2012 Gencon Review: Roll to the South Pole

This game came out in 2012 from Rio Grande Games.

Roll to the South Pole is a press your luck game involving dice and a few simple movement mechanics.

The object of the game is to plant your flag at the opposite end of the game board from the starting position.

Like a lot of Rio Grande Games and Euro games in general, when I saw the board and the playing pieces, I wasn’t really all that inspired to try out the game. They often look sort of boring or kids game like. Though, after playing them, they are usually quite fun and fast paced.

I did completely horribly in this game. The nice thing about quick playing, short, press your luck games is that you can go all out and lose and it can still be a fun time. I just couldn’t stop myself from rolling again when I really should have stopped.

Basically, you roll to attempt to move into a new hex and the rolls tend to get harder the further you go in one turn. On top of that, until you reach a camp or set up a camp to end your turn, if you fail to advance, you will have to fall back all the way to where you started your turn. So, me wanting to be all crazy and get super far, super fast, I pretty much never left the starting area. It was still fun though. I dug myself a hole that then forced me to keep being aggressive.

The only problem I might see with this game is that it might be the best strategy to play pretty conservatively and just make slow and steady progress. Since you can use other people’s camps, it might pay off to be aggressive early and then use the other player’s camps if you have fallen behind and need a little help to catch up.

In the end, I’d play this game if people offered it, but the theme didn’t interest me enough into buying it. It is definitely a good game for very casual or newbie gamers.