Beacon Patrol

They say that the deep blue sea is the last frontier on Earth. But in Beacon Patrol, you stay on the surface waters of the North Sea. Players take on the role of captains of the Coast Guard who explore the North Sea, ensuring safety by inspecting the buoys in the waters and the lighthouses along the shores.

Beacon Patrol is a cooperative tile-laying puzzle game for 1-4 players by Pandasaurus Games.

How to Play

Each player takes a little wooden boat, several propeller movement tokens (determined by player count), three tiles (or two tiles if there are four players), and a player aid. Then the Beacon Patrol HQ tile is placed in the center of the table with the players’ boats on top.

During a player’s turn, they will try to place all of their tiles to expand the map. Each tile placement must be oriented correctly (as indicated by the arrow on the top right of the tile). The new tile must match properly to any adjacent tiles.

And most importantly – the new tile must connect along a water edge to the tile where the player’s boat is – because the boat immediately moves to the new tile.

The current player may also swap one unplayed tile with another player, once per turn.

In addition to placing tiles, a player can move around the tiles already laid out, using their propeller tokens. The player simply flips a token from its blue side to its red side and moves one tile for each token flipped. They also have the option to discard an unplayed tile to move further.

The player ends their turn when they cannot or do not want to take any further actions. Then they discard any remaining tiles. If they used any of their propeller tokens, they flip them back to the blue side for their next turn.

Game End

When all tiles have been placed or discarded, the game ends.

Each tile must be “explored”, or surrounded on all four sides, to earn points. Tiles with a lighthouse (including the Beacon Patrol HQ) earn three points. Tiles with a buoy earn two points. All other fully explored tiles are worth one point each.

After you have scored your game, compare your points to the thematic chart in the rulebook.  See if you can beat your score next time!

Mini-Expansions

When you are ready for a new challenge, there are two mini-expansions in the box. Both feature new tile types.

Pier tiles score a point for being fully explored, and then an additional point for each house on the connected landmass (even if the landmass is not fully explored).

Windmill tiles provide power when placed in the open ocean. They score one point for being explored, and an additional point for each adjacent tile that is open ocean (no land).

Exploring Solo

Beacon Patrol intentionally allows for solo play. After some other games where the solo mode can seem confusingly different from the base game or impossibly difficult, Beacon Patrol was a breath of fresh air.

At one player, it is still a nicely challenging puzzle. When playing solo, you get four propeller tokens to help you move across the sea. You also have the choice to keep a tile at the end of each turn, drawing two new tiles instead of three. This makes up for being unable to trade a tile with another player. Otherwise, play is the same.

Impressions

We immediately loved the art of Beacon Patrol. Torben Ratzlaff not only designed this game, he drew the illustrations, too! They’re in a cartoony style that’s not outlandish.

We really appreciated the ability to swap a tile once per turn. If another player has the perfect tile but their boat is on the other side of the map, it’s not a problem. Just swap tiles and away everyone goes. It’s also useful when a player gets a bad tile early, when no one wants to discard tiles yet. Because every tile discarded is one that can’t be added to the final map.

Both mini-expansions add more complexity to this puzzle. The Windmills cause players to really focus on where they place the open ocean tiles, rather than simply using them to explore further. The Piers make the rest of the land tiles (besides lighthouses) extremely important. But don’t get stuck in an inlet!

Our oldest enjoyed the puzzle aspect, but struggled to keep the tiles lined up properly and add others without jolting the current map. If you have a younger child – or dexterity is their dump stat – you may need to coach them through patience on this.

Beacon Patrol may not be a “jump out of your seat” family game, but it does deliver a calm enjoyable experience. It’s simple enough to be accessible to many ages, but it has enough depth to keep adults coming back.

If you’re ready to patrol the North Sea, by yourself or with family, you can buy Beacon Patrol on Amazon, direct from Pandasaurus Games, or at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Beacon Patrol from Pandasaurus Games for this review.

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