License to Krill: Whale of a Good Time, A Card Game Preview

When was the last time you played a game that came in a whale plushie? This was my first time too. License to Krill is a fun family friendly card game where players collect Krill and try and stop the whale from taking its fair share from the players. Warning this game contains more puns than any game should (in the best way possible). Join us as we dive in the deepend with License to Krill from MaKa Games.

License to Krill

Setup

First of all License to Krill comes in an awesome wale plushie. I can verify that a 4 year will be real excited to check this out. Inside the whale you will find various kinds of cards. There are OceanMarket, Whale, Krill, Kelp, and Final Krill Cards. There is a slightly different setup depending on player count. We will use a 3 player game as our example throughout this preview.

To setup a three player game players will place 4 random Open Market cards in the middle of the play area. The number of market cards varies with player count. Each player then gets a Kelp card from the shuffled Kelp deck. The Krill deck is then shuffled and a Krill card is placed face up on the top half of each of the Ocean Market cards, this completes the marked setup.

This is a fun fast paced game that has intuitive rules.

To complete setup players create the Whale deck by adding in Krilling Time cards based on the player count for our example we will add in 5 Krilling time cards and shuffle them with the 25 Whale cards. Then place the Whale cards of the shuffled 5 Final Krill cards. This forms the Whale deck for the game and completes the setup.

Game Play

To win License to Krill a player must have the most Krill Kred when the End of Game Krilling Time Card is revealed and one last round is played. Each of the Krill cards have Krill Kred values on them and collecting the Krill cards is going to add to a players score.

Krill Cards in the Market

There are 3 steps to each players turn in a round. The first part of a players turn they will select a Krill card from the Ocean Market and place it face up in their tableau. If the card has an action symbol on it they will then take the corresponding action listed on the card. The second part of a players turn they will take the action shown on the Ocean Market card that was under the Krill card they picked up. These actions will manipulate the whale plushie.

The Whale was facing the first player at the start of the game and the Ocean Market cards will make it face other players or have the current player draw a Whale cards and resolve that. The Whale cards will send the whale into action, Taking cards from players, the Market, or maybe giving players a card from its mouth. Any cards the whale takes get tucked into its mouth and if a player need to they will draw a card at random from the whale.

Thoughts

THE PUNS! Also, this is a fun fast paced game that has intuitive rules. Great for a family game night and the basic rules can be explained in about 60 seconds so that is a great reason to have License to Krill at the ready. I enjoy the variety of cards and the rules walked players through anything that was not one of the basics of the game, this reduces the learning cure and makes it super accessible to new gamers of any age or the casual gamer.

3 Player game of License to Krill

License to Krill is game soaked in fun. Wether its family game night or filling some time License to Krill will fit the bill. From its simple setup to its intuitive play, players will be laughing and enjoying License to Krill the whole game. License to Krill will be coming to Kickstarter this fall so make sure to head over and hit the notify me on launch button.

Players: 2-5

Year Published: 2024

Recommended Ages: 9+

Time to Play: 15-45 minutes

A pre production review copy of License to Krill was provided to Bert's Tabletop Games for this preview by MaKa Games. The final product may differ than what is shown here this is a preview.