$45.00

Fire Tower is BACK!!! ❤️🔥

[And, I’m offering two shipping breaks – so, if you add Fire Tower plus the expansions (bundle a – see below) to the cart, go ahead and use the code SHIPPINGISGETTINGOUTOFHAND! (yes.. including the exclamation point)… and $20 will be removed from your bill.  If you’d prefer to just add the expansion without the base game (bundle b – see below) go ahead and use coupon code WHYNOTALITTLEMORE? (and yes, including the question mark… we all know how I love punctuation.. haha) and you’ll receive a discount of $10.50 from your bill. 
Simple, elegant, wonderful!!!  Just like this GAME!!  Remember, Fire Tower must be in the cart 😉

Now… what is on offer here?!?! (I’ve changed it up to include some of the expansions!)

Bundle option a) – Fire Tower Base Game, Plus Super Deluxe Rising Flames, Mini buckets, and mega hawk expansions… ohhhh… that’s a lot of fun right there!!

Bundle option b) – NO BASE GAME… just the Super Deluxe Rising Flames, Mini buckets, and mega hawk expansions… for those who already have the base game.

When you use the drop down below to add the game with expansions, or expansions alone to your cart, you should have no trouble figuring out which is which from the drop down menu!  But, as always, if you do have any issue.. please reach out! 😊

Cool artwork!  Fire Gems!  Burn your friend’s tower to the ground! 🔥❤️🔥

#WINNING!

Fire Tower is a wonderful new creation by Gwen Ruelle and Sam Bryant… better known as Runaway Parade Games.  Straight out of the gate I must confess to a bit of inherent bias.  These two are from New York (and they happen to be cool as hell)… and since I am also from New York… well… it is ON!

<throws hands in air with exceptionally acute wrist angles, and says – in heavy Long Island accent – “Yeah, what UP, New York!!  You know it!”>

Uh… moving right along.

This game has a FANTASTIC table presence, plays fast, and is a LOT of fun.  Player interaction is the rule of the day as players try to:

  1. Harness the wind to blow the growing fire away from their tower (aka àa thinly veiled attempt to direct the fire toward the player to your left)
  2. Spread fire directly with the fire cards; but always in a pattern that benefits everyone (but especially you)
  3. Chop down a fire break to stop the progress of fire (bonus karma if you can thereby divert the fire to the player on your right while claiming you “didn’t see that” when you planned it out)
  4. Throw water on those fire gems that are getting a little too close for comfort in an effort to protect your tower and stay in the game (mainly so that you can send use that fire card you’ve been holding back in a desperate attempt to take everyone down with you!)

Event Cards

Rounding out the mayhem created by direct player interaction are the event cards.  These cards may be added to the main deck after players receive their start-up cards and, when drawn, create some sort of effect; such as:

  1. Giving each player a choice of an extra action
  2. Randomly redirected the fire with an unexpected change in the winds
  3. Giving you bonus powers in the NEXT game if you have a specific card in your possession AND you win the game
  4. Causing an eliminated players tower to become a source of ever-burning badness.
  5. Allowing players who have already been eliminated to influence the game play from the afterlife.

These event cards add a good bit of unpredictability to an already great game that already has wind, fire, water and a host of slightly less than predictable elements 😉

My favorite, by far, is the Shadow of the Wood (the one that allows eliminated players to influence the game as it continues). This is a really cool way to keep players engaged!

One potential draw-back to games where players can be eliminated is that a subset of the original group continues to enjoy game night while the eliminated players pull out their phones and post GIFs representing how they feel about player elimination in their favorite boardgamer Facebook group…

Actual post of frustrated gamer after being eliminated –> https://media.giphy.com/media/ZebTmyvw85gnm/giphy.gif

Runaway Parade heads this off at the pass by making the game QUICK and FUN!  It’s highly unlikely that an eliminated player will be sitting idly by for more than 5 minutes… and the high player-interaction factor means following along for those few minutes is still a good time.

But wait… there’s MORE!

Toss the Shadow of the Wood card in the deck when someone is eliminated, and you’ve got a double-down recipe for success! Even better, the card is shuffled back into the deck again each time another player is eliminated and then ALL eliminated players get a chance to contribute to the game when that card is redrawn.

NICE!

[And when I say, “contribute to the game,” what I really mean is “mess with the board and stick it to the player that burned down their tower”]

😉

Team Variant.  Go team!

Don’t enjoy feeling like it’s you against the world? Are you the type of person who excels at office team-building events?  Well then…

Team up with the player sitting directly across from you and TOGETHER you can work in harmony to defend your fire towers from destruction.

Of course you will also work together to burn out your neighbors as quickly and efficiently as possible… but still.. at least you’re a part of something 😉

Closing notes…

This is a fast, fun game that will have you and your friends laughing, shouting, and hoping like heck that you can stop that fire from spreading your way! The “take that” aspect of this game works really well; and I say that as someone who typically shies away from this mechanism 🙂  The theme, win condition, and mechanics in Fire Tower come together to create the perfect stage for a really FUN “take that” barn burner!

In the 20-30 minutes that it takes to play the game, your emotions will run the entire spectrum (much like that darn wind direction indicator!)…

Laugh –> get revenge –> talk smack –> burn, burn, burn –> feel (feign) remorse –> laugh yet again (maniacally this time)…. REPEAT!

Fire Tower.  Get it to your table… now!

 

Ages: 14+
Players: 2 – 4
Play Time: 15 – 30 minutes
Designers
Artist: Kevin Ruelle
Publisher: Runaway Parade Games
SKU: RUNAWAY PARADE GAMES 001
MSRP:
$52 on Amazon at the time of this listing
(April 2019).  Please note that Runaway
doesn’t usually sell directly to an online shop,
but since they were supportive of my concept,
they agreed to sell me a few copies 🙂  But, one
of the requirements was that I only sold the
game at full MSRP.  Ach!  😉  So, I will be offering
those shipping discounts (see the write up!) to
keep things in the Upstart range on total cost 😉❤️
Our Price: $89.50 for the Base Game AND the Rising Flames Super Deluxe!

$45.00 for the Super Deluxe Rising Flames (with 2 mini expansions) alone

Links to BGG:

 

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Description

Fire Tower… by the fine people at Runaway Parade Games!  Two bundles – a) base game plus the SUPER DELUXE rising flame, mini bucket, mega hawk expansions… b) just the expansions with no base game! FLAME ON! ❤️🔥

Smoke rises on the horizon. A fire rages somewhere in the heart of the forest. From the height of a fire tower, you command the efforts to contain the inferno, coordinating air drops of water, fire engines, and the construction of fire breaks. Each turn the wind increases the strength of the burn, and the fire grows, bypassing your defenses as it nears your tower. Compete with rival fire departments who will stop at nothing to protect their towers. Can you survive the inferno?

The game is easy to learn, has minimal set-up time, and is intuitive to play, so that you can start playing within minutes of opening the box. That said, this is not a simple game to master: multiple variables allow for a wide range of strategies, and no two games look alike.

THE BASICS

Your turn has two steps:

  1. The wind spreads the blaze. Choose one empty space orthogonally adjacent to another fire gem or the eternal flame (the fire marked at the center of the board) and place a gem on it.

If the wind is heading east, you must place a fire gem to the east of another fire gem or the eternal flame.

  1. Take action from your tower. Either play one of the five action cards in your hand or discard as many cards as you want and redraw up to your hand size. Find out more about the different types of cards below.

HARNESS THE POWER OF THE WIND

You may play Wind Cards to do one of three actions: change the direction of the wind to the direction shown on the card, roll the wind die in hopes of a better wind direction, or place one fire gem in the direction indicated on the card.

Wind cards allow you to choose one of three actions.

SPREAD THE BLAZE

Play Fire Cards to spread the blaze towards your opponents. Place the fire gems on the board in the pattern indicated at the bottom of each card. The fire can be placed anywhere, as long as at least one gem is touching the eternal flame or previously existing fire gems on the board.

One example of a fire card is the burning snag, a falling burning tree that creates a square of four gems.

EXTINGUISH THE FLAMES

Feel the heat? Use Water Cards to remove some of the fire gems from the board in the pattern shown at the bottom of the card.

The smokejumper, one type of water card, allows you to choose a fire gem and remove fire gems from the eight spaces around it. The center gem must remain on the board.

BUILD FIREBREAKS

Need more permanent defenses? Firebreak Cards allow you to build firebreaks (purple tokens), areas devoid of vegetation that the fire cannot go on or pass through. They can only be removed using the De/Reforestation card. Quick note: Firebreaks cannot be built orthogonally adjacent to any previously existing firebreaks on the board.

One type of firebreak card, the dozer line, blocks the fire from passing through.

BEWARE THE FIRESTORM

Burn, baby, burn! The Firestorm Card comes up once per deck cycle. It must be played as soon as it is drawn, regardless of turn order. Once it is played, roll the wind die and place a fire gem orthogonally adjacent to every fire gem on the board in the direction the die indicates. At this point, every player has a chance to discard and redraw as many cards as they want from the deck.

If the wind die rolls west, you must place a fire gem west of all fire gems on the board, and the eternal flame.

PROTECT YOUR TOWER

Your fire tower is made up of the nine colored spaces in your corner of the board. You may not use water cards or build firebreaks in this area. Once the fire has breached your tower, your only recourse is your Bucket Card (every player gets one bucket for the game). You can toss it out the window in an attempt to save yourself from the flames. But if the fire comes back, watch out! This time you don’t have a bucket to save you.

The only way to remove fire from your tower is by using your bucket card.

TAKE DOWN YOUR OPPONENTS

Once the fire reaches the back corner of your tower (outlined in orange), you are eliminated from the game. Hand your cards to the player who finished you off. Everyone now plays with an additional card, and a firestorm immediately takes place. But don’t worry! The way this fire is raging, it’ll just be a matter of minutes—maybe even seconds—before the other towers burn down and you can start your next game.

Eliminate opponents by reaching the back-corner square, outlined in orange.

Last tower standing wins the game!

Additional information
Dimensions N/A
Fire Tower Combos

Base Game and Rising Flames, Mini Buckets, Mega Hawk expansions, NO BASE GAME – only the expansions – Rising Flames, Mini Buckets, Mega Hawk

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