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Haru Ichiban

First WIND OF SPRING

With the first warm winds of spring, nature awakens in the Emperor’s Garden. Two gardener apprentices rival for the title of “Imperial Gardener” and make up geometric patterns with water lily flowers.

There are eight red and eight yellow flowers, numbered 1 to 8, a red and yellow frog and 16 water lily leaves with a dark and a light side. All lily leaves are spread on the board randomly or according to the rule template, one of them showing the dark side. The two frogs are placed on random leaves, too. Each gardener draws three of his flowers for his current stock.

You choose a flower from stock and reveal it; the lower-valued one is put on the dark leaf, the higher one – it determines the senior gardener of the round – goes to a leaf of his choice, even with a frog. Then the junior gardener can shift a leaf or a group of leaves by one case. The senior gardener turns an empty leaf or one with frog over to the dark side, the frog goes to an empty leaf. Both gardeners replenish their stock. After eight such rounds or when a pattern was made, the round ends and the flower pattern is scored: One point for a square, 2 points for an orthogonal row of four, three points for a diagonal row of four and five points for a diagonal row of five flowers; with this formation or five points after several rounds you win the game.

Haru Ichiban is an exceedingly beautiful and, as regards to mechanism, a very simple game with surprising depth and quite some tactics; in this limited special edition the board comprises two halves that are held together with a rubber band and include the bowl for flowers and water lily leaves.

Players: 2

Age: 8+

Time: 20+

Designer: Bruno Cathala

Artist: William Aubert, Stefano Collavini

Price: on demand

Publisher: Blackrock Editions 2014

Web: www.blackrockeditions.com

Genre: Placement, pattern formation

Users: For families

Special: 2 players

Version: fr

Rules: fr

In-game text: no

Comments:

Limited special edition with marvelous design

Standard Edition Autumn 2015

Easy rules

Nice Mechanism

Compares to:

Abstract placement games for 2 players

Other editions:

Standard edition Autumn 2015

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0