10 Days in Asia! - See Asia in 10 Days

Well, not really see Asia, but yes, you can see Asia's map and get familiar and go to possibly 10 different countries in 10 days! Well that's what this game is all about. Traveling! around Asia. I had read about this series i.e. the 10 Days series (it comes in 4 variants- 10 Days in Asia, Europe, Africa and USA) and some of them had mentioned that this was the best among the lot and a good introductory game for people into boardgames.

While I can't comment on how good the rest are, as I haven't played them, I agree to some extent that this can be a good introductory game for children rather than adults.

This is perhaps my 1st of the bigger boxed games (probably you can't make out the size though my photos), but this is bigger than any of the games that I've reviewed so far.

Before I go into the game- if you have kids at home, get the entire series, it can be a good geographical experience for them, they will surely learn to locate countries and can learn about their capital, population and the size :-)

10 Days in Asia by- Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weissblum


Alan Moon is one of the most recognized active game designers and a two-time Spiel des Jahres winner. He is the organizer of the annual Gathering of Friends. Moon is an infrequent contributor to Board Game Geek under the username alanrmoon.

Moon began in the game industry with Avalon Hill as an assistant editor of Avalon Hill's magazine The General in 1979, but due to Avalon Hill's small staff quickly found himself also working as a game developer. Moon himself chronicled this time of his life in the geeklist My Four Years at Avalon Hill. He eventually left Avalon Hill in order to make a more livable wage at Parker Brothers' video division. He stayed at Parker Brothers only briefly, soon leaving to try becoming a professional game designer.

Moon worked as a game designer part-time, while taking consulting jobs and waiting tables to make ends meet. However, Moon was unable to find any success marketing his games to the larger publishers. Eventually, disheartened at the inability to find major publishers interested in his games, he co-founded White Wind in 1990 to publish his own designs. White Wind met with limited success, and Moon eventually left to again pursue design work for other publishers. In 1998, Amigo Spiele asked Moon to simplify Elfenroads, a 1992 White Wind release. Moon's resulting redesign, Elfenland, went on to win the 1998 Spiel des Jahres, establishing Moon as a premier game designer. He has since worked with many major publishers, and has enjoyed great success. Some of his reations include- Diamant, Ticket to Ride (btw this is a legend), 10 Days series etc. (from Boardgame geek website)

Aaron Weissblum is a game designer who frequently designs games with Alan R. Moon including popular games such as San Marco, the 10 Days in series, Capitol, Oasis, and New England. He is also one of the co-founders and puzzle creators for Tanga.com and has designed Puzzle Hunt contests for BGG.CON. (from Boardgame geek website)

What do you get in the Box?

For a light game, the box is very heavy! You'll see why :-)

• 78 tiles (57 Country tiles and 21 transportation tiles)
• 4 sets of wooden tile holders, 2 per set (this makes the box heavy). These wooden hilders have Day 1- Day 10 printed on them to keep the tile in the appropriate slot.
  
• A nicely printed map of Asia

The game is printed by Out of the Box and the quality of components is top class, though they could have made things light.

How does it Play?

• Players take tiles 10 of them from the face down draw pile and place them one after the the other without changing the order
• One placed they cannot be moved
  
• Place 3 tiles face up, which forms the discard pile
  

This is the initial setup and then the players start:

• On your turn, you pick up a tile either from the face down pile or from any of the face up discard pile
• You must place this tile by removing one tile from your tile holder, which is then discarded onto any of the 3 piles
• You may even discard the card you have just drawn

That's it, these are the rules. very simple right! The first to complete a logical route of 10 days is the winner!

Of course there are some aspects that needs to be adhered to while completing a route:

• Completed10 day journeys should start and end with country tiles and not transporttion tiles
• 2 tiles from the same country may be included so long as they are not next to each other
• It is not necessary to include any trasnportation tiles in your route
• Transportation tiles cannot be placed next to each other

Now having said all these how do you connect?

• Any country that is adjacent can be traveled by road, so just keep it next to each other
• On the map is the rail route connecting countries and hence you can use a Rail tile to connect those 2 countries
• Each country has a color code (5 colors in all). So you can use an aeroplane of appropriate color and connect it to another country of the same color. Eg. India (brown)- Brown Aeroplane- Russia (brown)
• Countries can be connected so long as they are on the same ocean i.e. Indian or Pacific.

So not fussy at all, pretty straight forward to learn and play :-) There is very little strategy or tactic as everything is based on tile draw, though some nasty things like placing a tile on one of the discard pile to prevent your opponent from getting a tile that you know he/she wants is a fun thing to do :-)

How long does it play?

With a really bad set of tile draws the game can extend upto 30 minutes, else 15-20 min is what you are looking at. Of course with 4 people, you can say it might be a 30 min game on an average. So pretty fast.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well I would say any household with young kids should have the entire set, just because parents can sit with kids, have fun and also learn some basic geography stuff! These games are available in popular toys/book strores across India, so you should get these ones. Otherwise I would say give this a skip as this becomes too boring with limited replayability.

Any Downsides?

Even casual gamers might not get into this game as it is too light. One say a very rare ocassion you might get a play or two, but that's about it. With luck playing such an important role, very difficult to induce gamers into this game :-)

Final Thoughts!

Well, though this game is simple and fun, I would strongly recommend this to only families with kids as they can enjoy more than a grown up adult gaming group. But as a laerning to know where countries are, this can be a fun game of and on! Try it if you get a chance before you buy! I would say for people with Children, get all the 4 games and play 40 days around the World!!

Bohnanza- To Bean or Not to Bean!

After that short little tip on photographing fireworks, I;m back again with a game review. This time an introduction into negotiation based games.

Bean planting might be the most boring/blandest theme a game could have right? Well not true, really this game is a very light negotiation game, that can generate a lot of noise!

I saw this game on the shelves of Brew Ha ha couple of years ago and thought that I should give this a try. My brother was in Singapore later that year and I asked him to get this game as this wasn't that expensive to get.

This game again is a lot of fun with a mid-sized group, say between 5-7, even though 2-7 players can play. This is a light game and is a very good game to get people into negotiation based games like Modern Art, Traders of Genoa, Ra etc.

Being a light game, everyone in the family can join in and have fun!

Bohnanza by- Uwe Rosenberg


Now this guy is another prolific game designer, some sort of a genius! He is a German game designer. He became known mainly through his card game Bohnanza, which is successful both in Germany as internationally.

He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the #1 game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg first began to occupy himself with the development and mechanisms of games during his school years. During that time, he published a number of play-by-mail games, some of which are now available at www.omido.de. When he was a student, Amigo published his best-known game, Bohnanza. Since finishing his statistics studies in Dortmund (the subject of his thesis was "Probability distributions in Memory"), his main occupation is the development of games. (Wikipedia)

What do you get in the Box?

Cards, Cards and Cards. You get 161 cards!

• 154 Bean Cards (the box comes with 11 different bean varieties in differing quantities)
• Seven 3rd Bean field cards

The art works looks nice and the version I have is from Rio Grande and hence quality impeccable!

How does this play?

Well, I haven't mentioned much about the game play throughout as I wanted to keep that completely in this section. Perhaps this is very different to other games that I have reviewed.

• Each player gets a hand of 5 cards- but the most important aspect of this game and in fact the factor that makes this game different is that players should not change the order of the cards that they have received or receive in the future!
• Each card has a number on the left hand side that tells players how many cards of that variety exists and at the lower part of the card a conversion table for harvest is given. i.e. if you harvest 3 bean cards of a particular variety, you get 1 gold coin.
  
• While I told you that this game has just bean cards, all the cards have a gold coin symbol on the back side and hence very neatly manufactured components
• Players try to plant bean cards (2 varieties if they don't have the 3rd bean field card, which costs 3 Gold), harvest it and make profit! That's it!

On their turn the following things happen:

• Players must plant bean cards (one or 2) from the top of their hand
• Draw 2 more cards from the pile, plant, donate or negotiate a deal (this my friends ROCKS)
• All players plant the traded/donated cards
• Finally the player draws 3 more cards from the pile and puts it at the back of the hand of cards again to maintain the order. However when you are negotiating, you can bring out the cards from your hand (but remember, you can't put it up the table, you can just call it out for negotiations and finally when someone trades, you them the cards) This is an interesting tactic that can change the order of cards to suit your convenience.
  

Well the entire fun part of the game is in the negotiation phase, where things really hot up, voices reaching the top of your roof, people screaming to close a deal and this is fun!

How long does this play?

Well typically the game suggests that you play 3 rounds (one round is when draw pile empties). After each round the size of the pile reduces as the gold that you make is the bean card turned over. So a full game should take you about an hour. But I play just one round and stop it (have reasons for this), which takes about 20-30 min.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well, here is where I have some reservations about this game. Yes, the negotiation part is fun, chaos, but becomes repetitive and soon people get into a rut to close deals faster that takes the charm out of this game. After the 1st few rounds the group more or less tends to close deals rather than extend the negotiation long and hard. Hence I play just the one round and would suggest all of you out there to try out a few rounds or a game or two and then decide to buy this. This game of course comes with tons of expansions so may have replayability. As I haven't played any, I wouldn't be able to judge that aspect.

Any Downsides?

I've actually mentioned the downside above and this to me is the greatest downside. Uwe created this game when he was at school, so lot of young people may find it very good, but if you are a serious gamer, I will surely not recommend this.

Final Thoughts!

As I mentioned before, this is a very good family entertainer, meaning parents with children can have a lot of fun. Or non-gamers/occasional gamers can play it during a party to get some excitement going. If you are a serious gamer, I would say stay away from it as Uwe has master pieces like Agricola, Le Havre that you will enjoy.

Capturing Fireworks

Diwali the festival of lights! A festival that the whole nation celebrates irrespective of caste creed, religion, because the very nature of this festival is all about LIGHT!

Not sure if you have read what my blog is all about. Though predominantly it is about Boardgames, it is also about photography and other stiff. Not that I'm a great photographer, but thought of sharing some thoughts that I picked up from experts, so that you guys can get better results.

With Diwali, the main focus was capturing fireworks was my main agenda. Lot of people think Fireworks polluting, use of child labor etc. etc. With all due respects to all of them I don't come from that camp. I simply love to see the colors and the pure expression of joy that it brings on people's face.

Right from the days of my 1st point an shoot digital camera, I was struggling to capture fireworks, but everytime it ended up with miserable results, until this time around where the results were somewhat better! Thanks to my friend Saurav (a brilliant photographer) and my guruof sorts. He gave me some very simple tips that ended up with the following results.

Long Exposure!


One of the tricks to capture true colors of fireworks is about long exposure. Meaning keeping your shutter spped low, i.e. keeping the shutter open for a longer period. What this does is allows more light to fall on the sensr and there by capture the streaks of light emitting from fireworks.

Tripod!

In case you want to capture those big spreading fireworks that light up the night sky- THEN DO NOT VENTURE OUT WITHOUT A TRIPOD. In fact for most fireworks photography you need a tripod, the reason is due to the above paragraph :-) Longer exposure means handshake, means a spoilt photograph.

Manual Mode (Preferred)

If you have the option this works really fine. Turn the camera to the manual mode. Set your aperture to say 11 or 12, focus on some point that is at infinity (meaning really far off) keep the shutter speed to around 3-4 sec and your are all ready to shoot.

Shooting flowerpots, Zamin chakkars using atripodmight become difficult, hence I used the Tv mode or the shutter speed priority mode, where you control the amount of time the shutter is open and the camera automatically chooses the aperture value etc. Here I have tried out many shots using different exposure times and you can see the difference in results for yourselves.

Longer the exposure, more interesting the shot becomes!

Not sure if all the point and shoot camerascome with the bulb mode, but people having DSLR's should definitely try out the bulb mode. Goto the manual settings and start turning your dial left. After the maximum value the display immediately shifts to the bulb mode. In this mode the aperture stays open for as long as you want it to be! Some of the shots that I got became very interesting using his mode. You can keep the aperture open for virtually as long as the battery lasts :-) but of course on a tripod.

Patience!

Unfortunately I was surrounded with fireworks from where I was and hence had no idea where the next one would go up, this makes patience a very important virtue as you have to constantly watch out for the rocket that goes up and immediately click to capture the whole drama. It can become irritating at times, but the results will be spectacular.

Hope this short write up helps some of you to take better photos of fireworks than I have taken.


To see the whole album, see http://picasaweb.google.co.in/madhujith/TheTrueColors?feat=directlink

BANG! - I Shot the Sheriff!!

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy- Bob Marley

Guess most of us have heard this song, well even if you haven't don't worry. The reason I put that line up is because this game is all about shooting people down!! Well not in the real sense, but using cards! And my word is this game fun!! I have not seen a simple pack of cards pack this much punch.

The game is like:

Sheriff: I'll kill all these outlaws and restore peace!!
Outlaws: Let's kill the sheriff whoz in our way!
Deputy Sheriff: Oh no! I can't let the outlaws harm my boss!!
Renegade: Ah haa!! Here's is my best opportunity to eliminate everyone and become the new sheriff!!

Well this is the game in a nutshell. This game is truly multi-player in nature in that it can accommodate 4-7 players. So finally I've come to multi-player games! This my friends is an absolute no brainer, so even before you read the review, just pick this one up..period.

I played this for the first time with a group of strangers at Brew haha (my friend's board game cafe') and fell in love with this and ordered it immediately.Ever since whereever I've been in mid-sized groups this has been a smash hit. So much so that I had to refrain from playing as they became addicted to this game!

This is a fighting, bluffing, little bit of mystery, classic western, role playing (some of my RPG friends may take offense to this being called a Role Playing Game, but it is in a very simple sense though)!

BANG! - By Emiliano Sciarra

He has been fascinated by games from when he was 12 years old, and he wrote simple board games and word games for his schoolmates and relatives. In the same time he also showed interest in computers (years later he earned a degree in Computer Science at Sapienza University of Rome).

In 1988 he published his first game: a shoot 'em up videogame for the Commodore 64 called Ciuffy (Systems Editoriale), created using the software SEUCK by Sensible Software.

Starting from 1999 he wrote several reviews, games and articles for the magazine PowerKaos and the fanzine Un'Altra Cosa, along with a brief "Little Informal Dictionary of Computer Science" (Piccolo Dizionario Informale di Informatica). His topics included logic puzzles, original games and theoretic discussions about the meaning of the game and its role in the human society.

In 2002 he published with daVinci Editrice, which was born shortly before, the card game Bang!, created two years earlier. Sciarra decided to submit the game after the members of the local Chess Club (founded by Sciarra himself in 1998) were so addicted to the game that they preferred to play Bang! instead of Chess!!

Bang! hit the shelves in July 2002: without any marketing by daVinci, the game entirely sold the first run (2400 copies) in less than three months, instead of the three years estimated by the company. According to official figures by daVinci, the game sold more than 500,000 copies and is distributed in 14 countries over the world!! (Wikipedia)

The version that I have is from Mayfair games- a publisher of board and roleplaying games in the United States and United Kingdom. They also license German-style board games and publish them in English, most notably the The Settlers of Catan series licensed from Kosmos. (Wikipedia)

What do you get in the box?

As I mentioned before this is just a small box of cards. Exactly the same sized box as any playing card deck:

• 7 role cards. The roles are- 1 Sheriff, 2 Deputies, 3 Outlaws and 1 Renegade
• 16 character cards. Each player chooses one for the game
• 80 Cards to play

Please don't get fooled by the components. I know some of you might wonder how come Madhu is harping about this game and this game comes just with some cards! You'll see that in the next section.

How does it play?

I'm not going to go through the entire rule set, but goving to give you all an overview of howthis game flows:

• Each player get a role card viz. Sheriff, Outlaw etc. and the Sheriff reveals himself/herself. Of course the number outlawsetc. change with the number of people
• Each one is then given a character card that talks about the special ability of the character and also the number of lifepoints indicated by the number of bullet. Now this character card plays the role given to you. E.g. Bart Cassidy one of the characters might play the outlaw, Willy the Red might play the Sheriff.
• Each one gets another character card, but this one he keeps it face down with the bullet seide up and coveres it using his previous charecter card to indicate the number of life points. Note: The sheriff has one extra life point as he discloses himself!
  
• Each player gets 4 cards as a starting hand.

This is the game set up and now the shooting can begin!

• The sheriff starts the play
• During any players turn, they draw 2 cards from the draw pile
• Play as many cards as they want or not play any as well! (which btw is very rare)
  
• In case they have more cards than their current life points they discard down to match the current life status

With such simple rules, you might wonder where is the fin element?

• The playing card deck comes with a variety of cards, but the most important ones are the Bang and Missed cards. Use the Bang card to shoot someone and missed card to avoid the hit!
• Apart fromthis there arespecial blue cordered cards that give you additional powers like increasing your range of shooting(each person starts with a range of one, meaning they can shoot players who are next to them, either side)
• They can put others in Jail (not the most pleasant thing to do)
• Indians attach so shoot them down
• There is a machine gun attack so avoid or get hit!
• Someone can take away your powers!
• Someone uses a dynamite!
• Oh my God! I'm hit! I'm hit! drink beer and save yourself!!

Many many more fun options to play it. There is never a dull moment in the game and it is high voltage action all along. But for the Sheriff none of the other players reveal their roles, so it is going to be a game of cat and mouse trying to guess who is on whose side!

• If the sheriff and his deputy kill all the outlaws and Renegade they win
• If the outlaws kill the sheriff they win!
• If the Renegade manages to be the only one alive- he wins (this btw is the most difficult role and fun role to play)

You don't know who's on whose side, but you keep guessing and shooting at people. There is going to be chaos, pandamonium and lots and lots of laughter.

There is limited amount of strategy, but this game was not supposed t be a strategy brain burner, but just a game of unadultrated fun and laughter for the family and friends alike.

I've seen people seeking revenge the next time around when they play completely disregarding the roles!!!!!! Absolutely hilarious this ine I say!! I have heard stories where people have almost got into fist fights!!

Enough of what I've said, just try this and I can assure you you'll find this very hard to put down.

How long does it play?

A typical game should go on for about 30 min. I would say it lasts somewhere between 30-40 min. So there you go, such a small duration and so much fun. Just that it might take a little longer in the initial games till you get used to the different cards, but once you are through, the fun really kicks in :-)

Who would you recommend it to?

You cannot not have this one..period!! Go get it everyone immediately!
Any Downsides?

Well really there are not too many things that I can complain about this game, but for some small things like the cards are not of the greatest quality and because you tend to play this so many times, may to wear out fast. There is little but of learning curve, but nothing to worry.

The only thing I would say about this game is- the more the merrier. Though you can play with 4 people, I would say 6-7 is the sweet spot. Now you may not have this number all the time, but when you have it don't miss it!

Final Thoughts!

I have played this game more than any other game with a lot of different groups- age group ranging from10-50 yrs and everyone has enjoyed htis a lot.NO EXCEPTION! I have never stopped this game at just one round, people always ask me to get it out as their first game on any game nights! I have had to tell some that my Bang copy is with someone so that I could play something else; that is how addictive this game is :-)

Though there is limited strategy/tactics purely based on the fun element this ranks as one of my top rated games!

Recently a friend of mine who did not know what board games were got this through his brother in the US!

I have no hesitation in ASKING you all to go get a copy of this game!!

For more reviews goto http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/3955

Kogworks- Turn the Gears of your Mind!

Continuing with abstract strategy games, here comes Kogworks from Dr. Wood's stable of games. "An Amazing Strategy Game" is what the punch line reads. Well to be honest, this is far from being amazing, but something that can definitely keep you engaged for short periods of time. The game is short and so is this review :-) (Won't bore you all to death)

This is a game played with 30 gears (spur gears)- 15 of each color. Players try to for a chain that connects the gears to a final golden gear at the top of the board and when the bottom one is turned the entire series should turn. This is the game in a nutshell.

Kogworks by- Dr. Woods

Dr. Woods is an Australian company that produces a lot of puzzles, mind benders and abstract games like this one, Kaleidoscope, Heist etc. The company was incorporated with the express mandate to globally commercialize the works of Dr Mark Wood (psychologist) and Frank Dyksterhuis (mathematician/physicist).

I personally feel that Kogworks is one of their better products compared to a host of other games and puzzles that they have out in the market. BTW, all their products are available across all the Landmark bookstores across the country and Crossword bookstores.

This is again a 2 player game. Takes about 5-7 min to read the rules and understand it.

I did mention in my previous post that I would be talking about multiplayer games, but this one's an abberation.

What do you get in the box?

It comes in an oddly shaped triangular (well almost) shaped box:

• A triangular board with lot of pegs to mount the gear
• 15 Red colored gears
• 15 Blue colored gears
• 1 Gold gear

The quality of the plastics are good and robust. I say this as all these gears are costantly moving and needs to be strong :-)

How does it play?

This is a very simple game that offers good tactical depth. However if there was any category called as very light games, I would gladly put this under that.

• Place 3 gears-1 each in red and blue and the gold colored gears at 3 corners of the board.
  
• Each player chooses a color and starts placing a gear on alternating turns
• After each gear each player must prove that his base gear (the corner gear) can turn
• Players can block the other by forming a triangular formation
• Players cannot have 2 of their gears in a corner forming a triangle
• The 1st player to reach the gold gear and successfully turn it by turning the base gear or successfully block their opponent in a way that they can;t turn the base gear is the winner

This is it! Simple to learn and play. I would say it playes well even with kids!

How long does it play?

The box says it takes between 15-30 min. I say it usually takes somewhere between 10-15 min with occassional games going up to 20 min. So it playes fairly fast, with very little downtime. Its great for a coffee break!

Who would you reccommend it to?

If you are looking for a very light game to be placed on your table that you can play while waiting for someone- this is a good game. This is also a good game to keep kids engaged. If you are looking for a deeper game, don't even think about it.

Any Downsides?

Personally I'm not a bigfan of light games. This game looksattractive but fails to impress you in termsof game play. You'll come across this game as a very superficial game and might lose interest after a few game plays, as it lack both in variety and depth. But never the less a good gameif you want to finish fast or kill time.

Final Thoughts!

Personally I guess this is one of Dr. Woods' better games. Others like Kingdom Quest are heavily flawed and not worth your time. This being a very light game can form an addition to your collection, but you may want to try this one out in any of these stores- the guys would be more than happy to play a game with you! Then decide if you want to spend Rs. 700 on this.

Blokus- A Fun Game with Squares!

Finally, I'm done with the Kosmos-Rio Grande 2-Player games that I had! Phew! Hope you liked a few games from the list and will try out some :-)

I have a few more 2-Player games, but they are a little advanced and hence would be talking about them a little later. Just to let you all know what they are: Mr. Jack, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation- Deluxe Edition, Dungeon Twister, Commands and Colors: Ancients etc.

From now on, I'll be talking about multi-player games i.e. where more than 2 people can join in and have fun. I'll be starting off with a very simple and addictive fun game that takes about 1-2 min to learn, but as they all say "a lifetime to master" :-)

I'm talking about the very popular Blokus (A 1-4 Player abstract Strategy game), which is available across the world, including leading toy and books stores in India. It comes in various versions:

• A classic version- this is what I'm going to talk about
• A 2 player version- Called Blokus Duo
• A Triangular version- Called Blokus Trigon
• A 3D version

Blokus by- Bernard Tavitian

Bernard Tavitian holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Paris VI, an Engineering Degree from the prestigious Ecole Centrale in Paris, a Doctorate in Biophysics from the University of Paris VI and has held a post-doctoral position in the Department of Biochemistry at Yale University in the United States. At 46 years of age, this Frenchman now lives on the revenue stemming from the success of the Blokus® game. He spends his time reading, enjoying music and …. board games. (from http://www.sekkoia.com)

This is an abstract strategy game i.e. a game without a theme. Each player has 21 'Tetris' like pieces that he tries to place it on the board and in trying to do so, he also tries to obstruct his/her opponent.

This game has won about 9 awards between 2000 when it was released to 2005.

What do you get in the box?

This game comes with:

• A game board with 400 squares.
• 84 pieces (i.e. 21 pieces in each of the four colours- Red,Blue, Green & Yellow). Each of the 21 pieces has a different shape.

That's it! The 21 pieces are actually 'Tetris' like pieces that range from one square to 5 squares (In all possible combinations). The pieces look solid with very good finish.

How does it play?


As I mentioned earlier, this game takes about 1-2 min to learn and believe me, no exxagaration here.

• Each player must begin at one of the corners of the board.
  
• The order of play is blue, yellow, red, green.
  
• Each new piece that is placed on the board must touch another piece of the same colour, but it can only touch at the corners, never along the sides

The above rules are picked straight from the website. I didn't bother writing it because these are the rules! You can just buy the game and start playing after reading the 3 bullet points!

You can play solo and try to put all the pieces on the board or with 2 players choosing 2 colors each or 3 players choosing one color each and one neutral color with everyone playing the neutral color or 4 players where 2 people team up and play as a team.

The game ends when no more pieces can be placed on the board and the scoring is as follows:

• Each square which is not placed on the board counts as a negative point.
  
• A bonus of 15 points is awarded if all 21 pieces have been placed on the board.
  
• This bonus is increased to 20 points if the 21 pieces were placed on the board with the single square being placed last.

Though it might appear that you have to keep changing your game plan i.e. very tactical, it definitely has a strategy element if you play it more!

How long does it play?

This game takes somewherebetween 20-45 min depending on how much time people take to think. Believe me though the rules are simple, this game is very engaging and will make you come back anytime!

Who would you reccomend it to?

I think everyone should have it. I had not written about it before as this was a multi-player game, but this simple game is so good and available across that I recommend everyone to have it.

Any Downsides?

Well can't really think of any, apartfrom the fact that the classic version might be a little clumsy to carry during travel. (BTW that's why you have the travel edition or the DUO :-)
Final Thoughts!

This is a classic, very simple yet very attractive. It is not that abstract like Chess that will leave you brain drained after a really intense game. It gives you enough exercise for your grey cells to keep coming back and having fun with your entire family. As you keep playing this game more and more, you'll get to understand the differnt shapes better and would know whether to use a piece in an attacking fashion or a defensive fashion. Even a 5-6 yr can have as much fun as any of us!

Jambo- How Good are you at Trading?

Well now that the weight of letting you all know to get your games is off my shoulder, I can get back to writing my reviews :-)

This game is by far the most advanced Kosmos- Rio Grande, 2 player game that I have played till date. The reason I say it is complex is not because the game mechanic is difficult. In fact the mechanic is very simple, but the sheer variety of cards that exist makes the learning curve really really steep for players! More about the cards etc a little later.

I just stumbled upon this game on the Internet, when I was looking for a lighter option to Caylus (really complex strategy game). The reason I was looking at a lighter game is because my wife was in tears after the 1st game play of Caylus. It took us nearly 4 hrs! An absolute marathon!!

More about that game later. But I read up a few reviews and finally decided to get my hand on it and got it through a colleague of mine who was traveling to the US. After having played this some 10-15 times I can say that this game offers enough strategic depth as any other big box games. Yes, it may not be as deep as a Puerto Rico or Caylus or Princes of Florence, but hey! Make no mistake this one's a winner!

Jambo by-Rüdiger Dorn

Rüdiger Dorn (born 1969) is a game designer of popular Eurogames. He was nominated for the 2005 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Jambo, which also placed 8th for the Deutscher Spiele Preis award. He was also nominated for the 2007 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Die Baumeister von Arkadia. (from wikipedia). He has designed many popular Euro games like Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa, Arkadia, Goa etc.

Euro styled games are strategy board games where luck plays almost no part in the outcome. You have all the details in front of you to take decisions and plan your game play. A tactical board-game on the contrary is one where things are very dynamic and changes every move. You really can't plan ahead of your game play in a tactical game. Eg. Balloon Cup, Lost Cities

I'm writing about these as Jambo falls somewhere in between the two. It has enough depth and strategy to keep players engaged and at the same time tactical to keep players engaged. Sometimes strategy games tend to become isolated and people may spend loooooooonnnnng periods before they make a move and that for certain people can kill the fun.

Now back to Jambo- At the heart of it is a trading game- you buy low sell high and in doing so gain gold coins. Anyone who wins 60 coins is the winner. This game comes with some amazing artwork! In fact you can spend quite a bit of time just looking and admiring the cards! By far the best artwork I've seen from Kosmos-Rio Grande.

The game comes with so many special cards that it takes 4-7 games just to get used to the variety and understand how they work in turn! More about all these in the following sections.

What Do you get in the box?


This game comes with some really nice and neat pieces:

• 2 large market stand cards- one for each player
• 5 small market stands
• 40 Ware cards
• 22 Utility cards
• 29 Person cards
• 14 Animal cards
• Gold coins in 1's and 5's
• 6 different ware chips (6 of each variety)
• 5 action markers

The artwork on all of them is top notch.

How does it play?

This game takes about 5-7 minutes to set this game up. Just that you need to separate all the bits out and place it in groups. Then you deal 5 cards to each individual, take 20 gold coins and a large market stand (that can accommodate 6 resources) and then you start the game.

• Each player gets 5 actions that he can perform on his/her turn (counted using the action marker)
• There are 2 things basically that a person can do and both of them are optional- Draw Phase and Play
• Both these phases are optional
• In the draw phase you can continue drawing a card until you decide to keep one; and once you do so you go onto the play phase where you play cards for the remaining actions
• Because they are optional, you can directly go onto the play phase and play as well

Now with the game play being so simple, you might start to wonder where on earth is the complexity? Well that is precisely what I'm going to answer in the following paragraph.

• This game comes with 8 different animal cards (14 cards overall)- these cards can cause harm to your opponent and give you a distinct advantage
  
• 10 different utility (22 overall) which gives players lot of advantages during every turn! These cards stay in front of the player (upto a max of 3) and can be used once every turn!!
  
• 13 different person cards (29 overall) that gives lot of advantage to players at different points in the game!

I'm not going to go very deep into each cards because I'll be writing out a thesis then and not a review :-)

The objective is to use these special cards along the ware cards to buy wares at a lower price and sell it at a higher price to reach 60. But there are some interesting aspects with these wares itself. A card with 3 different wares is worth more than card with the same ware! Also when you buy your 6th ware and you don't have a small market, you have to pay 2 gold extra for keeping them! If you are the 1st person to buy a small market then you need to pay 6 gold opposed to the 2nd player who pays just 3....phew so much isn't it. Well not really. Just get used to it and it is lots of fun! Trust me on that.

How long does it play?

A good game should go on anywhere between 40-45 min. Very rarely when the game gets real close I've seen it go on for an hour. But you really won;t figure out how time flew by! It is very fast, interactive with both players going at each other and loads and loads of tactics and some strategy.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well, if you have got bugged with playing some basic card games like Lost Cities, Balloon Cup etc. But fret the idea of getting into a Caylus or an Agricola, then this one's for you! Even for hard core gamers, this is a great game, because it is light compared to lot of other big box Euro Strategy Games. This game is also great for people who like to tingle their gray cells! But definitely not a brain burner. This is an enjoyable nail biting experience fo 2 players.

Any Downsides?

Well as I said before the variety is something that this game provides in plenty! But this is a double edged sword. As you can see the number of different cards can become overwhelming for some. The learning curve is really steep. As the rule set recommends you have to play the 1st few games just to get used to the cards. Most of the cards come with lot of text on them and hence can slow down the game till you get familiar with them. The inter-relation between various cards is something that you'll pick as you keep playing more and more games. As you have to draw cards from a face down pile this is definitely not a 'no luck' game. Because of this element the game has a tilt towards tactics more than strategy- though there is definitley a plan you can go with once you get to know all the cards.

Final Thoughts!

I would say Jambo is an experience (well though I don't classify it in the same league of other Euro Strategy Games). This is definitely a great 2 player small game. Don't get misled by the fact that I've laid out so many rules. The rule set in fact is smaller than my review hahahah!! This game is definitely easy to learn and play!

It is neither too long nor too short, nethier a brain burner nor a dumb game, nether is this too easy nor is this too difficult. This makes it a very attractive propositon and wants me to play more and more with casual gamers. If you are one that likes some strategy with luck, this is definitely one for your collection. But play other simpler games before you get to this; then you'll appreciate this game a whole lot better. Very elegantly desiged, this award winning game will leave you surprised at the amount of depth it offers in such a small box!

Getting your games at your doorstep!

Well for a change, I thought I would not review a game, but give some details on how to get your games. Well, it is one thing to read a review and feel good about a game, but what's the point if you can't get it :-)

Here are some ways that can help you get your games:

The best method is to ask anyone who is traveling to the USA or Europe to get it for you- it is by far the cheapest way.
Even when you want someone to get it for you, there are various places you can order your games from- The cheapest is finding a dealer on Boardgamegeek and ordering it through them. These guys are very reliable and provide very good service. One such dealer that I have done business with (I think I got some 10-12 games from him) is CLS games. Robert who is the owner of this shop is very helpful and follows up with utmost care. Last time around he called up my sister-in-law who had been to SFO to confirm if she got the games etc. His address is

• Robert S. Solow, Ph.D.
  CLS Games
  "Atlanta's Board Game Warehouse"
  www.CLSGAMES.com
  CLSGames@Comcast.Net
  (770) 310-2498
• Just mail him your requirements and he'll tell you the rest, by far the most reasonable dealer that I've come across. You can use your Paypal account an pay.

The other alternative is of course Amazon.com, which I would say is the 2nd best option. Up until recently they were delivering games to India, but now you have to check with individual sellers if they do international shipping, else you can order a game and get it delivered to an address who would then get it for you ;-)

There are lots of good game dealers like funagain.com, bouldergames.com and plenty more. So a price comparison before you order your games though.

Nearer to home you have Singapore as a destination for picking up boardgames. Paradigm Infitum is one that I have used before to get games. They deliver games to any address in Singapore or mail it to India as well. But be prepared to pay more for your games if you buy it from Singapore (http://www.pi.com.sg/). Recently I also contacted another seller called Boardgame Life Style who are based out of Singapore as well (http://www.boardgamelifestyle.com/).

One thing that I have to mention is that when games arrive, for reasons unknown to me the post ofice asks a bribe to release them, it could range depending on your box size. I have paid them somewhere between Rs. 400- Rs 1500 (It was a big box with 5 games), which is rather annoying.

Recently I got to know of a very good way of getting games- Ebay.in- They have started a new service whereby you can order any product directly from the US and pay in INR (click on the tab, buy directly from USA) and type in the game name. Most of the popular names are available and again you might end up paying a premium due to the shipping costs, but ehy your game gets delivered to an Indian reseller who then ships it to you, so no hassle of post ofiice bribes :-)

One thing that I learnt is the exorbitant cost of shipping games to India, which sometimes is more than the game itself. Hence the most ideal way is to request someone to get it from you. Even if people visit the local boardgame shop (which btw is expensive compared to the options I gave like amazon or CLS games) It works out cheaper than getting it shipped to India.

Last but not the least, some of th basic games like Clue, Scotland Yard, Monopoly, Mastermind, Taboo, 10 Days series, Blokus, Scattergories, Cranium etc. are available across many major book stores like Landmark, Crossword and toys stores like Sapphire (Bangalore)

But due to non-avaialbility of people I think I'll continue exploring more options to get the games, in spite of paying the premium. At the end of the day GAMES are my passion- a few extra bucks- I don't really mind!