Grab your boots! It’s hiking season! Time to fill up our canteens, pack the compass and hit the trail up the Mountains! Do you think your friend would mind if we borrowed her tent? She’d be doing us a huge favor.
Oh, can I also borrow your first aid kit? That seems kind of important.
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What is Mountains?
Mountains is a memory and set collection game (with a dash of push your luck) where players are going on hikes up the mountain. Each player is trying to complete hikes that earn them stamps in their summit booklet.
How do you play?
Each player will receive a set of equipment cards to hold in their hand. On these cards are pictured different pieces of hiking equipment. The rest of the cards form a draw pile. Each player also receives 8 favor tokens to begin the game.
On your turn, you will do two actions.
- Select a hike.
- Assemble the equipment necessary.
On the board are six different stacks of hiking cards in varying degrees of difficulty. Choose one stack and flip over the top card. You must assemble the equipment shown on that card in order to earn the benefit (favor stones and/or stamps) from that hike.
If you hold those pieces of equipment in your hand, you play them in front of you, successfully completing the hike and earn the benefit on the card. When you do not have the equipment required, you may pay another player one favor stone to borrow and use theirs. If they have the equipment card they must share it. However, if they do not, they still keep the favor stone.
Once you assemble all of the equipment necessary, you earn the benefit. If you are unsuccessful, you abandon the hike and receive no favor stones or stamps.
At the end of your successful or unsuccessful hike, everyone takes their displayed equipment cards back into their hand.
If you flip over a hiking card that you feel you cannot fulfill, then you can choose to not take the hike and take one favor stone from the supply instead.
The game ends when 2 of the 3-5 degree difficulty hiking card piles have been depleted.
The player with the most summit stamps wins the game.
What do we think?
I really enjoyed playing Mountains. And even better still, my kids loved it too. They have asked to play this every day since we have gotten it.
It has the right balance of simple enough for them to confidently play, while still being challenged in doing so.
Plus there’s a stamp, obviously.
Clever use of memory element
As a big fan of memory games and a strong proponent of working on memory skills for children, I love how Mountains works. It is a simple memory game at its core, but it’s not always easy to carry out.
At higher player counts, remembering what pieces of equipment everyone has can be tricky.
There is also some strategy involved in how you choose to reveal your own information. If you are short a piece of equipment, you may want to ask your opponents if they have it first before you reveal to them what you have in your hand. The best part of this is it adds another layer of memory to the game.
Not only are you trying to remember what you’ve seen everyone use, but you are also trying to remember what you’ve heard everyone ask for. If they’ve paid to use someone’s coffee cup, you’ve learned that they do not have that in their hand, so if you need it on your next turn, you are better suited to ask someone else.
Then this all gets murky as players draw new cards. Did they draw something I need to use? I think this multi-layered memory element not only helps kids exercise their memory muscles, but it also encourages active listening and constant engagement throughout the game. Just because it is not your turn doesn’t mean you won’t learn something important.
Competitive Yet Friendly
I really love the friendly competition that is present in Mountains.
While you will be able to go on some hikes without the aid of other players, most often you will have to enlist at least one person’s help by paying them a favor stone. I like that this is a positive player interaction. Players cannot refuse to let someone use their equipment if they have it and there’s always a benefit to them for doing so.
It’s also wonderfully thematic. You probably couldn’t go on a big hike alone. You would need the help of others so as to make the journey safely.
Light and That’s Alright
Mountains is a bit lighter than some of the other family games Haba has in their game night line up, such as Honga.
This makes Mountains a bit more accessible for a younger audience who would like to play. As with most Haba games, it is language independent which is great if you have any pre-readers who are ready to join in the fun.
This light nature may not be what every gamer is looking for, but thanks to the low barrier to entry for younger kids, makes it a great choice for families. I believe Mountains can be a perfect “next step” game for kids who are outgrowing the yellow box games and are ready for their next challenge from Haba while still providing a fun experience for adults as well. It reminds me of Karuba in that sense. (Another game we highly recommend.)
Sebastian (5) was able to play along and absolutely loved the game. I love watching kids feel confident in knowing what they need to do and the excitement that washes over their face when they succeed.
(If you’re playing it with younger kids, I definitely recommend picking up these card holders. These are my favorite option to use and, bonus, they’re beautiful. Win win!)
Don’t let its light nature fool you though. In our five player all adult game, it became very tricky to remember just who had what. We also had a great amount of fun with the “table talk” possible in the game as well. I love the easy ability to create narratives and craft a story about why people have their specific pieces of equipment. For instance, when one player was holding both first aid kits and a helmet, we called her “Captain Safety” knowing we could always rely on her for our most dangerous hikes.
And that’s to say nothing of the ability to bluff about having certain pieces of equipment that you actually don’t have. I truly enjoy the way the game plays out in the conversation had around the table.
First Rate Art
Not only does the game work great for kids outgrowing those younger games, but it looks like a beautiful adult game.
One thing I have noticed about children is how they are always drawn towards things that are beautiful. Yet when we look at children’s games, how many of them would we describe as actually “beautiful?”
So often they are full of bright highly saturated colors, overly cartoony drawings, or cheap plastic pieces.
What I have found is that kids are far more interested in using items that look more like what an adult would call beautiful. Here Mountains excels.
The art is gorgeous and really helps set the scene for the players. I just love the box art design. It completely drew everyone in and made us want to play. But what I loved most is how my daughter mentioned the artwork as one of her favorite parts of the game.
She told me she thought is was calming and realistic. She said that she liked that it looked like a painting; that it made her want to go outside on a hike herself. What better endorsement could there be?
Oh, and there’s also the stamp. Obviously that was a complete hit. Who doesn’t love to use a stamp?
Summary
Haba continues to create fantastic games for families to enjoy together.
While known for their yellow box games for children, games like Mountains will provide a great “next step” for families to enjoy together who have kids that are ready for a bigger challenge.
While lighter than Karuba or Honga, Mountains is still fun for a group of adults as a lighter game night game as the memory element can prove challenging at higher player counts.
That combined with the beautiful production and design Mountains is a great choice for anyone looking to add another option into their family game night rotation, those looking for a new memory game, or those who just want a game with a cute rubber stamper. (pretty sure more games should come with them.)
Mountains gets our stamp of approval!
A special thank you to our good friends over at HABA for sending us a copy of Mountains to review. As always our thoughts and opinions are our own.
Game Info:
Title: Mountains
2-5 players 8+
Designer: Carlo A. Rossi
Artist: Michael Menzel
Publisher: HABA
Published: 2018
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