the Pulse - Style Fitness Beauty: Heart Attack

Heart Attack

– The Game

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.