It’s the 80’s in small town America, and you and up to three of your friends have just entered the last week of summer break before the inevitable return to the routine of school and homework... How will you and your friends make this summer one to remember?
Last week of summer is a game for 1 to 4 players, designed and published by Allies or Enemies and Shawn Hoult. The premise of the game circles around achieving the most objectives over several modular locations competitively, over a set number of rounds. Every time you achieve an objective you can place a memory (Represented by a cassette tape) on the relative board and at the end of the game the person with the most memories wins. There is some other stuff to it, but I'll get to that in due course!
Setup:
Getting started for a game of Last Week of Summer is simple, you lay out the Town Square tile with the Town cards shuffled and placed on the left-hand space. Lay the Party House to the left of the Town tile with the day token on Sunday for 4 players or Monday for lower player counts. The House party cards get shuffled and placed on the lefthand space (Face-up). There is no house party on the first or last days of the week.
You then choose up to 5 location tiles and place them around the Town tile in line with each street sign. You can then proceed with the setup for each location; these differ depending on the location but are all very easy to setup.
Lastly, on the Map setup you will flip over the top Town card and place the popular kid tokens on the time of day that they are at each location. There can be some crossover as popular kids can be at multiple places during the day and can also be at locations multiple times.
You then dish out the player packs consisting of a two-sided player board, with one side having the music collection segment that is required if you are using the Top Records location tile on the Town map, a velcro wallet card which is where you hold your singular dollar that all players begin with and four coloured cubes that are placed on the four different colour movie genre tracks on the player boards. Finally, you place your bank of your coloured cubes, cassettes and character tokens next to your player board and remove any unused location themed cards from your personal player deck.
The Town tile has an initiative track which one player randomly places one of each players designated colour cubes on. This is the order that players will resolve their actions.
The Locations:
Video Video – The video store location comes with a Return Box tile and a collection of teeny, little video tapes in four different colours representing one of four movie genres; Action, Comedy, Horror and Sci-Fi.
Actions at the video store generally consist of paying pocket money to choose to rent two movies from the tile’s videos are randomly distributed two at the beginning of the game. These go straight into the Return Box, and you move your cube on your player board along the genre track depending on the number of videos of that genre you choose to rent.
The objectives to make memories at the video store consist of completing the track for that genre on your player board. You need to rent six tapes of a genre to complete it’s track and you will never get enough to complete all genres so choosing which ones to focus on and which ones to just increase the value of is very important.
Top Records – The record store features a music chart and a deck of music popularity cards. Actions at the record store involve buying one of the music genres on the popularity card and placing a coloured cube on your music collection segment of your player board. You can only buy genres available on the popularity card which changes each round and only if you ghave that space free in your music collection.
Every time you buy a record that genre moves up the music charts, the amount it moves is determined by the value of that genre on the popularity card. The higher up the charts the more valuable your records of that genre become but if they get too far up the chart and become too col they then go back to the bottom.
Objectives for Top Records are themed around completing columns or rows in your music collection or by your music collections value. You resolve these objectives each round so you can try to plan your record purchases to try and increase your collections value or even devalue another players collection.
Burger Rocket – The burger joint is mostly the same as the video store but has a push your luck mechanic. Each action you flip over the shuffled Food Card deck and move your coloured cube up the track for that food type, if you draw a “Yuck!” card your action is over. You can mitigate the risk of your action being ended early by “Yuck!” cards with Coupon cards that you get for progressing up the friendship track for that location.
Objectives for Burger Rocket consist of completing the track for that food type.
Skate Park – This one has some tactile puzzle mechanics. Each action at the Skate Park involves choosing a tile from one of the stacks of either the single, double or tripe trick tiles. As you collect your tiles you must lay them out in your player area in any way you want and when you get three of the same colour tricks touching you get to make a memory and complete an objective.
You do have some option to plan your selection as you can see other people’s arrangements and pick selectively to stop them from completing sets.
Arcade – The Arcade is a random dice roll location. Depending on your hangout situation you roll a designated number of dice and place one of your coloured cubes on the value of each dice on your track on the location tile. If you complete a row, you can create a memory and roll one free dice and complete its scoring.
By progressing the friendship track you can acquire Cheat Code cards which allow you to modify a dices value.
U-Mart – At the supermarket you are not actually doing any shopping, you are in-fact defacing the wall behind the store. Each player has a Tag Goal card and during a player’s action they will choose to place cubes (Number of cubes you get to place depends if you are hanging out alone or not) on the tile either in the locations indicated on your Tag Goal card or to make a row, column or right angle of three cubes to make memories.
You can scupper other players tags by using a “Swap” action and swapping one of their cubes for one of yours. You can get the opportunity to swap a cube by progressing the friendship track for that location or choose it as part of your action if you are hanging out alone.
The Friendship Tracks – Each location has a friendship track which you get to move up every time you hang out with other kids. At certain stages of friendship, you get free actions relative to the tile’s location. These tracks also factor into objectives at the Party House so you should be planning where and when you are hanging out at locations to maximise your chances of meeting the party’s objectives.
The Party House – At the end of every day players resolve the Party card for that day’s location. These mostly consist of have the most cassettes/memories, having the most points or items and being the highest on that location’s friendship track. Each of these objectives once achieved reward you with creating a memory and placing a cassette on the Part House tile.
There is no party on the first or last day of the week but on the last day each player will get one free action on each of the locations giving each player one last change to try and increase their end score.
Round Structure and Mechanics:
Before each round you will need to do some housekeeping. You must flip the Party House objective deck to the next card determining which location is the focus this round for getting into the party and making more memories. You then flip the Town Square card dictating where the popular kids will be hanging out on the map at the three stages of the day and if you are using the Top Records location you will need to flip over to the next charts card to set the coolness and availability of the records at the music store.
Each round is played over three stages, AM, Noon and PM. Each round players secretly choose whether to either hang out or work at any location of the map. Working generally brings you in pocket money and hanging out mostly lets you interact and work towards one of the goals of that location. Whether you are working or hanging out your decision will be determined by where the popular kids are hanging out and the other players decide to spend their valuable time.
To determine how players are going to spend their day the choose from their personal deck of location cards and place the cards of their choosing face down in front of their player board in line with the AM, Noon and PM areas. At the beginning of every stage of the day players simultaneously flip over the card they have chosen for that time, place their character token on that location and then player take turns to resolve their actions.
The players personal deck of cards are made up of both working and hang out cards. Hang out cards can be used across multiple rounds and are returned to the deck once the day/round has ended whilst working cards can only be used once per game. Working cards either come with a pre-determined location allocated to it (Video Video, U-Mart etc) or as an “Anywhere” card which allows the player to choose their preferred location upon flipping over the card. After a player has resolved their actions, they then move their cube on the initiative track to the back of the queue.
Working - If you choose to work at a location this will be affected by where either the popular kids or your fellow players decide to hang out. If the popular kids are hanging out at your location at the time of day you choose to take your shift, then you get one solitary dollar and an action to take but if no one is hanging out then you always get two dollars. Cash goes on your Velcro wallet card and can be used to pay to take actions when hanging out.
Hanging Out – Hanging out works largely the same as working. If you are chilling at a location on your lonesome you generally get a better action and more value for your money, but if you are joined by a fellow player or the popular kids your action will most likely be more restrictive or expensive. For instance, at the Skatepark if you are alone you can choose a trick tile from any stack of tricks but if you are with fellow kids, you can only choose a trick from either the single or double trick stacks.
You only have seven rounds (Six rounds for solo, two and three player modes) to make the most memories out of your gang of friends so you must be selective and methodical in choosing locations. Spreading your time out too thin can result in very few memories and failure to make this summer one to remember.
Winning:
To win Last Week of Summer you must make the week one to remember by making the most memories.
At the endo of the game and the final Party House actions have been completed players gather up all cassettes from each of the map tiles and lay them out in a line for each player colour and the player with the most memories made wins.
There are some tie breakers in case of a tie which are resolved using the player highest on the most friendship tracks and if it’s still a tie then everyone wins rendering the last mins pointless.
Solo Mode:
Last Week of Summer has a pretty enjoyable solo mode which introduces an AI player aptly named “Trust Fund Tony”.
Trust Fund Tony has randomly drawn locations for his days using his movement deck and also has a randomised action deck for each location. Tony never works and gets three actions at each location. He starts one space up the friendship tracks and only progresses if the popular kids are hanging out at location.
The objective of the game is the same and some of Tony’s actions can hinder your plans just like players can. There is also ways to adjust Tony’s difficulty in the rulebook but the standard mode is adequately hard when you first set out.
Presentation and Components:
For a £40 to £50 game the quality of Last Week of Summers components are mostly decent. You get some nice little cardboard cassettes and video tapes, and everyone loves wooden cubes. It’s all nice and familiar cardboard and wooden fare.
The tiles/boards are a decent thickness and quality although it would have been nice to have boards with recesses for their components. The shiny laminate card tends to cause pieces to slide about and fall over regular. Especially the trick tokens, you end up with them everywhere any time you try to pick one 80’s neon synthwave theme on the box art and standard nostalgia bait artwork on the components. I do like that they added the S we all drew in school on the graffiti tags.
It’s all very consistent and of a quality reflective of its budget.
Highs:
The standout of Last week of Summer is the solo mode. It’s good fun, difficult and you also have those options to modify the difficulty. Solo mode also works as a great introduction to the mechanics and as an intuitive tutorial.
I’ve played this game with other adults, teens and even a six-year-old and no-one struggled with the mechanics, and everyone had a decent time. It’s very easy to teach and quick to pick up which is always a plus and after watching Stranger Things with most of our kids they enjoyed the 80’s theme.
The wooden components and some of the cardboard ones are decent quality as well as nicely finished.
There’s a lot of things to like about Last Week of Summer and the family even created some memories whilst playing it. As someone who grew up in the 80/90’s I forget most of our kids have never seen a music cassette or video tape I spent more time trying to explain these to a six-year-old than I did the rules.
Lows:
My main gripes with Last Week of Summer come down to mechanics. Most of the locations are variations on the same system and it results in you feeling like you are just going through the motions each round. It’s a lot of busy work.
Also, with it playing across seven rounds it never feels like there’s enough time to orchestrate an actual strategy, you just end up trying to score cassettes as a matter of opportunity rather than from your own planning.
The last complaint I have although the artwork is nice, nostalgic and vibrant it is all a bit generic. It’s like what someone who’s only reference for the 80’s is the Saved by the Bell logo.
Conclusion:
Last Week of Summer tries emulate the feel of going your endless childhood summer break coming to an end and trying to make the most of that last week before the monotony of school life resumes for another year. It does this to some success, the theme is great and the ticking timer of the week slowing drawing to an end gives players urgency and keeps the game flowing nicely.
Some decent components for the price tier of the game are welcomed along with a rulebook that is laid out well and very easy to follow or reference. Its’s easy to learn and easy to teach which makes it a great game night game for both friends and family which I really appreciate.
It’s all just “Nice” which is…. Well…. Nice…. But it could have been a little better with some slightly more thought-out artwork, mechanics and location boards.
