Clank! - A Family Review

When sneakiness meets a cranky dragon, you’ve gotta decide if the risk is worth the reward. Clank! is a wonderful medieval-themed push-your-luck game full of whimsy and adventure for the whole family!

We immediately loved the look and feel of Clank!—it definitely gives D&D dungeon crawl puzzle vibes. The map has so many visually interesting points and paths that our kids were immediately on board to explore it and get to the best looking treasures.

Plus the immersion was top tier. The kids were having a ball creating stories for what their little rogues were doing and what they were seeing on their journeys. They loved customizing their character decks as they bought new abilities, allies, and items, and they loved growing from generic thief to unique, epic hero!

9yo: “The card texts were very funny!”

Clank!’s rules can seem intimidating at first, but we quickly figured them out. Although the game box recommends 13+, our nine-year-old and eleven-year-old were playing their turns independently after a few rounds. (And the app can help even more with that.) Another highlight? The actual clank mechanic was so clever!

You could move your rogue fast, getting to the treasure quickly and sprinting out of the dungeon first, but that makes more noise adding “clank” to the game board in your colour. More clank means you’re more likely to be attacked by the dragon! This creates a lot of strategy and interesting decision points.

Do you lead the pack getting the best treasures and ending the game quickly, or do you go in quietly and look for conservative point scores, keeping yourself safe but relatively even with your competitors? And first out doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed the win! The design kept us and the kids on our toes the whole game trying to figure out how to maximize our points and profits.

Quick aside as well! The dragon design was really fun. You pull cubes out of a bag to figure out what happens, and every player hangs on this moment—hoping that it won’t be them.

11yo: “A cute game that needs strategy and luck. The danger of the dragon is fun!”

Our first game took us 80 minutes, which can definitely be a long time for certain attention spans. Turns aren’t very engaging for anyone but the active player, and the turns can be long, so patience can be key. The actions you’re planning to take on your turn can also be disrupted by other players’ actions, so it’s great for adapting and problem solving.

But in the end, what do we think of Clank!? We think you should definitely choose this game as your next dungeon-crawling, nail-biting, heist event. It’s cute, sleekly designed, crunchy in all the right places, and full of replayability. For us, we can’t wait to play some of the variants and flip the board to the more difficult layout!

Helpful hints

• Clank! has an app to enhance your gameplay with a soundtrack, additional challenges, and a solo mode!
• Name your rogue! Every time you play, add to their epic story with what they do each game!
• Deck building has been a core mechanic in hobby games since Dominion made a huge splash. Learning how to do it sets you up for lots of other games.