Steery

“Steery” is a game with a long history with Little Board Gamers. We contributed significantly to the feedback that shaped it into the more family-friendly game it is today, as opposed to the slightly more adult version it originally was. I was keen to include it in our summer marathon, but unfortunately, I didn’t receive a preview copy in time.

Essentially, “Steery” is reminiscent of the well-known dice-based game “Rory’s Story Cubes”, but slightly more advanced for kids, offering better prompts and a more gamified experience. To be fair, that description undersells it a bit – it’s actually a really good game, and the kids absolutely love it.

While “Rory’s Story Cubes” has always been popular, it didn’t quite have enough to keep kids entertained over the long haul. This was mainly because once you’ve seen the pictures, the storytelling becomes repetitive as the same images come up again.

“Steery”, on the other hand, comes with 192 story cards, 24 different characters, and lots of ways to steer the story in new directions.

You start by shuffling the decks and dealing five-story cards to each player. The player then draws a character card, introduces their character, and sets the stage. After that, they play a story card from their hand to steer the story and keep it by their side for scoring. They then draw a new card to keep their hand at five cards.

This part of the game has a similar feel to something like “Cards Against Humanity”, though not in terms of gameplay or mechanics. It’s the way you use the cards with prompts to engage in a fun social story that leads to lively conversation around the table.

One of my, and especially the boys’, favourite aspects was that you could really take the prompts and turn them into something fantastic. The benefit of “Steery” over “Rory’s Story Cubes” is that the prompts are more detailed, which makes it easier for kids. The inclusion of scenarios and adjectives, rather than just objects, gives more scope for creativity.

When playing with younger children, you can even ignore the scoring aspect and simply use it as a tool for storytelling. We found this just as fun, if not more so, than when we were keeping score.

For grown-ups, the scoring system is still good fun and helps ground the story. Sometimes with kids, the story can go a bit wild – for instance, in one game, Toby had everything blowing up! The game’s rules, which limit story parts to two to four sentences and allow others to object if a story goes off the rails, help keep things on track. If necessary, there’s a majority vote to retell the story in a more coherent way.

As the game progresses, players can also draw new character cards, introducing new characters into the story. These characters must feature in all subsequent parts of the story and can’t be killed off (as Toby frequently attempted with his explosions).

Eventually, someone will play an end card, which wraps up the story. Each story card has points associated with it, reflecting its complexity, and at the end of the game, you can add up the scores. However, if I’m honest, the real fun of the game lies in creating a collaborative, imaginative story that’s silly, emotional, or, in Toby’s case, a bit weird!

“Steery” is a really cool story-based game that has quickly risen to the top of the pile as the boys’ chosen game in this niche genre. They’ve enjoyed it far more than I expected and have asked to play many times since it arrived in the post. I’m really pleased it was redesigned to be more family-friendly – it was definitely the right move, and I hope “Steery” does well.

Disclaimer: Irina Bulgaru, the creator of “Steery”, is part of our community and received a lot of feedback from many of you regarding the game’s initial adult-focused concept. The game was changed as a result, and we were credited as one of the key reasons for this shift. I received a copy for the purposes of review via the UK Board Game Review Circle, but all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.