If your family enjoys the out-of-doors and survival skills, Mission: Survival is the perfect game for you! Mission: Survival has four different areas represented: the desert, ocean, mountains, and rainforest.
Unfortunately, this game seems to be out of print. At the time of writing this, eBay prices seem to run around $40-$50, but we found our copy at a thrift store for just a couple of dollars. Personally, I wouldn’t pay $40 for it, but it was well worth what we did pay. If your family enjoys CAMP, Mission: Survival is worth keeping an eye out for.
Setting Up the Game
To begin, each player is dealt 3 Mission cards and 3 Survival Tools cards. It doesn’t matter if anyone sees the survival tools, but each player should look at and keep their mission cards secret from other players. Each player pushes the button on the magic compass to determine where they will start.
Each biome has a start space, a research station, a refuge, and a government outpost. Along the path, you’ll land on danger spaces, question spaces, and blank spaces.
How to Play Mission: Survival
When you land on a danger space, use the magic compass to determine if you’re in danger (there are danger and safe zones). If you are in danger, pull the top danger card and read it. In order to overcome the danger, you need to use one of your survival tools. Both cards will be discarded after, and move 1 more space.
When you land on a question space, have someone draw a question card. Each question card has one question for each biome; they’ll read the question for your biome. If you answer the multiple-choice question correctly, you get to go again. (However, the instructions do specify that on re-rolls, danger and question spaces are not acted on.)
Each of the mission cards will have a biome and a location for the player to get to. Once you’re at the correct location for one of your missions, answer the question for the correct biome on the next question card. If you answer correctly, that mission is completed. If you answer incorrectly, the next player can move you in any direction.
These are the backs to the above question cards. Sometimes the questions relate to the backs of the cards (“What animal is pictured on the back of the card?”) and other times they’re just pretty pictures.
The first person to complete three missions wins!
Learning Within Mission: Survival
When we first got Mission: Survival and tried playing it, our kids did not know any of the answers. Gameplay was long and slow, and to be honest, it wasn’t a lot of fun. However, after a year of exploring a variety of national parks and completing the Junior Ranger books, our kids were rock stars! They were whizzing through questions with mostly correct answers. It was really cool to see how much they had learned recently.
The questions about each biome cover plants, animals, weather, dangers, and more. If your family has been learning about the natural world, then Mission: Survival is the perfect game to add to your studies. For added difficulty, don’t give the possible answers and have players come up with the answers on their own.
Overall, now that we’ve all learned so much about different ecosystems, we’re excited to play Mission: Survival more. It’s so much fun to both demonstrate our learning and to learn more!
