By Kevin Hyzak
September
2005
Making a perfect board game isn’t as easy as you think. You don’t
just throw some pop-omatic dice on a colorful game board and give it a
one word name. You need cool game pieces, twists, turns, strategy, wildcards,
props, and fun drawings. But even more importantly, there needs to be
a point, something that makes the game worth playing (besides the aforementioned
pop-o-matic dice). Realizing this, Table Top Games (based in Rutland,
MA) has taken an important lesson – having a healthy heart –
and created a fun, educational game about it. With greasy food and lavish
lifestyles unfortunately making heart attacks increasingly common there
is a definite need for increased awareness about the causes and effects
of this serious health risk. Not only will Heart Attack get your blood
pumping with its surprises and twists, it will teach you things you didn’t
know about taking care of the most important muscle in your body (ok,
maybe the second most important).
For example, did you know that beans…beans! are actually good for
your heart and that vacations can help lower your cholesterol? I certainly
had no idea before picking up the game… Honestly, I cannot remember
the last time I learned something from a board game. Sure, I did learn
some anatomy from “Operation” (like where the “bread
basket” is), “Life” taught me that if I don’t
discover plutonium I can probably fall back on writing a best-selling
novel, and “Monopoly” demonstrated to me the importance of
anti-trust litigation. But will any of this help me live a longer, healthier
life? No. And since living longer is probably on everyone’s list
of goals, this game has mass appeal.
Besides being a great tool for teaching everyone – not just kids
– about how to take care of their hearts, it’s also a great
game in its own right. For one thing, the props are great! Each player
gets an empty heart into which they try to stack as many cigarette-shaped
tubes of “cholesterol” as possible. Each greasy hamburger,
pizza, or pu pu platter consumed adds more to the pile. Even birthdays
increase the risk for a heart attack and the amount of cholesterol in
the heart. Landing on fruit, aspirin, vacations, red wine, and exercise
allow the player to remove some of the build-up. No matter how hard you
try to balance it, though, the cholesterol will eventually spill over
the sides of the plastic heart. This could send that player to the hospital
or – depending on how many times this has happened before –
to the Operating Room. Players can end up getting elastic “stitches”
for minor surgery or even a “zipper” if these trips to the
hospital become too frequent. Players can recover or relapse depending
on the roll of the dice and the lifestyle choices they make. Cards that
call for players to switch hearts with someone else or that send players
back to the O.R. because the surgeon left one of his tools inside when
operating the first time add some twists and surprises to the game.
There’s a lot to like about this game. It’s light-hearted
but serious and it never gets old; no two games will ever be the same.
Strategy and skill are involved but the game will always be competitive
whether your opponent is 6 or 56 or 106. Plus it is guaranteed to entertain
and teach you (just like it says on the box!). It really is a lot of fun
and darn near perfect – only the addition of pop-o-matic dice could
make it any better!
For more information on how to order Heart Attack for yourself, check
out http://www.heartattackgame.com/
or email info@heartattackgame.com.