presentation

Aqualin

Schwarmtaktik für Zwei

Ocean dwellers - crabs, fish, sea horses, starfish, jellyfish and turtles in green, pink, purple, yellow and blue - want to congregate in swarms. Aim of the game for each player is to form the biggest possible swarms, albeit with different specification: One player forms swarms of the same color, the other swarms of the same kind of animals. All 36 tiles are shuffled face-down, six of them are randomly drawn and turned up to form the open display.

A player turn comprises three steps: 1. Relocate a tile - you can move a tile within its row or column until it encounters a tile or the edge of the board. 2. Place a new tile - you select one tile from the display and put in on any empty slot on the board; it may, but need not be placed adjacent to one or several tiles already on the board. 3. Replenish display - you draw a tile from stock and put it openly into the display. When stock is empty, play continues until the display is empty and all 36 slots on the board are filled and all tiles are placed.

Now you score swarms according to the targets of each player - a swarm comprises orthogonally adjacent tiles of the same color or type of animal; therefore, a tile can be part of a color swarm and also part of an animal swarm. 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6  animals in a swarm score 1, 3, 6, 10 or 15 points. Single tiles do not score at all. You win with most points. You can also play two games, swap your targets for the second game and win with the highest total score.

A beautiful game - simple and yet challenging and also of interest for more experienced players; a very deserving winner of 2^nd place in Premio Archimede 2018.

Players: 2

Age: 10+

Time: 20+

Designer: Marcello Bertocchi

Artist: Sophie Rekasowski, Andreas Resch

Price: ca. 20 Euro

Publisher: Kosmos 2020

Web: www.kosmos.de

Genre: Tile placement, group formation 

Users: For families

Special: 2 players

Version: de

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Classy, attractive components

Simple rules

Plays quickly

2^nd Place Premio Archimede 2018

Compares to:

Area-filling placement games with group formation

Other editions:

Kosmos (en, announced)

Chance (pink): 2

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