Oil Drilling Games

King Oil

• In King Oil from Milton Bradley, players purchase various oil fields in which they drill. A series of rotating disks within the game board change the position of where oil wells will produce profits. The board is reset before each game. Players then buy property on which they will drill. Players who purchase a lot of property will have more drilling area and more chances to strike it rich.

  Depending on the disk placements, players achieve varying oil levels. When they discover more wells they make more money. They can also run a pipeline into the property of other players to siphon off some of their riches from their own oil well discoveries. This makes them run out of money faster which is the goal as the object of the game is to bust the finances of the other players. The winner, King Oil, is the last player standing.

BP Offshore Oil Strike

• A company in Scotland called Printabox is the maker of BP Offshore Oil Strike in which players prospect for oil. They also build oil rig structures and work to place pipelines which will send the liquid riches back to their chosen home nations. The game can include up to four players who seek to dominate the world of the oil business. The pitfalls of the game come from hazard cards which can include phrases like "Rig damaged" or "Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1 million" which makes it difficult for participants to become a top tycoon.

The Oil Blue

• There was some concern at Vertigo Games about interest in a modern oil game due to its focus but after the BP oil spill those concerns subsided somewhat. In the game you command a group of oil workers who look for oil at sea with bases on different islands. You have been hired by a company called United Oil of Oceania and your job, besides running your crew, is taking care of the drilling operations, selling any oil you find and doing it effectively.

  The game is played in real time so you have to keep an eye on everything. Your most trusted pieces of oil-drilling equipment are the groundwells because they do not break down and you don't have to worry about them as much. You can use other machines like derricks and drill rigs but they need closer attention. However, watching everything is part of the game's allure.

Gusher

• Gusher came out in 1940 as a product from Carrom Company and was designed by a man named Charles U. Deaton. It can include up to four players and is a predecessor of King Oil, with which it shares some common traits. The board for game play is actually a box and within it are things called spacers which when shaken move around and make it unpredicatble where oil will be struck, just like the disks in King Oil. Also like its game descendant you acquire properties and drill for oil to gather wealth. Unlike King Oil, however, which requires other players to go broke for you to win, in Gusher the first gamer to reach a million dollars can claim victory.