OUR REVIEW

BLUE COMES INTO PLAY LAST

INDIGO

Lots of fun with very few rules

„That’s nearly too pretty to play“ Carmen reverently murmurs when I spread out the components on the table: A big board, that reminds one of an Indian scarf in its design, a few screens, 54 sturdy path tiles and especially 24 glittering glass jewels in three colors have captured her attention immediately. Test 1 - appeal and urge to play - has been passed with flying colors by the new game “Indigo” from Ravensburger. Let’s see how it will do with other evaluation criteria.

Abstract and yet easily understood

Only four pages of rules and this includes more than a dozen crystal clear illustrations - the prospects look good for Indigo for the 2^nd test - Game Rules. But at long last the content of the rules are the deciding factor and also if they can state clearly and coherently what is expected from the players. Let’s take a look!

Basically the new oeuvre by master designer Knizia is an abstract game, and yet you could have easily given a railway topic as easily as a flight from a mysterious labyrinth in any fantasy setting. But in this abstract form the whole thing looks simply marvelous and has to come across solely on the merits of its game mechanisms instead of its topic.

Aim of the game is to move 12 jewels, the value of which is determined by their color, to the six exit areas at the edges of the game board, using the meandering paths that are pictured on the path tiles. Each player - in a game for two - is assigned three exits and the player whose exit is used to take a jewel off the board receives the stone and scores the corresponding points - between 1 and 3 points are possible for a jewel. Jewels thus collected are hidden behind the screen to avoid constant counting and calculation by all other players and thus avoid unnecessary down times.

Placement and movement

A turn in a game cannot be much simpler: If it is your move you place the path tile you currently hold anywhere on the board. This tile does not have to touch any other tile already placed. Should a new tile border another one already on the board jewels which border the newly placed tile are moved along the new path as far as possible.

As the green jewels and the blue one called sapphire on the central treasure tile are on principle harder to move to the edge of the board then the yellow amber jewels already arranged at edge location those emeralds and sapphires are of course more valuable than the amber pieces. At the end of your turn you draw a path tile from the face-down stack and are done. “That’s simple” comments Carmen with an approving nod towards the board and is absolutely right. “But probably in the end we will be faced with a mega-complicated scoring system ….“

To keep it simple and short, no, this does not happen, because - totally untypically for Reiner Knizia - “your own majority of pieces at the end of the game is not suddenly of no value, provided that you do not hold as many of them as the second oldest player in clockwise direction, and that only as long as there are not more than 3 amber pieces in play … and it is not Thursday”. In Indigo you simply add the value of all stones that you managed to acquire and if you have the most points you win. “Oh” Carmen breathes unbelievingly. Test 2 passed with flying colors.

The ruse is hidden in the details

The things that grab you in Indigo are the little ideas that flower into fascinating results in the course of the game, especially in a game for three or four players: because in those games, an exit always belongs to two players. If you take a jewel out of such an exit and thus off the board the co-owner of this exit, who in this case suddenly turns into a fellow fellow player rather than an opponent, receives an identical jewel from general stock.

This is a clever solution because instead of brooding over the game alone as is usually the case in abstract game there actually is communication in Indigo: Alliances are forged in order to keep a valuable stone from the player whom you believe to be in the lead, you cooperate to end freshly placed paths in a dead end or let them run into each other - because when that happens jewels that are on those paths do collide are are both taken out of the game without scoring.

Riveting up to the last move

The suspense in Indigo also comes from the fact that the only jewel that scores three points, the blue sapphire, enters the game last. Only after all five emerald jewels have been moved onto paths from the treasure tile in the middle of the board can you move off the sapphire that can so overrun competition from behind. So the end of the game when all jewels have left the board nearly always comes suddenly and the differences in the individual scores of players are usually very small.

While some players bemoan the change-governed blind drawing of the path tiles some players who look for a bit more tactic, have taken a closer look at the rules. Under the heading “tips” nearly undetected you find a version which simply consists of haven always two path tiles in hand and to select one of them, place one and draw one. Even this has been taken card of!

Resume

I admit I am no fan of abstract games. For me the topic of a game must invite me to play and transport me into another world, another setting. Astonishingly enough, Indigo succeeds very well in doing this. The design of the game is harmonious and of high value, the game keeps up the suspense and remains challenging even after a lot of plays and it is always fascinating to watch how the intertwined paths evolve.

My colleague Knut Michael Wolf has recently written in „Spielbox“, that Indigo is his personal favorite to win the red „Pöppel“ - I dare to go one step further and promise the game the award of „Spielehit“ already now and today. And maybe, it will even be be enough to win “Spiel der Spiele” because the game fascinates experienced players as well as families and is the best advertisement for games as a cultural asset that could be imagined. “Exactly”, Carmen cries and has shuffled the path tiles again. “How about it? Do you want another match?“ Everthing is okay! The game has passed Test 3 - allure to play it again - again with flying colors.

Stefan Olschewski

Players: 2-4

Age: 8+

Time: 30+

Designer: Reiner Knizia

Art: Eckhard Freytag, Walter Pepperle

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Ravensburger 2012

Web: www.ravensburger.de

Genre: Abstract placement game

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de

In-game text: no

Comments:

Good, short rules with examples

High allure for playing again

Very beautiful components

Very good family game

Compares to:

Metro, Wege and other games with places path networks

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Stefan Olschewski:

No unnecessary ballast, the game convinces due to its clear focus on the important parts, the rising arc of suspense and the first class components.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0