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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Face 2 Face | Moai

Moai

Price: £24.99

This item usually ships in 1 to 3 days.

RRP = £29.99

Board Game; 2-5 Players; Ages 12+ by Face 2 Face Games Moai is a game that closely follows the developments and excesses of Easter Island until the arrival of Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, the first European to discover the island and name it for the day of his discovery. ++++++++++++++++++++ Counter magazine review. +++++++++++++++++++++ 2-5 players, 90 minutes designed by Adrian Dinu reviewed by Ben Baldanza The history of Easter Island is one of isolation and extremely scarce resources. The island was first used as a game theme in Reinhold Wittig\'s Hotu Matua and later for Alex Randolph\'s Die Oster Insel. Over the last two years, we\'ve been treated to Rapa Nui (3-Hirn Verlag), Hatu Matu (Stratamax), Easter Island (Twilight Creations) and the island plays a prominent role in GMT\'s Conquest of Paradise. Adrian Dinu\'s Moai takes the historical reality of scarce resources to an extreme and in the process creates a very challenging and often frustrating game. The game board shows the island with grids to hold bidding markers in the forest, fields, volcano, and in the ocean for player turn order. The core of the game is to carve Moai, the large stone statues that make the island famous, as the player with the highest total height of carvings along with the most living clan members is the winner. To carve the Moai, players need to spend resources at the volcano quarry and have wood to transport the statue to the coast. All the while, players must feed their clans with items grown in the fields or fish from the ocean and face a consistent onslaught of disasters. The game uses five phases with most of the action coming in phases one and three. Phase one, called the Birdman phase, is a card bid for start player. But being the Birdman means more than just getting to play first and getting your choice of Epoch cards. The Birdman also breaks all ties even when not involved in the dispute. This is a very powerful attribute and thus the Birdman auctions are highly contested. Once the turn order is determined, players take one of several Epoch cards laid out in advance of the auction. Epoch cards determine how many cards the player will draw at the end of the round (and thus how prepared they will be to bid to be the next Birdman), how many clan markers must be removed from the board at the round\'s end, the card could include a boat that can be used to fish, and often includes a disaster that can be applied to another player. These cards create the sensation of being beaten on whenever you play Moai, as no matter how evenly they may be applied it always feels as if you\'re being picked on. Phase three is the Work Phase, and here players send workers to the fields to grow crops, to the volcano to carve Moai, or to the forest to fight for the limited wood available. This aspect of the game is familiar from other games, but the application in Moai feels most like Richard Breese\'s original Keydom. That\'s because each of the three spots is resolved a bit differently and at one there is serious conflict. In the forest there are several spaces that will hold a single wood token. Players bid blindly for these, with all ties being broken by the Birdman. You can\'t transport Moai without wood, and you can\'t win the game without transporting Moai, so getting wood is critical and losing a key auction is very frustrating. The volcano quarry is not combative; players place markers until they choose to carve a Moai. Moai markers are available from four to 10 meters tall, and the size you carve is equal to the value of markers you have on the volcano at the time you choose to carve. If your size is no longer available, you must take the next smaller. This feels like the scoring card selection in Traumfabrik but it is not as fragmented with just seven different sizes of Moai. Markers placed in the fields or the ocean (for those with boats from an Epoch card) each can feed one clan member; those not fed reduce the supply of clansmen on the board. Feeding the clan offers another use of the cards beyond the Birdman auction. Some cards are called \'raid\' cards, and playing one of these plus any other card allows you to remove someone else\'s marker instead of your own. This is yet another way the game has such an ``in your face\'\' aggressiveness to it. The last phase cleans up everything to start again, including drawing new cards based on the Epoch card taken, removing workers as prescribed by the Epoch card, giving birth to new clan members by playing cards (the third use for the cards), and building a boat if allowed by your Epoch card. The game plays until the Admiral Roggeveen card appears in the deck. Roggeveen is the Dutch explorer that gave the island its common name as he made the first European contact on Easter Sunday in 1722; Rapa Nui is the name of the island in its local language. Beyond its unforgiving nature, Moai blends some specific and subtle strategies in a well tested way. Watching the development at the quarry helps determine in advance how highly contest the wood will be in that round, though wood is valuable whenever you can get it. Balancing the use of the cards among the Birdman auctions, raids to feed your clan, and giving birth to new clan members is important. This makes the Birdman auctions very critical even if you don\'t win outright. The Epoch card you get each round drives your strategy in many ways, and thus being able to choose from a greater set is advantageous. Disasters will be foisted on you especially when you\'re unprepared for them, so the ability to recover is helpful though sometimes not likely. The most obvious strategy issue is in the allocation of the clan members so that they can be most productive and this often means seeing everyone else\'s position so that you\'re not in constant competition every time you need wood. Playing Moai requires concentration and a thick skin. Is the game fun to play? Not really, but it will test your nerves in ways few other games do and the historical context is dead on accurate. Play Moai with friends you can stab and then go have a beer with; leave it off the family table and don\'t try to make new friends with it.

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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Face 2 Face | Moai

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