Review – Fire in the Library

I’m a pretty big fan of push your luck games.

Hell, I play tons of games of Can’t Stop on Boardgame Arena, even though it’s not an awesome asynchronous game.

I just can’t get enough with pushing my luck!

I’m also a bibliophile.

I love books. I love reading them, and if I had the space, I’d love collecting them. (Instead, I mainly read e-books).

Put those two tastes together and what do you get?

You get Fire in the Library, published by Weird Giraffe Games.

Designed by Tony Miller and John Prather, with artwork by Katie Khau, Jon Merchant, and Beth Sobel, this game was published in 2019.

Before I go any further, I want to say that I met Carla from Weird Giraffe Games at OrcaCon back in January and she is one of the nicest people I met. I didn’t talk to her a whole lot, but listening to her talk to Sean from Thing 12 Games was a treat, especially seeing the ins and outs of game publishing.

Anyway, let’s talk about Fire in the Library.

You’re working in the library when it catches fire. Books are burning everywhere!

You are trying to save as many books as you can as the fire gets worse and worse.

How much knowledge can you save?

That’s what the points you accumulate will indicate.

Let’s see how it works.

In Fire in the Library, you will be drawing cubes from a bag full of cubes.

Many of the cubes are the colour of the books from various sections of the library.

The library consists of four stacks of cards, and as you push your luck and fail, cards are removed from these stacks.

You know what works best in push your luck games, at least as far as I’m concerned?

Player agency.

Not just “do I want to go again even though I may bust and lose everything?”

That’s pretty standard.

No, the push your luck in Fire in the Library is enhanced by the player order choices.

As a catch-up mechanism, who draws first in the round is determined in order from the person with the least number of points to the player who is leading.

The last-place player chooses where they want to be in player order for the next round.

Going first is going to be risky!

See those flame markers?

When you draw a cube and place it on the card, if it’s a red fire token and the space has a flame, you automatically bust.

The empty spaces can hold one fire cube, but if you draw a second one, then you also bust.

As you can see, if you are going 4th, you are safe as long as you don’t draw two fire cubes.

However, you won’t get as many points, as if you do stop before busting, you get the points underneath each flame space.

This decision space in a push your luck game is very attractive. You can not only decide whether you want to keep going or not, but you can decide how risky you want to be even before you start drawing cubes.

If you’re in last place, you could choose the risky 1st place or the safe 4th (depending on how many players there are)

If you stop before you get to a flame space, you will get a tool card.

You will also get one if you bust.

These tools can be used in various phases of the game to help prevent you busting, or maybe let you save one of the book cubes that you drew before busting.

The Gloves are almost overpowered a bit, though you can still bust by drawing two fire cubes.

Getting the bravery points (the points underneath the flame spaces) and having it so you require two fire cubes before you bust is pretty sweet!

Still, it’s nice that you can get these tool cards (you start with some as well) to help you in your task to save books.

If you’re really lucky, you might get a turn order card like this after you finish drawing cubes.

Once you stop, you get points for each colour cube you have that matches the top card of the same-coloured stack, as well as bravery points if you went that far.

If you bust, then you burn off the top card of the stack of each coloured cube you had before you busted.

At the end of the round, the top card with the lowest number in the circle also burns up. This makes it so the library keeps burning even if nobody busts.

If a newly-revealed library card has a flame on it, you add a red fire cube to the bag, making it more likely that they will be drawn.

The horrors!!!

When one of the library stacks is down to its last card, the game ends immediately.

None of this namby-pamby “oh, everybody gets one more turn, because everybody’s equal” BS.

Nope, the game ends.

NOW!

You have to respect a game that doesn’t coddle its players, especially when it’s a fairly lightweight game overall.

Kudos!

When I say lightweight, that is definitely true of Fire in the Library.

And that’s not a bad thing!

This is a perfect lunchtime game at work, where even the non-gamers you work with could pick it up.

It plays six players.

Yes, that’s right. Six players!

Have your normal lunch at work gamer group and then add a few others for spice.

It’s extremely easy to pick up.

I also like, at least somewhat, how the box is like a book that opens, and the scoreboard is on the inside of the front cover.

I say “somewhat” because that does mean you have to have the rest of the box sitting on the table, getting in the way, rather than putting it off to the side.

It’s very thematic, but depending on the table, it can be a bit irritating too.

The other minor criticism I have of the game, and really it isn’t of the game but of the push your luck genre as a whole, is that if you are falling behind, you feel like you have to take a lot of chances to catch up.

And when you inevitably bust, you are even further behind.

Fire in the Library actually works a little better (not much, but a little) in that regard, because you can still choose to go fourth (for example) and if you draw a lot of book cubes, you could get a lot of points. Maybe make the players who are ahead of you take all of the chances!

I do like that part of it.

But if you’re behind, you’re still feeling that urge to push things even harder.

The tool cards are also a great help in playing the game, and I only wish there were a bit more of a variety.

Granted, I’ve never played at more than 3 players, so two of the tools aren’t actually used.

The tools that we do get are very helpful!

I like that kind of luck mitigation, as many of them will help you avoid busting.

Or maybe even piss off your opponents.

Take that Slingshot and put the fire cube on your opponent’s card (along with a book, but maybe you drew a low-point cube?). Then keep pressing your luck, and they’re already starting with a fire cube!

All in all, Fire in the Library is a great example of the push your luck genre, and is even one of the better instances of it.

If you don’t like a lot of luck, and you don’t like quick games, then this one isn’t for you.

Did I say quick?

Yes!

It’s a great game for lunch because all of our games have taken around 30 minutes (except our learning game, which took 42).

Not only is this a great lunchtime game, but it could also be a good starter or ender of a board game day/night.

Playing with six players, it will meet any contingency you might have!

Give this one a try if you can.

I highly recommend it.

This review was written after 5 plays