Review

colorful fun ...

Arraial

... in Portugal’s Streets

Arraial – a game on the topic of street parties in Portugal, that you can play with two players, with three or four players, and even on your one, the time to play is about 15 minutes per player. The makers of the game have changed their name to MEBO from previously being Mesa Boardgames, they are a small publisher who already got noticed with „viral“ and various other titles.

The box promises party! Colorful it is, and there are some shapes in it, so maybe a building game? No, Arraial is something totally different, but it is fun all the same.

People love to party in Portugal, often it happens spontaneously and without any special reason, but always with dancing music, tasty food and drinks.

The party happens in the street, with the neighborhood, with friends and acquaintances and if someone happens to just pass by is of course encouraged to participate. This colorful goings-on is called „Arraial“ by the Portuguese! How to pronounce this? No idea, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because according to the game designers (of course Portuguese) it depends on where in Portugal the party happens.

I have explained the topic of the game, but how does it work on the board? Each player has his own „street“ for the party to begin. At the end, the winner is the player who attracted most visitors, very simple!

The box holds four street boards and four barriers as well as a central board with a spinner. Then there are 24 tile cards who work as place holders for the 72 tiles. Those tiles come in yellow, blue, green and red, and in each color there are two different shapes, so that there is a total of eight shapes to play with.

The game is played in three phases, so you have a phase card and a marker token in the box.

There are also 56 wooden visitors, nine each in the four colors plus 20 more neutral white ones, and four pairs of visitors, in the colors of yellow, blue, green, and red. Three starting player markers are provided, but you need only one.

Equally easy, too, are the well-structured rules of the game:

Each player is given a board for his street with a party area, the size of which depends on the number of players. There is a common board for use of all players, featuring a circular spinner board. This spinner board always holds three cards featuring booths for the street party and which are available to the active player. Those cards are placeholders for the actual street booths in varying shapes and colors.

There are four types of booths, and two shapes for each color. A foot note at this point – the illustrator was not stingy with ideas here, there are – just so – various lovingly illustrated images within the same category.

If it is your turn, you can use up to maximum three action points: Rotate the spinner disc by 90 degrees for one point, and/or take a card and put the respective part into your street, also for one point. However, you need to take minimum one card in the first and second phase of the game and integrate the corresponding tile; and you have to do this in exactly the same direction in which it was orientated towards you on the spinner disc. Therefore, it is possible to not rotate the spinner disc at all and to take three cards, but it is not allowed to rotate three times and not take a card. After this, you integrate the parts into your street party and refill the spinner disc, by choosing from three cards on display, thereby determining what the next player has available to fill his board.

The selected street booths need to be integrated attractively and at the same time space-saving to attract as many visitors as possible. As already mentioned, the parts must be put on the board in exactly the same orientation as they were pointing at you on the disc, and you cannot insert the booths into your street, there must be a gap big enough to let you slide the tile to its end position. If it has arrived at level, you are however, allowed to slide it sideways in both directions, if there is room.

Whenever two street booth tiles of the same color are located next to each other, a visitor of the same color arrives. When the booth then grows bigger, you get no additional visitors but the pair that is worth two points can be the those that tip the scales. Those pairs – there is one per color – always want to be where there is most of the action, or on the biggest area. Should a player manage, to fill a complete row of his street with tiles, regardless of their color, he receives more space. His street barrier moves upwards, and neutral visitors arrive who are not yet sure if they want to join the festivities. Only after the successful completion of the current phase (one stack of cards has been used), the barrier is moved down, and the white visitors yield points.

The second phase is played like the first one, and in the third and final phase you need to make use of two cards instead of one, despite a total of three action points.

What does that all remind me of? Exactly, of the good old Tetris. Which also explains why the same melody is in my head all the time while playing ...

The advantage is that one grasps the rules nearly intuitively, and you can begin to play after a short “oh yes” phase. During the three phases of the game it can pay off to use varying strategies. It works phantastically well with two players, as well as with three and four. The solo version is rather reminding me of Sudoku but is fun as well.

Kati Knoll

Players: 1-4

Age: 8+

Time: 15+

Designer: Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro, Paulo Soledade

Artist: Nuno Saraiva

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Mebo Games 2018

Web: www.mebo.pt

Genre: Tile placement, area filling

Users: For families

Special: 1 player

Version: multi

Rules: de en pt

In-game text: no

Comments:

Attractive design

Very nice topic

Good family game

Solo version works very well

Compares to:

Tetris and other area filling games

Other editions:

Pandasaurus Games (en)

My rating: 5

Kati Knoll:

Nice Tetris variant with a rare and very nice topic, the attractive design transports the colorful festive flair very well!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 2

Action (dark green): 0