OUR REVIEW

RACING CAMELS IN THE DESERT

CAMEL UP

DICE IN A PYRAMID

Camel Up! In my first encounter with the name I was thinking that the name might be Camel Cup, but in the web I quickly found out that the name really is Camel Up.

Well, let me tell you, by now have grasped why the game is called Camel Up -  in this cute and witty it often happens that camels are stacked in towers, but this is part of how the game works and I will come back to it later.

The box cover is adorned with several camels which try, showing in their more or less grim faces, to win a race of camel. Only one camel is grinning, and that is the one sitting on another camel in the middle.

So, the topic of Camel Up is a camel race around a pyramid, and this pyramid is of course also depicted on the cover, in the background.

Players bet on individual camels that the will win one of the individual rounds of the game, which camel will be first to cross the finish line and win and which camel will finish the race in last position.

In the course of the game players can win a lot of money with those bets, but also loose quite a lot of it. Obviously this determines the winning condition: winner of the game is always the player who has most money at the end of the game.

Camels in the game are not allocated to players, but are moved by all players randomly.

When you open the box you find the following components:

1 game board, 5 camels in different colors, 5 wooden dice in the five camel colors, 40 betting cards (5 betting cards per player), 8 desert tiles, 15 betting tiles for race legs, 5 pyramid tiles, 1 marker for the starting player of a leg and money – Egyptian Pounds – in coins and notes. Here some praise is due to the fact that the amount and values of those money units are listed exactly in the rules.

Unfortunately, many rules still state “and money in different denominations” – which very often makes it hard to find out if a used game is complete.

But I am digressing, let’s get back to the game – in the box you also find a pyramid made up from card board pieces that need to be assembled. This pyramid provides a cute and interesting dice cup, in which you place the five dice. The pyramid has an opening in the size of a die that can be closed with a slide.

As always you begin game preparations by placing the game board on the table. For each of the five camels there are three betting tales for race legs. Those tiles show camel colors and numbers 2, 3 and 5, representing Egyptian Pounds. Those leg betting tiles are stacked with 2 at the bottom, 3 in the middle and 5 Egyptian Pounds   on top of the stack and then placed on the corresponding areas on the board.

Each player chooses a character – depicted on the betting cards and desert tiles – and takes the desert tiles and betting cards for his character. Then each player receives a starting capital of three Egyptian pounds for betting. As in many games, the starting player is the youngest player of the group; he is given the Leg Starting Player marker.

The starting player now rolls dice for the starting position of all camels. He rolls all five dice and places the camels according to the result showing on the die of the corresponding colors, 1, 2 or 3 steps away from the start/finish line. If there are identical results for camels, he stacks the camels in any order of his choice. Some players use the pyramid for determining the order to ensure that the stacking order is really random and not determined by any player.

When all camels have been placed you put all five dice into the pyramid and put the pyramid onto its area provided on the board.

The game is played in rounds and the active player has a choice of five options, one of which he chooses and resolves.

The available options are: „Take 1 Leg Betting tile“, „Place your Desert tile“, „Take 1 Pyramid tile”, „Bet on the overall winner“ or “Bet on the overall loser”.

1) Action „Take 1 Leg Betting tile“: You decide on a camel of which you believe that it will be in the lead at the end of the leg and take the top Let Betting tile in the corresponding color. This is the end of his move and the turn passes to the next player in clockwise direction.

2) Action „Place your Desert tile“: Desert tiles are marked with +1 on one side and -1 on the other side. Both sides are also marked with 1 Egyptian Pound. When in the course of the game a camel enters a spot with such a desert tile this camel moves one step forward or backwards accordingly. This placement of the desert tile – you decide if the tile will show +1 or -1, your turn ends and passes to the next player.

3) If you select the action „Take 1 Pyramid tile“ you pick up the pyramid from the board and use is for rolling dice. You place it head-down on the board and move the slide to make one die drop out of the pyramid. All dice show only values 1, 2 and 3. The color of the die determines which camel is moved and the number determines by how many steps it advances.

When due to its movement a camel ends up on a spot where there is already one camel or a stack of camels, you place the newly arrived camel on top of the stack or the single camel. Such a stack of camels on a spot is called a camel unit. When the pyramid determines that a camel in such a camel unit must be moved, you move this camel together will all camels on top of it. This again results in forming of camel units of different composition, the units are combined and separated anew.

Camels further up in a camel unit are in front of camels further down in the unit as regards to the position in the race leg. For instance, if such a unit would hold three camels, Orange, White and Blue, with Orange on top, White in the middle and Blue at the bottom of the unit, Orange would be in the lead among those three camels, White in second position and Blue in third position.

4) Action „Bet on the overall winner“: For this action you place your betting card for the camel of which you believe that it will win the race by crossing the finish line first face down on the corresponding spot on the board. You can place additional betting cards on this position later in the game, but for each camel that does not win or finish in second place, you lose 1 Egyptian Pound. This action can earn you some money at the end of the game.

5) Action „Bet on the overall loser“: This is a bet on the camel that will be in last position at the end of the game. You handle this in analogy to the bet for first position.

When all dice have been used once and all thus all camels have been moved actively once, the leg ends and the Leg Betting tiles are scored. Each player receives the amount stated on a betting tile for each tile he placed in the color of the camel in the lead, plus one pound for each tile in the color of the camel in second place. For each tile placed for another color you pay one Pound and you earn one Pound for each Pyramid tile that you hold. The starting player tile passes to the next player and a new leg begins.

When one camel passes the finish line, you first do a final leg scoring and then a final scoring, first for the overall winner and then for the overall loser. For this you turn over the respective stack of cards so that the card that was played first is now on top and then you check each card. For each card in the color of the winning camels or in the card of the camel in last places, respectively, you earn money; the more money the earlier you played the card, that is, the sooner it appears in the stack.

Camel Up is race and betting game using very simple mechanisms which again provides unforeseeable situations due to the very varied race events. This game definitely is not a game for someone looking for a very complex game. But to all players, who are looking for a simple, nice family game that can be a lot of fun and which is thrilling despite of its simple rules, I can only recommend trying it; you will have fun with it. Some people might, due to the simple rules and based on the design and components of the game, maybe expect a completely trivial or banal game, but this is not so, it is not a game for extreme thinkers, but good for all others, it is simply good fun.

According to information on the box the game is intended for 2 to 8 players which is another positive fact about the game. But, sometimes the downtime in a game for 7 or 8 players, can be too long, and yet, with the right group of players it can be very good fun with that amount of players, too. Only the fun in a 2-player game did not become clear to me, as only with a minimum of three players the betting element of the game, the choosing of the leg betting tiles and the race itself induce different tactical decisions of players.

The element of chance is, of course, rather high and dominant in that kind of game, and yet there is a sufficient amount of tactical decisions in the game. In our games we have always found that players get emotionally involved in the game, and always find the unexpected results for camel movement quite entertaining and amusing.

The graphic design of the game is very pretty and provides a nice ambience for the game. The rules are simple and are laid out very clearly, so that quick access of the game is possible.

My conclusions:

Camel Up is a simple family game offering fun for all the family and provides a surprisingly high replay value.

For me it is a very hot candidate to win „Game of the Year 2014“, as it combines simple rules with witty game play. Yet another argument for this assessment is that Camel Up as a cute and emotional race and betting game and that there has not been a really well-made racing game published for quite some time.

I will definitely add Camel Up to my private collection as for me it is a perfect game to round off a nice games evening.

Maria Schranz

Players: 2-8

Age: 8+

Time: 30+

Designer: Steffen Bogen

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Pegasus / eggert 2014

Web: www.pegasus.de

Genre: Racing, betting

Users: For families

Special: Many players

Version: de

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Simple rules

Interesting mechanism for movements

Always thrilling due to unexpected results

Compares to:

Race games with movement by dice and taking along of other participants in the race

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Maria Schranz:

Camel up is a simple family game providing fun for the whole family as well as a surprisingly high replay value.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 2

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