If you’d like a real lightweight to get started in playing online, this may be the answer. For some reason, it went out of production some years ago, but it’s still there to play at BGA via the link at the bottom of the page.
The board is simply a row of eleven numbers, from 2 to 12, above each of which is a ‘rope‘, up which mountaineers must perilously climb.
Each turn, the computer throws four dice for the player. All that now needs to be done is for the player to decide how to combine pairs of them into numbers: so two numbers will be created.
The chances of throwing a 2 or a 12 are much less than the chance of throwing dice that will add up to 7, so the ropes for those two numbers are much shorter.
All the player has to do is to decide which numbers to ‘create’ by combining the dice, and then to advance the climber up the rope. As might be expected, the first to the top scores the points 😃
Each turn, players receive three new climbers. All they have to do is to decide which numbers to ‘create’ by combining the dice, and then to advance one climber up the rope of that number. They cannot add any more climbers to the ropes that turn. Once their new three clamberers have been sent to the rockface, it’s just those who are on the way up that can be actioned.
Having thrown once, and moved, the player may choose whether to risk throwing again. Why “risk”? Well, if they throw a combination that cannot be used by any of their active climbers, they lose the three newcomers – they tumble to a nasty end!
The choice is to decide whether to press on and hope to progress, or to call it a day and not chance your luck any further.
- lots of dice-rolling luck
- a game of risk and chance
- replayable
- very easy to learn