Mississippi

(my photo from BGG<> a>)

Recently, I've had several occasions to play "Mississippi", a
game from the late 1980's published by Mattel. It's not the greatest
game in the world, but it is a very good race/puzzle game. Given that
it was published in 1987, before the deluge of quality games from the
past decade, it is especially remarkable and worthy of a bit more
notoriety.

The basic mechanics are simple: pay logs to move forward or receive
logs for moving backward. If your boat ends up adjacent to another,
you may end up getting a push forward, or they may, depending on the
orientation of your pieces. This bumping is the core mechanic of the
game and some involved chain reactions may be produced.

The game play can feel a little dry, but not overly so, especially
given the kind of game it is. The components are nice, but nothing
remarkable, with the one flaw that some of the pieces are hard to
distinguish colors, occasionally leading to confusion. The whole
thing plays in 45 minutes, which feels about right.

Overall, it's fun and stands up well to today's more demanding
standards. Recommended, particularly if you like abstract,
puzzle-like race games.