Black
Molly
reviewed by Aaron Haag
Did you ever enjoy the tranquillity of a tropical fish tank? Well, here’s the game
for you or is it? This game is about murderous Black Mollies and deadly devices and there
all but peace and quiescence in this fish tank.
The game comes in the clear and sturdy plastic box already known from Richard de
Rijk’s “Atta Ants”, published last year. And similar to Atta Ants the game
uses cards to generate a random board layout. This time 6 by 4 cards depict 24 areas of a
tropical fish tank. Some cards (7) show devices like a heater, a catcher, or a pump while
other cards (2) depict anemones. Four cards are the start areas for the four fishes of
each player while two other cards indicate where the Black Mollies start.
The rules are very simple and quickly explained. Beginning with the start player all
may players move their fishes horizontally or vertically by one area card. Fishes may not
end their move on anemone cards or on a device card with an active device. Next, the
device statuses are toggled by rolling a four-sided die. The number rolled changes the
status of the respective device. Now it is checked if the pump is active. If so, the
current moves all fishes in its path one additional area card in the direction of the
current. Then it’s the Black Mollies turn. They love to feed on young fish and the
start player must move them one area card towards the card with the least number of
fish.
Finally, the devastation results of the devices and the hungry Black Mollies are
determined: all fishes on cards with active devices or Black Mollies are taken out of the
game. If there are only fishes of one player left, that player wins the game, otherwise
the start player changes and the next round begins.
If you know Atta Ants and always liked to have an increased level of suspense by
adding more spiders, Black Molly can satisfy your needs. With more than half of the area
cards being more or less off limits for your fish there’s hardly a turn where not
some or even all of your fish are at risk. 
Many times you cannot avoid to move fishes onto a
(turned off) device card in order to escape from the approaching Black Mollies, only to
find exactly this device being turned on by an unlucky die roll later in the round.
Similar to Atta Ants it is important to take into account the player sequence and the
position of the start player who is in control of the Black Molly if they have a choice
of the route the travel.
The rules state that the game lasts between 5 and 30 minutes, which is confirmed by
the games we played. Expect rather short playing times with only two players and longer
ones with four. The downtime of players already out of the game is not too high as often
the game ends with a sudden death of a larger group of fish.
Sooner or later some group of fish will be trapped between the Black Mollies and the
devices and eventually perish. Players may find it necessary to distract the Black
Mollies with a single fish but this is a rather risky venture. Many times, it is
successful but also means the certain death of the lonely distracter fish.
Black Molly is a non-complex short game with not a lot of tactics to apply and with
just about the right amount of luck by die rolling. I can recommend it as a game for
families and not so die-hard gamers, if the subject of fishes being eaten, fried by a
heater or hacked to death by a pump is not felt to be too inappropriate.
Westpark Gamers ranking: 4.75