Hey! That's My Fish! Review

The most pleasant surprise I have had in quite a while was when I tried out Hey! That's My Fish! (which also has a deluxe version with cooler penguins by Mayfair here).

In Hey! That's My Fish!, each player takes charge of 2-4 penguins (depending on the number of players) in an epic struggle to steal the most fish from the glacier before it melts. (What happens to the penguins once the glacier melts? Well, it's better not to ask some of these things.) Each turn, the active player chooses one of the penguins that remains on the glacier, and he is allowed to move him as far as he wants in a straight line onto a new hexagonal piece; after which he collects the tile where the penguin started (and all of it's tasty fish). The only two caveats are these: you cannot move through another penguin, and you cannot move through an empty space (that was left by a previous penguin, or that was built into the game when you set the map up originally). Play continues like this until there are no more valid moves. At which time whoever has the most total fish (not tiles - each tile can have 1, 2, or 3 fish on it) is declared the winner! (And, though it's not mentioned in the rulebook, it is customary to celebrate with a special fish dance and think about eating fish & chips for dinner.)

Now for the pros. Let's start this off with a little honesty. Who really cares what games are kid friendly? People with kids. Since I don't have kids, I've never really put much stock into this - I've paid much more attention to whether I think the game is fun than if a young child could play it. But, alas! other people have children, and they seem very concerned with this topic. Well, Hey! That's My Fish! is the best game I have ever played at truly being appropriate for "all ages." I have played it with people ranging from 4 years old to a CEO of a local technology company. And they all enjoyed it. I don't know that I can really list any bigger pro than that - if everyone from all ages likes the game, shouldn't you have already decided you need to buy it (or at least play it)? Especially since it costs about $12.

The next pro is that the game has enough strategy and modularity that it has several metric tons of replayability. The board is completely modular. You can setup the different hex tiles in any configuration that you want, and each configuration will cause players to have to adjust their strategy. If you want, you can try putting all of the 3 fish tiles in the middle, you can try multiple glaciers, you can try a single glacier with a large cave in the middle, or anything else that you can imagine. And as I said before - however you setup the board will force players to have to adjust their strategy, thus giving the game depth.

The only real con that I can call out for Hey! That's My Fish! is that it is a bit fiddly. Since you are removing hex tiles each turn - often from the middle of the board - the board gets bumped quite a bit. This isn't too bad if you play with people that are careful, but if you play with people that are careless, you can quickly have your map destroyed - and then you'll be left wondering what a "straight line" is.

Overall, I give Hey! That's My Fish! a 9.5/10. Yeah, it really is that good. And it's cheap, too. So there's no real excuse for not buying it. Unless penguins haunt you in your dreams.

If you enjoy spatial movement games like this, you might also check out Gipf, Pentago, and Zertz - of course none of them have penguins.