The Cleaning Station

Eat plankton with other manta rays, patiently wait your turn in line at the cleaning station, and swim the waterways between without a care in the world. That was the way it was for millions of year in the life of a manta ray...until the humans showed up. Now every day is another chance for them disrupt your once peaceful lives under the sea. You're not alone though, a few of the air-breathers are here to help protect your ecosystem. Can you use their help to navigate the chaos and ensure your manta rays are the cleanest this side of the ocean? 

The Cleaning Station is 20 minute game for two players (ages 8+) about cleaning manta rays! Each player is tasked with managing a pair of manta rays: feeding on plankton to gain energy, swimming back and forth to the cleaning station, and of course getting cleaned! The aim of this game is to have each of your manta rays cleaned by as many different kinds of cleaner fish as possible.

The Cleaning Station: 

On your turn you may take up two actions, choosing from these three options (you can take the same action twice): 

Clean - Spend an energy to draw from the bag of fish, if you are at the cleaning station.

Swim - Move one of your rays to another spot on the board.

Feed - Feed all of the rays currently in the feeding corridor by rolling +1 dice for each manta ray present. 

But wait...the humans also get a turn!

In between each player's turn the humans who are encroaching on the ecosystem will get a turn too! Roll the dice to see where the boat will go: 

1 - Boat activity on the coral reefs disrupts the cleaning station, forcing the manta ray currently there to leave. 

2 - Boat activity alongside the reef disturbs those who are waiting in line. They all have to spend on energy to avoid the boat.

3 - Boats at the feeding station claim the best spot for plankton, they take the highest roll of any feed.

4 - No boats are disturbing the manta rays...for now! Instead the current player can deploy a researcher to protect one of the three locations on the board from the boat's next incursion in that location. 

Race to empty the bag:

As you play you will quickly get into the groove of feeding, swimming, and cleaning your manta rays. Basically you will draw from the bag until it is empty (excluding the blue and black fish). When you've drawn all of the fish the game is over, count up how many of each colour your manta rays got to check your score, and don't forget about the bonus!

More than just a game!

Manta rays are amazing creatures in their own right, but when you look at how they interact with other fish in the sea they become almost larger than life. These "devils of the deep" are actually gentle giants that will wait patiently at cleaning stations for their turn and coordinate with other manta rays in feeding corridors to corral plankton into a swirling spiral of food waiting to be swallowed up. 

As you play The Cleaning Station you will be simulating these parts of the manta ray's shared ecosystem, eating plankton and being cleaned by cleaning fish at the cleaning station. Manta rays really do get cleaned by cleaning fish, who can decide when they are finished cleaning (drawing a black fish). 

There are also mimics, cheater fish (drawing a blue fish) who are only pretending to be cleaners. Instead of dead skin these fish eat living tissue of the clients at cleaning stations.

Fish and manta rays really will wait in line at the cleaning station, and manta rays have been observed working together in feeding corridors. They swim in a coordinated spiral, driving heaps of plankton to the centre of the vortex where they all can feast. 

Unfortunately the encroachment of humanity onto this environment is pretty much like any other. Manta rays are hunted for food, their habitats are being destroyed, and unsustainable tourism practices are looming threats to these gentle giants of the sea. 

About The Cleaning Station

I hope you find this game entertaining, enlightening, and inspiring. While working on this project I learned of this quote from Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum: 

"In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."

I hope this game sparks a newfound interest in manta rays for you. If you would like to learn more about these awesome creatures, I really enjoyed this free documentary on YouTube, it inspired a lot of the design elements in this game. 

This game was developed as part of the BoardSprints project from Courtney Laschkewitsch.

Special thanks to Mark and Soraya for helping me with play testing. No artificial intelligence was used in the development of this game.