Reptilian Waves – Surfosaurus MAX Review

In what turned out to be a total coincidence, last week’s Boardgame Geek century post mentioned Surfosaurus MAX and the fact that I wouldn’t mind playing it again and then, four days later, it came out to our Sunday game day!

I asked my friend and he had not seen my post when he decided to bring it.

I love kismet.

But I don’t love that he hadn’t read my post…

I digress.

Surfosaurus MAX is a very quick card game designed by Ikhwan Kwon with artwork by Lisa Goldstein and Matthias Mödl and it plays 2-6 players.

It was published by Loosey Goosey Games in 2023.

This game is, in a way, a semi-cooperative game but in actuality it’s kind of cutthroat if you can get the right cards in your hand.

How does that work?

Let’s take a look.

First, I have to mention that this is really self-indulgent, but I love it.

They actually have a surfboard card in the game whose sole purpose is to hold the first-player standee for each player.

He’s catching the waves!

Players are going to play cards one at a time in front of them (how many depends on player count), going around the table.

Once everybody has played the right amount of cards (2-3 players play 3 cards each, 4-6 players play 2 cards), you look at all the cards and see which set of 4 (or 5 in a 5-6 player game) makes the strongest possible combination.

These combinations go from highest values (if none of the other combinations were achieved), then a sequence of cards in numerical order, then same colour, same number, and a sequence in the same colour.

That’s the semi-cooperative part, in addition to the part where you can try to work with the others to royally screw the person who’s in the lead.

Whoever’s card(s) contributed to that highest combination will score those cards.

Full coconut value (shown at the top center of the card) unless there was a tie of some kind.

Say you were looking for four of a number, and it ended up that the highest combination was five 5s.

That’s a tie because more than 4 cards contributed to it.

Thus each card is only worth half the number of points (also conveniently shown at the top center of the card, for those of you who are mathematically challenged).

You place them under the proper card and then play the next round, with start player moving clockwise.

After the set number of rounds (anywhere from 6 to 8 depending on player count), points are totaled.

That’s all there is to this game.

It’s feather-light, but also kind of zany in its own way.

The highest-numbered cards are more apt to contribute to scoring combinations, but those are worth the least points.

Nothing’s more satisfying than being the last player in a round and triggering a combination with your 02 card, which is worth 12 points.

What’s also satisfying is having somebody in a winning combination with that same 02 card, but then you play a 05, which knocks the 02 out (the strongest combination also goes by highest card if there are more cards in the combination than are needed).

The game can be quite cutthroat, as I mentioned, if you have the right cards.

It’s imperative that each player be the start player the same number of times, because going last (or near the last) is so crucial for these surprises.

Playing first, you have no idea what’s going to be offered.

If you’re in the lead and going first, nobody’s going to help you if they can at all help it.

That’s where this game can become a bit tricky and may not be for everybody.

Ganging up on the leader is very much a thing in this game, unless there are two who are doing very well, in which case it becomes harder.

The cards you have might not let you do that, but it’s always in the top of people’s minds.

There are multiple setup cards for each possible grouping of players, which is really handy.

They explain everything, including the ranking of all the combinations.

In my initial play of Surfosaurus MAX, at five players, I was a bit uninterested in this game.

Ties were plentiful, and there just didn’t seem to be much to the game.

On the second and third play last week, at four players, the game really came into its own.

I’m not sure if the initial play was due to the fact that none of us had played it before, or whether (for me) it just works better at 4 than at 5.

You do get the maximum number of rounds in a 4-player game (8).

Every other combination of players gets 5-6.

Maybe that had something to do with it.

I think the game’s sweet spot is at 4 players, but that could just be me.

Whatever player count you’re at, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to give this one a try.

The artwork is very cute and the gameplay can lead to a lot of laughs.

And you even will likely have time for a couple of plays.

Now, excuse me as I take my pet Tyrannosaurus out to see if we can catch a wave.

(This review was written after 3 plays)