2-5 players | 45 minutes | Age 8+
Jeroen Doumen and Matt Leacock. Z-Man Games, 2017
Rising tide is a collaborative game where players must work together to build four hydraulic structures, to prevent the North Sea flooding low lying areas in the Netherlands. The game is based on true historical events reflecting the processes the Dutch went through to improve their flood prevention infrastructure at the turn of the industrial age. Game play involves players building dikes, pumping stations, ports and hydraulic systems to limit the areas covered by water. Players must collect and trade in corresponding colour cards to build the hydraulic systems; however once built, they have benefits for that region. If a ‘Storm!’ card is pulled the sea floods the land, and whichever areas aren’t protected by dikes will be flooded with water cubes. The sea level also rises which will cause the succeeding floods to be more severe. Players must work to limit the amount of water cubes in play as surpassing 36 cubes counts as an immediate failure. In its use of the natural environment of an antagonist, Rising Tide echoes Forbidden Island and evokes an ecophobic relationship between human players and the environment simulated by the game system.
The game simulates a real world, historical situation, making building dikes an easy short term method of preventing flooding whereas more cards and actions are required to build a hydraulic structure. This implies that building a hydraulic structure might be more costly and require more resources but throughout the game these structures are favoured over the older methods such as dikes, as the dikes fail more often when the sea level rises rapidly. Although the game engages players with a historical industrial-environmental situation, it could prompt discussion of the ways in which the climate emergency will make urgent the need for coastal flood defences across the globe.
The game already supplies various methods of play to adapt player difficulty. The number of ‘Storm!’ cards that are placed in the deck can adjust the frequency a flood occurs. Beginners are recommended to use 6 cards, the amount increasing dependent on the difficulty level required. There is also a version where a population can be added to the areas. When playing this version, the objective can change from just building the structures to other specific requirements. In addition to the water cube limit there is an added element in which players will automatically lose if, as a team, they’ve lost 5 of the population cubes to the floods.
In terms of hacking the game to be easier or harder, the included variations already do this very well. Turning the game competitive, by each player having an area they need to protect could be one hack. However, this encourages flooding of other areas rather than the protection of the environment.
Adapted from the Ecogame Ludography entry written by Seth Etchells, Charlotte Gislam, Lucy Roberts, Chloé Germaine, Paul Wake and Jack Warren.