Friends
Alter
Spezial
Snip deftly and you will win!
SAFRANITO
Cute snipping and haggling on the spices bazaar
A bustle of lots of people in the narrow lanes; clusters and scores of people, fascinating smells and an exciting display of colors in the bulbs and powders in the many bowls on the market stalls, where the merchants offer their wares. We find ourselves on an oriental spice bazaar, but we cannot even dream of buying anything, because the prices of the rare ingredients have skyrocketed. So we leave the bustle unobtrusively behind us, take care that we are not followed by any curious glances and slide behind a heavy Persian carpet through a hole in the brick wall and into a shabby back room. Three more shady characters join us at the table of Rajive, who is a big potato on the black market of Mumbai. He invites us to join a little game, during which not only a lot of rupees but also the most exquisite spices will change hands. But we need to take care that no one pulls a fast one on us.
The big coup
Of course, we can only scrounge those spices which are actually in store. Which spices are available is denoted by small spice cards at the edge of Rajive’s table. In each round four to six, depending on the number of players, are added. We set out to try our luck with 200 rupees and six stable plastic chips, being marked with sums of money. In turn we throw our chips onto the game board and hope that they will end up in the spice bowls of our choice. What a pity that we cannot be sure that the next player will not relocate our chip that has just nicely landed in the saffron bowl to somewhere not so desirable with a good throw of his own.
How nice, that besides the nine spice bowls there are also four action squares, which we could aim for with our next throw, and which entitle us for instance to throw an additional chip, or to receive a spice card for free from the face-down stack or to draw our own dish in addition to those that are laid out in the public display. That only you yourself may prepare. (In other games this would be called a “secret order card”)
Aim of all these activities is to collect exactly those spices that are necessary to prepare one of the dishes on public display or one of the secretly reserved cards. You always need three kinds of spices in different combinations. The first player who can prepare three dishes wins the game immediately. Immediately is the significant word here, the game really is over at this moment, the current round is NOT finished. Therefore is is a good strategy to aim for the role of Chef de Cuisine at the and of the game (one of his other titles is starting player) because in this function you are the first who can prepare a dish in the appropriately named “Prepare dishes” phase of the round. This function too, is directly available from the action squares, so that you can make use of the advantages immediately.
Buying and selling
When all chips have been thrown - in a game for three and two players this is the case after four out of six available chips, in a game for four players after three chips – the action squares are scored as already mentioned. Then all bowls, which now hold chips are scored in a sequence determined by the Chef de Cuisine. First the spice in the respective bowls is sold and can then be baught by the players that have not been involved in the sale. All this of course only if the necessary spice cards are on display next to the board. If you sell you receive for each sold card the total values of all chips in the corresponding bowl regardless of their owner.
When buying spices first the player with the highest value of his chips in the bowl receives a spice card and pays for it with the same number of rupees. If, for instance, a blue Chip of value 20 and a blue chip of 40 are present in the curry bowl, player Blue pays 60 rupees and receives a curry card. Then he removes the most valuable chip – in this case the 40 chip, and it is the turn of the player who now has the highest total value of chips in the bowl. This is continued until all chips and all bowls have been scored.
Smörrebröd, Smörrebröd, römpömpömpöm
At the end of each round each player, beginning with the Chef de Cuisine, in turn may prepare one dish by discarding the necessary spice cards and displaying the corresponding recipe card. As you may only prepare one dish per round, it is forced on you to reserve additional dishes by using the action squares if you want to win the game. Any number of these reserved dishes can be prepared in addition to the public dishes on display.
At this point the tactical finesses behind the obvious dexterity component of throwing chips become obvious.
Resumee
In contrast to many games that function only by employing a host of rules variations in Safranito only the feel of the game changes. Due to the scarce opposition and a maximum of 8 chips on the board the tactical considerations are dominant. The game works a lot less predictable and more turbulent in a positive way in a game with the complete number of four players. In such a game each player tries to dislodge the chips of the opponents or manages to do so without trying, because when 12 chips are thrown in each round available space gets scarce. So often you must try to make the best of what you got, which has it’s own appeal.
The mixture of dexterity and tactics take a bit of getting used to at the start, as you would suppose that those to mechanisms exclude each other, but exactly the opposite happens. Thanks to the ease of the throwing part the buying and selling phases to take on a playful aspect rather than a thoughtful one. The nice short duration of the game adds to unusual but agreeable feel of the game, where in the it often does not seem to be important who really did win provided next time I can cook this oaf’s goose with an elegant throw next time! Hopefully!
Stefan Olschewski
Spieler : 2-4
Alter : ages 10 and up
Dauer : ca. 30-45 min
Autor : Marco Teubner
Grafik : Michael Menzel
Titel englisch: -
Preis : ca. 30,00 Euro
Verlag : Zoch 2010
Genre : tactical
dexterity game
Zielgruppe : With friends
Mechanismen : snip money chips, buy and sell spices
Kommentar:
High-grade material, nice to the touch
Cute combination of several mechanisms
Simple rules that leave enough room for tactics despite elements of chance
Vergleichbar:
The first game with this combination of mechanisms
Stefan Olschewski
A mixture of tactics and dexterity, that is needs some time to get used to, but then is very attractive, nice for a colorful evening among friends!
Zufall 2
Taktik
Strategie__
Kreativität
Wissen_
Gedächtnis
Kommunikation
Interaktion 3
Geschicklichkeit 3
Action 2
Atmosphäre: 6