Shootin' Ladders - Not the gumpdrop buttons!

The short of it:

Chutes and Ladders meets Frag.

The good:

Very simple rule set, wide variety of weapons, multiple scenarios.

The bad:

Long down time in between turns especially with eight players, some unclear language in the rules (though, the creators have cleared some of them up on BGG)

The ugly:

It's war. War is ugly.

The gameplay:

Do you remember Chutes and Ladders from when you were a kid? If so, you've played the first half of this game. IT functions pretty much the same where you roll dice, move, and if you land on a ladder you go up. If you land on a slide, you go down. The difference is you don't want to get to the end of the map - you want to kill, or crumb to be more exact.

Starting out with your Dessert Eagle, you climb, slide, and run as fast as you can to find more weapons, gear, and ammo to start the mayham. Combat is very simple with each weapon having range stats, damage stats, and in some cases, special effects. And depending on the scenario depends on how you win. There's a free for all, a team play, capture the flag, and more.

Overall, it's a fun mashup between your childhood and frag. The rules are simple enough that it could be bought, opened, and played without much issue. Some wording isn't clear, but the creators have already addressed that on Boardgame Geek.

In large games, there can be a lot of downtime between turns as each player gets to unload their sugar-filled death upon one another so despite seating up to eight, I think an ideal game would be more of three to five players.

The game comes with seven scenarios, and more could easily be thought up giving this game a good replayability. Quicker scenarios could be over in about a half an hour, longer onces will take upward to two especially with a lot of players.

In conclusion, fond childhood memories merged with senseless violence, what else do you need?