SNAP Review – Skyrockets

I love fireworks!

Too bad it’s illegal to shoot them off in our state without a license.

Seems like it would be a lot of fun.

But maybe also stressful! You’re dealing with timers, and fire, and explosions!

Yikes!

Game

This is a SNAP review for Skyrockets, a real-time cooperative game about making a fireworks display.

Skyrockets was created by Charlie McCarron, and it’s published by Floodgate Games. It says it’s for 2-5 players ages 10 and up.

And you can play it in 10 minutes or less!

Art

So, a game about fireworks has got to have great art, right?

Skyrockets has six colorful timers – each one is a different length of time. There’s also a deck of firework cards, a countdown track, Crowd tokens, and a deck of event cards.

These firework cards are gorgeous – each one has two colors up here in the corner, and each two-color combination has a different illustration of a complex firework picture with those two colors.

And I love that each of the Crowd tokens flip from bright and excited to dark and looking down at their phones.

Just like real life!

Mechanics

So let’s talk about how to play Skyrockets. What are the mechanics?

So, the basic idea is that you’re flipping timers based on playing colored firework cards.

Start the setup with an event card. This will tell you which timers to prepare, how many cards each player gets in their hand, and a few other special instructions. You’ll also set up a countdown track with one of the timers, and set all the Crowd tokens to their star side.

When setup is complete, flip the timers!

Now players take turns playing a card, flipping the two timers matching the icons on the card, and then drawing a new card. You generally need to take turns in order, but you can do them as quickly – or as slowly – as you like. But try to keep the sand flowing!

The timer on the countdown track is a little different – every time you flip it over, you’ll move it to the next spot on the countdown track. But you CAN’T flip it over unless it has run out. If you play a card with this color while the countdown timer is still running, you ignore this timer and only flip the other timer that’s pictured.

What happens if a timer runs out?

You risk having a “dud” and losing the crowd’s attention!

If you notice that a timer that ran out, flip a crowd token, then flip the timer over to get it started again. You’ve got two chances to keep the crowd’s attention – if you flip the third crowd token, you’ve lost.

But if you get the countdown timer to the final spot on its track, you immediately win the game! The number of stars the crowd is holding is your rating.

Woo hoo!

Skyrockets comes with 30 scenarios, each of which has its own setup rules and play style. The rulebook suggests that you play them in order, and track how many tries it takes to win each one before moving on to the next.

For a five minute game, there’s a lot of playtime represented here!

Expectations

So, what did we expect from Skyrockets?

It initially looked to me like a sequel to the game Kites. Kites was a really neat idea, but the few times I played it, I was so stressed out by the end. It’s just frantic, trying to keep all the timers from running out. But I was convinced to try Skyrockets anyway – it only takes five minutes, right?

When I first looked at it, it looked kind of boring. But I was willing to try it.

It did seem to me that having the Crowd tokens to flip over an empty timer would make Skyrockets a little more forgiving, and a little bit more interesting.

Surprises

But what surprised us about this game?

What really surprised me is how fast it goes. And I learned you don’t always want to flip a timer right away. Sometimes, it’s better to wait until they’re almost out – especially the shorter ones like red and orange.

I was surprised how much the game could change with the different scenarios! They’re grouped into “festivals” of three events each. And each festival has a different theme – some emphasize communication and others don’t even allow any talking. There are all different kinds of restrictions on how you access cards to play or how you flip timers or what you’re even allowed to see. Some are just full of crazy randomness!

I was surprised that there were only three different shows for each festival. So if you really like them, you can just play them over and over again. But if you don’t like them, you can just skip them.

All these different scenarios gave the game a sense of forward motion for me, wanting to try the next thing. That’s really rare in a game that plays so quickly, and it made it an easy “sell” to pull out, like, after school, for a really quick game break.

Recommended?

So Mom, do we recommend Skyrockets?

I think we recommend it for some families.

Since this is a fast-acting, timed cooperative game, there are going to be a lot of families who won’t like it.

There were a few scenarios that were frustrating to us, but overall we enjoyed it.

So if you’d like a super-fast game that will force you to cooperate in lots of different ways, you should try Skyrockets.

So Asher, what do you think we should rate Skyrockets?

I think we should rate Skyrockets 3½ fireworks out of 5.

And that’s Skyrockets, in a SNAP!

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Skyrockets from Floodgate Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

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