![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Water-Dragons-Cards-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nI often find myself quoting Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd\u2019s reading of the line \u201cWhen is a gift not a gift?\u201d from the 2021 adaptation of Dune<\/i>. I don\u2019t know why. It\u2019s lodged in the folds of my frontal lobe, popping up at the strangest moments. When considering Water Dragons<\/i> from HABA, for example, I find my inner self hunching over, adopting gravelly tones, and bubbling, \u201cWhen is a race not a race?\u201d<\/p>\nCards and Dice<\/h2>\n
Each player controls a dragon making its way along a private swimming lane towards a nest on land. The bulk of your dragon is hidden beneath the waves, but it emerges in three sections: the head, a nebulous middle, and the tail.<\/p>\n
To move your dragon, you roll a die. In lieu of numbers, each side has either a color or a symbol. Four of those colors correspond to spots in the card market on the board. If you roll red, you take the card on the red space. Each card moves some combination of dragon parts a given number of spaces. As you might imagine, the body parts cannot pass one another. If the full movement value of a card would move your dragon\u2019s tail past its middle, for example, you can still select it, but the tail stops short of passing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The two remaining sides of the die are a wild side that lets you choose whichever card you want, and a 2x symbol that gives you two points of movement. Those can be divvied up amongst your three body parts as you see fit.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re always looking for children\u2019s games to develop a skill or two in one way or another, preferably as sneakily as possible, and Water Dragons<\/em> gets kids thinking about probability. You\u2019re allowed to roll the die up to three times on your turn, doing a reroll when the result isn\u2019t to your liking. As you might expect, younger players don\u2019t always quite get the distribution curve. The number of times while playing this that I\u2019ve had to say to a child, \u201cAre you sure<\/i> you want to roll again?\u201d<\/p>\n They always do.<\/p>\n Every now and then, a shark appears in the market. Though not exactly the dynamic I would have predicted, it turns out dragons are just as afraid of sharks as little humans are. If a shark crosses your path, your dragon retracts, bringing its head back and its tail up to wherever that nebulous middle is to be found. If you\u2019ve managed your dragon\u2019s movement well, those cards are a great way to catch the tail up to the rest of you. If you haven\u2019t anticipated one of those cards coming out, and your head is well ahead of the rest of you? Not so good.<\/p>\n Water Dragons<\/i> went over well with the 5-7 year-olds with whom I played it, at least for the first game. They did ask to play again, always a great sign, but they proceeded to lose interest about halfway through that second game. It may be that four players is too many, but I quickly found the game tiresome. Given how incremental movement is, it lasts an awfully long time.<\/p>\n My fundamental issue is this: Water Dragons<\/i> never feels like a race. There\u2019s very little tension around who\u2019s going to get to the end first. Despite the die rolls, and despite the heavy swings that can result from a poorly timed shark, the whole thing is never particularly compelling.<\/p>\n![\"Each](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Water-Dragons-Dragons-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nRace to the Fin-ish.<\/h2>\n