Crossing is a fun game for families

If you’re looking for a light and quick game your whole family can enjoy playing together, we’ve got a game for you — Crossing.

While the name of the game may sound very generic and non-descript, the game play is rather fun.

Actually, even the objective of the game is a very common goal for games: Collect sets of valuable gems to get the most points by the end of the game.

However, the fun of the game is the way in which players go about snagging the gems — or “life stones” as they’re called in this board game.

 

How to play Crossing

Crossing is a super simple game to learn and play.

Set Up

Each player places a character tile in front of them and mushroom tiles are set in the center of the table equal to the number of players minus 1. So if there are 5 players, there will only be 4 mushroom tiles in the center.

All of the life stones are placed in the bag and 2 stones are randomly drawn on placed on each mushroom tile to begin the game.

Playing

In Crossing, players don’t take turns. Instead the game is played over several rounds in which all players act simultaneously.

On the count of 3, everyone points to a tile of their choice containing life stones.

• If a player is the only one to point to a tile with stones, that player takes all of those stones and places them on their character tile.
• If more than one player points to the same tile, then no one gets those life stones. They remain on the tile.

It’s that simple!

Ok, there is a bit of a catch to the game. Because players can also steal life stones from other players!

Here’s how that works.

Once a player has placed life stones on their character tile, that tile can also be the target of other players. Instead of pointing at a mushroom tile that has stones on it, players can also point to other players’ character tiles to steal their stones.

• Just like before, if only one player points to a character tile with stones, that player takes all of those stones and places them on their own character tile.
• If more than one player points to the same character tile, then none of them get to take the stones.

However, players can also prevent their stones from being stolen.

Instead of pointing to a tile with stones on it, a player can place their hand over their own character tile. This guards the stones from being stolen. That player then removes the stones from their character tile and places the stones into their storage pile. Once life stones are in a player’s storage pile, they can’t be stolen.

Any other player that pointed to that character tile is out of luck and gets nothing.

However, there’s a cost to storing stones.

After a player stores their stones, they flip their character tile over. While it’s flipped over, they must sit out the next round. After that following round ends, they’ll flip their character tile back over and are back in on the action.

After the end of a round, players refill the mushroom tiles with more life stones from the bag.

• If a mushroom tile is empty, add 2 life stones randomly selected from the bag.
• If a mushroom tile has at least one stone already on it, add 1 life stone from the bag.

Then the next round begins by again counting to 3 and pointing.

Game End and Scoring

Once the last life stone is drawn from the bag to refill mushroom tiles, there will be one final round of the game.

If there aren’t enough stones to completely refill all the needed mushroom tiles, the player drawing from the bag gets to chose where they are placed.

Once that round ends, players tally up their points — comprised of stones they’ve stored as well as what’s still on their character tile:

• The white stones are each worth 2 points.
• Each set of 3 stones of different colors (blue, yellow, red) is worth 5 points.
• Each single colored stone not fitting in a set is worth 1 point.

The player with the most points is the winner.

If you’d like to see more, check out the Game Boy Geek video review below.

 

Can the whole family enjoy Crossing?

One of the great things about Crossing is that the whole family can enjoy playing the game to player!

Since all you have to do is point, it’s super simple to play. And it’s simply fun.

Even young kids will understand how to play and quickly pick up on trying to be the only one to point at a tile with stones to collect them. If they’re really young, they may not quite understand the scoring of sets. But you could easily adjust that when playing with youngsters.

Lest you think this is just a kid’s game, older kids, teens, and adults can enjoy it just as much.

In fact, with teens and adults you can easily find yourself in very competitive situations where everyone’s wary of their stones being stolen. (It’s quite funny actually.)

There’s also no downtime in the game waiting for players to take turns. Everyone is engaged in the game the whole time. There’s not time to be distracted by electronic devices or gadgets. It’s a steady course of game playing fun.

Another thing we love about Crossing is that 6 players can play!

That means our whole family can play together and have a great time.

 

How does Crossing score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Because Crossing is such a quick game to play, it scores high on our “let’s play again” game meter.

It’s super simple to play games back-to-back. Just put the life stones back in the bag and play again.

It’s also a board game that’s simple to take along on trips — like we recently did during Spring break. It packs up nicely and was fun to play in the hotel room after a day of activities.

Thanks Asmodee for for a light and fun family game!

Buy a copy of Crossing for your family.

 

The Board Game Family Game Ratings
	Caleb
	Brooke
	Jaden
	Trevor
	Mom
	Dad
	Average