SNAP Review – Mount Rushmore

There’s something truly breathtaking about Mount Rushmore and its giant sculpted presidents. Though not technically ever completed, this presidential quartet is instantly recognizable far and wide. It’s this recognition the Strawberry Studio is banking on to provide context to their new image matching game Mount Rushmore.

In this SNAP review, we’ll tell you how to play Mount Rushmore; a game for 2-10 players lasting 10-20 minutes. Any age can play. Listen below, or keep reading.

In Mount Rushmore, you are trying to be the first player to choose which of the 16 monument cards matches the card flipped from the Search Deck.

Setup

Take the 16 monument cards and deal them face up in a four by four grid on the table. Look closely at the cards; some cards feature different busts looking in different directions! Deal 12 search cards into a face-down search deck, these are the cards that players are trying to win.

How to Play

When all players are ready, the start player turns over the top card of the search deck. As quickly as they are able, each player puts their hand on the card that they think matches the search card to claim it. They cannot put their hand on a card another player has “claimed”. They also cannot change cards once they have chosen one. A player may pass if they believe the correct card was already claimed.

Once everyone has claimed or passed, evaluate the cards to see who wins. That player takes the search card as their prize and the next round begins.

The search cards contains some cards with red heads on them. Red heads mean those heads are facing the *opposite* way on the correctly matching card. This obviously makes the game a little more difficult (and confusing). The rulebook recommends leaving these out for your first few plays.

Once the 12 search cards have been claimed, each player counts their cards. Whoever has the most wins!

Adjustments

There are many ways to adjust the game length in Mount Rushmore. Technically, the game will support as many players as you can fit around a table. The rulebook recommends adding a search card for each player above five.

Truly, you can add or remove as many search cards as you would like to shorten or extend the game.

Impressions

Mount Rushmore is a simple speed matching game. While the theme selection is understandable due to the near-universal awareness of Mount Rushmore, it wasn’t necessary. The differences on the cards are subtle (which direction each head is facing) but obvious enough to be noticeable. However, this then plays with the source material in a way that makes me wonder why they bothered with an actual place to begin with.

The “opposite” cards seemed like a way to inject difficulty into the game merely by abstracting an observation to the next level, which makes it a lot harder for players with less cognitive awareness; this generally means kids.

Ultimately, Mount Rushmore feels like a nice little game that belongs in a package 1/4 the size, hanging on a peg in the Mount Rushmore National Memorial gift shop. It doesn’t feel like a game for gamers, nor does it really feel like a game for kids.

Since it’s very solid for what it is, we rate Mount Rushmore 2 sculpted heads out of 5.

You can find Mount Rushmore for your National-Monument-loving friends on Amazon for around $25.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?

The Family Gamers received a copy of Mount Rushmore from Strawberry Studio for this review.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.