| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Saturday 22 November 2003: |
| Another of the board game reviews - this time, Kahuna. This is the first of the board games to actually have a board (discounting Lost Cities since its board is almost completely irrelevant), even though it also has cards. The game lies somewhere between Go and Settlers of Catan both in its random factor and in its strategy. Two players only, the random factor is provided by the cards. Most random at the beginning, with each player getting three cards dealt; less random later, as the 'top three' cards of the draw pile are displayed face up. The player, when supposed to draw, can take their choice of the face-up cards, or take the top face-down card 'blind' if they don't like the known options. Drawing blind also has the advantages that your opponent can't see what you got (and thus can't divine your intent, other than "probably not something that uses any of the cards that are face-up"), and doesn't get a new option turned over into the 'visible' choices. The cards function to provide valid plays upon the board. There are a number of islands linked by dotted lines, and each card is an island name. You can build a bridge upon a dotted line by playing either of the island cards representing an island at the end of that line, or, with two cards on the same line (both at one end, or one at each end) you can destroy an opponent's bridge that exists on that line. An island whose majority of lines are covered by your bridges becomes your island - at the moment this happens, the opponent's bridges to that island are removed. They can, however, be rebuilt, and you can't "re-own" the island without first losing control of it. The similarity to Go comes in here, in that spreading your resources without actually getting any 'points' can be advantageous, allowing you to spring traps and get points all over the board, at a more auspicious time. It's a pretty good game, but doesn't seem to have a lot of replayability. A win just doesn't feel particularly victorious; more like a technicality than a triumph. A shame, since the game itself doesn't seem flawed at all. [10:05] |