Pyramid Review
Cargo
Published by Wingnut Games
Designed by Tom Jolly, Aldo Ghiozzi, & Allan Sugarbaker
Art by the Fraim Brothers
Rules sheet, four-piece full-color jig-cut board, 80 full-color counters; $19.95
Tom Jolly has a pretty good reputation in the gaming industry, making some fairly low-key but nevertheless entertaining and insightfully creative products. Now he's joined with Wingnut Games to produce Cargo.
The object of the game is to score the most points by the time someone loads or loses his last crate.
You're all rebels taking part in the Boston Tea Party, the seminal moment in history for tax evaders. As a member of the raiding party that went to the docks to dump tea into the harbor, you're expected to ditch as much oolong as you can. Since life is never simple in a board game, you've actually been hired by one company to load their tea, so you've got a vested financial interest in seeing your employer's consignment safely onto the ship while dumping everyone else's goods. Your opponents, in turn, do the same for their company.
The action takes place on a board eight spaces squared (like a chess board), with the waiting boats on all four edges. The crates are randomly placed face-down so no one knows whose tea is concentrated where. You then place your units where you think they'll do the most good, and all the counters are flipped up so the commotion can begin. The only way to get tea anywhere is to push or pull the boxes around. Everyone has the same selection of workers . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: February 18, 2005
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