Bear' is a fun, unique and visually appealing chase game that makes effort to create a fast paced, edge of the seat experience. In most of these objectives the game succeeds and I have had, and intend to have more, fun hours with this game. Where it may fall down is in the lack of diversity/over-drawing of the cards and the target audience. The ideal group for this would be 2 parents with their older children (box says 8...I would push it closer top ten). As a 37-year-old gamer, its not the sort of game I would take to a game night amongst my peers, but I plan to take it around several family homes at Xmas.

6/10

Summary

Pros - Easy to learn, visually appealing, works wonderfully in 4 players plus when everyone is playing to win




Cons - Repetitive cards, overly text reliant which rules out children without solid reading levels, too many cards being drawn

How to Play Video?

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