Addicted to the Shindig

There are many factors that go into making a tabletop game. Production and art draws us in. Mechanisms and gameplay seal the deal. Rulebooks teach us how to play, or how to google for a better version! What of table talk, camaraderie, and rivalry that a game can create? These are hard to craft, harder to quantify. Can’t Stop is a game where the production of the game belies the enormous impact it has on its participants. It’s a game of the space between the mechanisms and the players.

Can’t Stop was originally designed by Sid Sackson in 1980. This was long before what we think of as the modern hobby even existed. For that benchmark most folk consider Catan to be the starting point, first published in 1995. Before that moment in time games existed of course, and Sid Sackson not only designed them but was and advocate and historian for board and card games.

Can’t Stop is a deceptively simple proposition. A board is presented to the players that shows 11 columns. Each of those columns has a number at the top running from 2 to 12. The columns each have a number of spaces. The number of spaces in each column starts small at 3, rises as you go towards 7, then decreases again as the numbers head towards 12. The size of each column represents the probability of the number at the top of that column being rolled on 2 six sided dice.

On the first turn turn you will take 3 grey pieces and 4 six sided dice. Rolling the dice you form pairs of numbers however you please. You then place a grey piece on the columns of the pairs you rolled. If you rolled two of the same number then you can move the piece two spaces up that column. You then roll again. Rolling the same number as the piece, or pieces, you already placed means you get to move them. New numbers and you place grey pieces as you did before. Once all three are on you can only move up the columns you have a grey piece on. Whenever you can move up a column, or start a new one, the game compels you to do so.

You can keep rolling as long as you want, but you must move a piece every time you roll. If you hit numbers that will cause no grey piece to be added to a column, or allow you to move up a column you are bust. You lose all progress from this turn and are back to the position you held at the start of the turn. If you choose to stop, then you replace any grey pieces with ones of your colour. These are the starting points on those columns for you in subsequent rounds. In this way the game allows you to climb slowly, or zip to the top, depending on how far you want to push your chances.

The aim of the game is to get to the top of 3 of the columns.

I know what I have described has got some of you wondering if I have lost my critical faculties. It sounds totally random. There is no skill. Where is the fun?

Fun is a nebulous concept to try and pin down. It is the job of a critic like myself to try and convey to you where the fun in a game is, how it feels to play. We should not be in the business of merely telling you how it looks, what components are in the box, and what mechanisms are featured. Can’t Stop’s fun is found in the spectacle. You are invested in everyone else’s rolls and they are invested in yours.

Every time I have played Can’t Stop with new players I get the same outcome. Interest, but confusion as to what I am describing as I play out my first turn. Then they get the dice in their hands. They feel that pull of having just one more shot. As subsequent turns come round, they are closer to the top of columns so the pull grows stronger. Other players goad them on. There is laughter, cheers, and ‘head on table’ moments as they dice gods give and take away.

Can’t Stop may be a game that lives in its social aspects but that doesn’t mean it is without choice or strategy. Every time you pick up those dice you make a choice. Past the first roll you can stop at any moment. These choices are simple but they are predicated on the progress of everyone else.

You see as the game progresses folk make their way to the top of columns. They must stop rolling to claim those numbers, but when they do they lock it out for everyone else. Now no one else can roll that number and count it as a move. Sure you get any pieces back that where further down the column when it was claimed, but your choices for future exploration are curtailed.

The range of numbers is narrowing as the game progresses. The urgency is increasing as the numbers dwindle. As others claim the peaks of each column the game leans over to you. The dice are in your hand. You are near the top of another column but the number is unlikely. Manage it and you are a step closer to victory. ‘Go on’ whispers the game, ‘You know you want to’. You succeed! You pump the air and high five the other players. Then it dawns on you. You just made the game harder for everyone, including yourself.

Can’t Stop is not a subtle game but is a smart one. Sackson knew that board games can revel in the table talk they create and made this masterpiece to create some of the funniest moments I have had around a game. You can explain it in 5 minutes, maybe less and then spend the rest of the time not remembering rules, but interacting with the other players. “Go on”, you say to another player as they contemplate staking their claim on the mountain, “you know you Can’t Stop.”

I bought the Playte L Board version of Can’t Stop from Travel Games in the UK. They did not sponsor this review in any way but I wanted to draw attention to their excellent service and unusual range of games.

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