06 March 2025
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A board game mechanic where players have the option between stopping their turn at a safe place, or taking the chance to advance much further at the risk of losing all progress made.
Written by Emma Garrett
It’s a bit like a psychological assessment, playing push your luck games. A player’s attitude to their own luck says an awful lot about them. We all know someone who just never gets the right draw, whatever game they play. If they need a yellow, three greens will come out without fail. They’re usually playing the game opposite Little Miss Good Luck, who will make a completely subpar play on the off chance they get the very thing that they’re looking for and out it comes.
Push your luck is a simple mechanic that taps into something deep within the core of humans. It asks us how much we believe the outcome we want is going to happen. How much we’re going to risk for that glory. Many games include luck and chance. Pushing your luck is specific though. You have the option to stop, to chicken out and call it a day when the odds get too tough. The skill is two-fold. You need to calculate, or instinctively feel, the odds and then stop when you believe the odds are now too bad for your level of luck, or what sort of day you’re having, or whatever your preferred method is for deciding if a random event will happen or not.
The hardest thing about many these games is that you will never know if you stopped at exactly the right time or if you could’ve kept going. Every instinct is telling you to keep going because it happened last time, or it has never happened so it’s really due to happen this time. It’s an infuriating excitement for statisticians and a rollercoaster ride for those who believe in their own luck. Groups will get meta stories to live and die by. The levels of peer pressure are riotous, motivated only in part by the fact your demise is good for everyone else...
Push Your Luck Board Games
MLEM: Space Agency
On first play of MLEM, you won’t believe it’s possible to roll with enough luck to reach outer space, and then someone waltzes all the way up the board twice in one game. The scoring is tight, so a sensible play is often to jump off the ship at the first opportunity, even if the odds are still in your favour, and build up a solid score while everyone else squanders their chances chasing the big time. Still, it’s also possible to crash the rocket on the first roll.
13 Beavers
As an avid Radio 1 fan, I couldn’t resist putting in this game, designed by DJ Matt Edmondson at Format Games. It’s sickeningly simple: predict whether the next card will be higher or lower to advance your beaver through the waterways. There are safe spots where you can sit and watch your opponents destroy themselves and shortcuts you can take if you want to push your luck even further. The intensity of emotion that explodes from the simple premise creates a memorable experience and a high that can’t be legally replicated.
The Quacks of Quedlinburg
Quacks is pulling tokens out of the bag and placing them in your pot. You want to get the furthest you can through the pot, but some of your tokens are poisoned. It’s wonderful watching people’s calculations change as the number of tokens diminishes. There’s a 2/12 chance of exploding, that’s fine, okay we’re now on a 2/7, maybe it’s time to stop. All the while believing that the intelligent choices you’ve made when buying tokens will see you through to victory.
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