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Spirits of the Rice Paddy

Plant rice, appeal to spirits

As a rice farmer in Bali you tend your fields and communicate with traditional spirits. The game comprises seven rounds, at the start you make your board ready according to your start card. Before rounds One and Four you draft four cards each. Round One to Five are played the same way:

Reveal Rain Card for amount of rain, pests and weeds – Select and reveal spirit card and determine order of play via cad numbers – Claim and transfer water - Optional Resolving of Spirit Cards - Allocate laborers and livestock to actions options are Build Wall, Remove Water; Remove rocks, weeds or pest and fertilize; Add water, Growth or Planting - Resolve those Farm Actions - Claim Achievement tiles - Hire Laborers, buy Livestock.

Round Six is played without hiring/buying and after the Planting Phase you play an additional Growth Phase. In round ; in Round Seven all water is removed and you can allocate Laborers and Livestock, but you cannot build walls, cannot remove rocks and cannot plant in paddies. Weed, Pests and Fertilize are played as usual as is Harvest, but the yield is higher in round Seven than in rounds One to Six. Then you sum up your rice and win with most rice.

The solo version uses an additional special rice paddy and nine additional spirit cards.

This is an attractive and very interactive game, not only due to its design and rather nice components, but especially as regards to topic and some rather sophisticated mechanism details that were used – the most original one being the mechanisms for water supply, but there are also the double use of rice for money and victory points or the varying starting set-ups for all players.

Players: 2-4 (1)

Age: 13+

Time: 90+

Designer: Philip duBarry

Artist: Jim Maxwell, Ani Roschier, Daniel Solis

Price: ca. 55 Euros

Publisher: APE Games 2015

Web: www.apegames.com

Genre: Development

Users: With friends

Special: 1 player

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Nice components and design

Includes a solo variant

Rules sometimes need a bit of interpretation

Some gaming experience recommended

Compares to:

Development games with card drafting and action options

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0