Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 1, 2008 2:57:32 GMT -5
Quickly: The epitome of easy to lear hard to master.
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]This is the first game released by Alvydas Jakeliunas who came up with the idea while thinking about AI. It was first published in 2003 in Lithuaniea under the name Pingvinas (Lithuanean for Penguin) and was released in North America by Mayfare games in 2007.
The game includes 60 hexagonal tiles that represent ice flows with 1, 2 or 3 fish on them. These are shuffled and then layed out in a roughly square pattern. Players then take turns placing penguin markers onto 1 fish squares until a set number of penguins per player each are in play (4 for 2 players, 3 for three players and 2 for 4 players). Once set up is complete and all players have placed their penguin pawns the regular player turns start.
Each turn each player does only two things. First they move one of their pengins any number of hexes in a straight line. Second they pick up the hex tile they moved FROM. That's it. Pengins cannot move over other penguins nor can they pass gaps created by players picking up 'origin' tiles.
Once a player cannot move any more penguins he removes all of his pieces from the board (including any hexes those pieces are standing on). Once no player can move a penguin the game ends. The player with the most total fish on all of their tiles wins the game. In case of a tie the player with the most tiles wins.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]The rules are about 2.3 pages long, so very simple to learn and easy to explain. Due to this you wouldn't expect much but then you start to play and realize just how deep the strategy is. It really reminds me of games like Chess and Checkers, which are pretty basic in their mechanic but involve a lot of thinking and strategy to play well. The pieces are well made. This is the first game in a long time where I was actually planning more then one turn in advance. I was a big fan of the wooden penguin pieces all of which are actually painted to show more detail then the usual wooden boardgame peice. The fact you can play a deep strategy game in about 30 minutes also has a great apeal to me.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] There was only one bad part to this game and it was so bad I had to save it for the ugly. It's bad enough that I didn't play a third game tonight because I didn't want to sort through the tiles (see below).
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Game set up is a bit messed up. The rules tell you to flip over all 60 tiles, the form them into a 'rough square' and then flip them all back over, then form them into somewhat neat rows while not worrying about beeing too neat. Then about 2 paragraphs later it warns you to make sure that the 3 and 2 fish tiles are evenly distributed. This all seems a bit rediculous to me. You figure they could have found a better way to set up the board, rather then have the players shuffle, then set up then fix any groupings. There has to be a better way, maybe with piles of 1 fish 2 fishred fish blue fish 3 fish tiles and then drawing a 2 from the one pile then 1 from the second then something else so that they end up evenly distributed.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow] I don't often recommend a game outright, but this time I have to. This is a very easy to learn game that you could teach anyone, but it has a ton of deep strategy. To boot the game isn't one of those $60 big box games, it's one of those small box games at a very reasonable price point. I think this one will be sitting in my trunk if not out on the table at all future WGR events.
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]This is the first game released by Alvydas Jakeliunas who came up with the idea while thinking about AI. It was first published in 2003 in Lithuaniea under the name Pingvinas (Lithuanean for Penguin) and was released in North America by Mayfare games in 2007.
The game includes 60 hexagonal tiles that represent ice flows with 1, 2 or 3 fish on them. These are shuffled and then layed out in a roughly square pattern. Players then take turns placing penguin markers onto 1 fish squares until a set number of penguins per player each are in play (4 for 2 players, 3 for three players and 2 for 4 players). Once set up is complete and all players have placed their penguin pawns the regular player turns start.
Each turn each player does only two things. First they move one of their pengins any number of hexes in a straight line. Second they pick up the hex tile they moved FROM. That's it. Pengins cannot move over other penguins nor can they pass gaps created by players picking up 'origin' tiles.
Once a player cannot move any more penguins he removes all of his pieces from the board (including any hexes those pieces are standing on). Once no player can move a penguin the game ends. The player with the most total fish on all of their tiles wins the game. In case of a tie the player with the most tiles wins.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]The rules are about 2.3 pages long, so very simple to learn and easy to explain. Due to this you wouldn't expect much but then you start to play and realize just how deep the strategy is. It really reminds me of games like Chess and Checkers, which are pretty basic in their mechanic but involve a lot of thinking and strategy to play well. The pieces are well made. This is the first game in a long time where I was actually planning more then one turn in advance. I was a big fan of the wooden penguin pieces all of which are actually painted to show more detail then the usual wooden boardgame peice. The fact you can play a deep strategy game in about 30 minutes also has a great apeal to me.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] There was only one bad part to this game and it was so bad I had to save it for the ugly. It's bad enough that I didn't play a third game tonight because I didn't want to sort through the tiles (see below).
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Game set up is a bit messed up. The rules tell you to flip over all 60 tiles, the form them into a 'rough square' and then flip them all back over, then form them into somewhat neat rows while not worrying about beeing too neat. Then about 2 paragraphs later it warns you to make sure that the 3 and 2 fish tiles are evenly distributed. This all seems a bit rediculous to me. You figure they could have found a better way to set up the board, rather then have the players shuffle, then set up then fix any groupings. There has to be a better way, maybe with piles of 1 fish 2 fish
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow] I don't often recommend a game outright, but this time I have to. This is a very easy to learn game that you could teach anyone, but it has a ton of deep strategy. To boot the game isn't one of those $60 big box games, it's one of those small box games at a very reasonable price point. I think this one will be sitting in my trunk if not out on the table at all future WGR events.