allboardgames.com
Meltdown 2020 box art
2011 Ranked #10,172

Meltdown 2020

A disaster rescue game has players move people and vehicles to airfields before nuclear radiation becomes fatal. Saving vehicles can protect drivers but reduces rescue capacity, while reactor outbreaks steadily worsen the crisis.

Family Games Transportation Modular Board Pick-up and Deliver

Players

1-5

Play time

Not listed

Age

8+

Complexity

1.82/5

Rating

6.24

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.7/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.6/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.4/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

It's 2020, and a disaster has occurred, damaging nuclear reactors around the country. There's no time to lose; your help is required, and you must lead an evacuation operation to get your people to safety.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

It's 2020, and a disaster has occurred, damaging nuclear reactors around the country. There's no time to lose; your help is required, and you must lead an evacuation operation to get your people to safety. Rescue them in time! The game board in Meltdown 2020 is composed of twelve tiles, each consisting of seven hexes. Seven nuclear reactors and two airfields are scattered amongst the landscape hexes that make up the remainder of the country. At the start of the game, your color-coded twenty people and three vehicles (car, bus, helicopter) are placed on their designated hexes. You need to get them to the airfields to save them, preferably before they absorb too much radiation. You can airlift a vehicle out of an airfield, too, to save the driver, but then you have fewer opportunities to save more people. Each turn proceeds as follows: Radiation outburst – Roll the eight-sided die and place a radiation counter on the numbered reactor (or nowhere if an 8 is rolled). Move buses – In player order, move a bus up to two spaces, with a maximum of four passengers at any one time. You can pick up and drop your color-coded passengers as you wish. Vehicles can't enter a reactor hex and can't end the turn in the same space as another player's vehicle (except the airfield, which holds any number of vehicles). Radiation outburst – Same as above. Move cars – Same movement rules, but cars can move up to three spaces while holding at most three passengers. Radiation reparation – Roll the eight-sided die, then remove a radiation counter (if present) from the numbered reactor. Move helicopters – Same movement rules, but helicopters can move up to four spaces while holding at most two passengers. Radiation sickness – People next to a reactor absorb 1 Sievert radiation (1 Sv) for each counter on a reactor. People one space away absorb that many Sv minus one; people two spaces away absorb that many minus two; and so on. A person can absorb radiation from more than one reactor. When a person's token absorbs 1 Sv, lay it on its side to show that it's ill; when it absorbs 2 Sv, lay it on its back (very ill); a person absorbing 3 Sv or more dies and is removed. Radiation sickness is cumulative. People stay in their positions even after being evacuated. Vehicle drivers die only if they absorb 3 Sv or more from a single reactor in a single turn. The start player position rotates each round. The game ends immediately when one reactor receives a fifth counter or a 16th counter is to be placed on the game board. The player who has rescued the most people wins. In case of a tie, the player with more healthy people wins, with subsequent ties being broken by the number of ill vs. very ill people.

Browse all classifications

Shopping

Where to buy

No verified retailer offers are available yet. The references below may still help you continue your search.

Unverified shopping references

Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
1–5
Best with
4–5
Play time
40 min
Age
8+
Complexity
1.8/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Corné van Moorsel

Artists

2
Alvin Madden Ron van Dalen

Publishers

2
Cwali SimplyFun

Linked items

No published linked games yet.