Designed by Prospero Hall
2 Players
Ages 9+
30 Mins Playing Time

Review By Ben Ruegg

Kero. Short for Kerosene. This resource is sparse in the future and you are one of two clans who are trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. How you manage your Kero is vital as it fuels your truck that drives out into the vast wasteland trying to salvage what it can to help your clan gain new territories. The clan that can manage this best will be crowned the victor.

Kero is a fantastic game that incorporates real time elements with luck of the dice. Broken into three rounds which are brought to an end with some randomness, you are trying to get what you can before your truck runs out of fuel. All of the elements in the game fit perfectly with the theme of being the leader of a clan in a post-apocalyptic world. In fact, it may feel familiar once you see the incredible trucks each player gets (did I hear Mad Max?). Your truck has a sand timer which acts as the amount of kerosene you have to use during your turn. Acting as fuel for when you are scouring the waste land, you will roll 5 or more dice until you are happy with the outcomes. Ultimately, the game is a race against time and I found it completely exhilarating.

As mentioned, your truck acts as your timer by showing you brown sand as the amount of kerosene you have to fuel your exploration. If you ever need to refill, at the beginning of your turn, you can hand in a jerry can and have the other player roll all 8 dice (5 white and 3 coloured) while you hold your truck cab down. This will slowly have the sand flow into your visible part of your truck. Your opponent will keep rolling until all the dice show the flame icon. Once that happens, you lay your truck flat and you will be able to see how much kerosene you have loaded into your tank.

Before sending your truck out to collect resources, you will need to have a look at the upgrade cards available on display. Each one indicates how many points it is worth at the end of the game, as well as its cost in resources and its bonus it grants you when acquiring it. The main action of your turn is to send your truck out exploring. In this action, you stand the truck up on its back and all your fuel starts shifting back down. During this phase, you will take 5 white dice with all the same icons (wheat, jerrycan, recruits, metal, brick or the dreaded fire) although you may pay a jerry can for each coloured dice to add to your pool. The Green, Blue and Yellow dice all have unique sides to the other dice in the game and will more than likely get you the resources you need for your turn (they still include the fire side.) You will keep rolling your dice over and over until you are happy. However, if your truck runs out of kerosene, your turn ends and your turn ends immediately.

If you ever roll a flame, you put that aside as it is burnt and can no longer be rolled. When you are happy with what you have found, you will then have a chance to spend the resources you collected out in the wasteland on the upgrade cards, or you could potentially use them to send one or more of your clansmen to explore and try to claim a new territory. At the end of the round, the person with the most explorers on a territory (ties are ignored and no one claims it) will take the territory and put it aside for the end of game scoring. Collecting upgrade cards and claiming territories are the only ways you will score points.

You can also seek help from the others out in the wild world. Known as the Tuareks, by paying them two cans of gas, they will come to your aid. You can save their help or use it during the turn, but they assist you multiple ways eg by removing the other player from a territory or being able to re-roll the flame dice you normally set aside. Do not underestimate the help the Tuareks will provide you.

After all three rounds have been played, you will count up how many points you have and one player will be awarded the title of ‘Badassest Clan, 2471’.

Kero is ultimately a dice game and has a lot of luck built into it. This may turn people off of it right away. But hold on a sec! I would normally not enjoy games like this where it all comes down to pushing your luck, but for me the theme ties in perfectly with this mechanic. Think about it. You live in a world where resources are scarce and you are driving around using precious kerosene to send your big rig out to find resources to help your clan. This works so well with the dice rolling and not knowing exactly what you will come back with. Sure, there will be turns when you roll absolutely nothing and you are unable to do anything about it, but I imagine that it what it may be like for an explorer who is sent out into the void while trying to find resources to bring back.

By incorporating the real time element of the kerosene tank in your truck, along with the dice and claiming territories for end game scoring, this game hit all the marks I expected for a semi-gateway game that is just fun, not super strategic.

Kero is a lot of fun and I will definitely be going for another ride in the truck sometime soon.

Pros:

• Component quality is superb. The trucks are fantastic. The box insert holds everything nicely.
• The artwork is outstanding. It just pops. The board layout is beautiful and the graphic art/cartoon nature of the territories work so well with the theme. One of the best looking games I have seen.
• The rules are written well and are accessible to anyone. It even states at the beginning that you should read them all first and then play with them. After your first game, you will know everything. * I agree with this statement. The rule book is short enough to not feel like a chore.

Cons:

• Some people may find the pushing your luck with dice rolling too much. I can see people getting frustrated with not getting what they want and knowing that winning is sort of based on luck. I didn’t find this so much. As explained, the theme is so perfectly inline with why this may happen that it did not bother me. I actually enjoyed it.