OUR REVIEW
Cogwheels, levers and Switches
GUM GUM MACHINE
What the hell is A Gum Gum?
The machine comes from the HUCH! & friends factory, a publisher that entered the market in 2004. Are you still a newcomer after twelve years? Probably yes, compared to established companies like Piatnik or Ravensburger. Be that as it may – in any case, HUCH! & friends brought us, among others, such marvelous games as CAYLUS (Winner of Deutscher Spielepreis 1995) and TRAJAN (2nd place in 2001) and the company has reaped many more nominations for awards and awards. Gum Gum Machine, for instance, was nominated for International Toy Award 2016 at the International Toy Fair at Nuremberg.
Let’s move on to the constructors of the machine. They are both no unknowns and it is also not their first cooperation. Together, they have already created PERGAMON, MILESTONE and ESELSBRÜCKE. But maybe I should introduce them to you individually.
Stefan Dorra is working as a game designer since 1992 and his first published game was RAZZIA. All in all he has created more than 50 games. He is at home with board games as well as with card games (NJET, WIZARD EXTREM) and also with children games (MAKE ´N´ BREAK). This was a game that was very well received by my grandchildren. There is nearly no publisher left who has not or did not have at least one game by Stefan Dorra in its range. His games were nominated about eight times for “Game of the Year”, among them INTRIGE, YUKATA, MARA CASH, usw. And if he did not win it so far, he should not give up hope – remember Leonardo di Caprio. All the same, he managed 2nd place in Deutscher Spielepreis twice, in 1995 with LINIE 1 and in 2001 with MEDINA; he also was awarded Spiele Hit in the Austrian Award Spiel der Spiele for FEUER & FLAMME.
And now for the 2nd constructor: Ralf zur Linde. His best games are TAHITI, PUSHY and ZANKAPFEL. His game FINCA was even awarded Game of the Year in Finland. And now, finally, to the topic of this review!
What the hell are Gum Gums? The rules tell us that they are the best that there is to be had and that everybody wants to have them! Or is it it? As I was not completely satisfied with that information, I looked it up on the net. In a Manga series of 72 volumes a Gum Gum Fruit is mentioned, which is also called Devil’s Fruit. If you eat it, you turn into a rubber man. As regards Devil’s Fruit, this was also the name for potatoes in the medieval times, as raw potatoes contain poisonous Solanin in their green spots. However, this also wasn’t really satisfactory, so all that remained was to test the game itself.
The box in the standard Kosmos or 30 cm square format promises in its list of contents 42 Gums (we are approaching the secret slowly but surely!), which reveal themselves as 72 wooden discs in seven colors, a cloth bag and four gearwheels. Who now expects to find a game with gearwheels as in TZOLK’IN, will be disappointed. The gearwheels turn out to be skimpy little wooden pieces which are meant to function as markers on the victory point track. After this small exaggeration we have found that one has been somewhat understating the rest of the contents. But more on that later.
When you spread out the board, you immediately notice a maze of colored pipe connections, interrupted by lever positions, the so-called Gum Storage Spaces, where the colored discs will be placed in the course of the game. There also some images of gearwheels on the board, which are meant to strengthen the impression of a machine. At the start of the game, the machine, that is, the board, is equipped with 25 discs, randomly drawn from the bag. There must beat least three black Gums among those 25 discs, as they are crucial for the completion of Gum Gum manufacturing. The pipes run across the board and sometimes end in boilers with a spinning wheel or end at a conveyor belt. For boiler and spinning wheel there are exchangeable inserts that provide more variation for the game.
Seven switch tiles influence the track of the pipes. Five of them show a number between 1 and 4, and two of them have a kind of a flip switch function. The tiles with those numbers are randomly placed on the spaces provided for them, from each of those spaces two pipelines do exit. Which of those pipelines will be used is decided by the starting shutter at the start of the game. From a face-down sequence of numbers 1 to 5 one of them must be chosen. This is done by moving the Starting shutter blindly on one position of the shutter and then revealing the number. Now you must move the chosen lever to determine the final course of the pipes. Sounds more complicated as it turns out to be in the game. Now we move along the chosen pipeline and you take the colored discs, those Gums that are stored on the Gum Storage Spaces. The aim is to collect all six colors if possible and then to finalize the Gum Gum with a black disc. The Gum Gum is complete.
Now, unfortunately, it happens rather often that the missing color – each color can be in the Gum Gum only once – is not present on the chosen line or that the black end piece is missing. In this case the move ends at the end of the pipeline. Depending on the number of colors you managed to collect, you score points, the number of points is determined by a Gum-Meter. Only when one Gum Gum has been completed, the Gum Storage Spaces are refilled. And there is also an additional handicap: When you remove a Gum and reveal a symbol – there are six of them – the course is changed and you continue at another position. Due to the use of different covers for the two boilers and due to 20 different Gum Storage Spaces a very varied and changing game is ensured. If you are first to accumulate 30 points from your efforts, you have successfully manned the Gum Gum Machine and win.
Conclusion: First, a few words on the components. They are excellent and well thought-out. There are even dents in the board to facilitate the exchange of machine elements. This merits a huge compliment to HUCH! & friends. And the abstinence from plastic will also please many people. The sturdiness of all components promises a long life for the game, and Michael Menzel has caught the topic very nicely. You really have the impression to be confronted with a huge control panel. I don’t think this could have been done better.
All in all this is a very entertaining family game and I have geared my evaluation to this user group. Due to the multiple double-sided exchangeable discs the game is very variable, too. For one game you only need about 30 minutes which lures into a re-match instantly. The game is also extremely suitable for gaming rounds across several generations. As a certain amount of memory is needed due to the changing inserts this gives a better chance to younger players. If you remember SAGALAND you will remember that the simple game did challenge your memorizing abilities after a few repeat games and made it more difficult. I noticed in my games that some players did have problems with the change of lever elements and the resulting course of the pipelines. Such a change annihilated the best tactical plan to acquire the missing colors, and is also turned out to be difficult to remember the correct number you wanted for the starting shuttle.
For me this game meets the goal of „Spiel des Jahres – Game of the Year“ exactly, that is, to inspire non-players to play or to offer families an enticement to play. Let’s see, Leonardo was successful only this year.
Rudolf Ammer
Players: 2-4
Age: 8+
Time: 30+
Designer: Stefan Dorra, Ralf zur Linde
Artist: Michael Menzel
Price: ca. 36 Euro
Publisher: HUCH! & friends 2015
Web: www.hutter-trade.com
Genre: Collecting, memo
Users: For families
Version: de
Rules: de en fr nl
In-game text: no
Comments:
Very attractive graphics
Good Components
High replay value
Variable set-up
Compares to:
Empire Builder or Tzolk’in for Gearwheel idea, otherwise collecting games
Other editions:
Currently none
My rating: 6
Rudolf Ammer:
Basic mechanisms have been implemented with lots of imagination and wonderful graphics, the high variability of the game offers a high replay allure.
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 1
Strategy (blue): 0
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 1
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 1
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0