F@#$ Tobago

Tobago

Plot:  You are a treasure seeker in a race for artifacts.

This gets a few more words than my normal plot sections because this one actually works.   The game play, board and pieces all work together well with the theme. 

Goal: 

Grab loot!  Loot may as well be called victory points because it has no impact on game play like most games involving money do. 

Mechanics:

The hexagonal board has several different terrain types and 3 different landmarks.  On the map, you place 3 huts, 3 palm trees and 3 statues.  Statues require a specific hexagonal facing because they do something special later in the game.  Huts and palm trees do nothing except provide points of reference.

Each player picks a starting point for his SUV, and is dealt a hand of 4 clue cards. 

Clue cards narrow the locations of the 4 treasures; each treasure has a corresponding color attached to it, black, white, yellow or brown.

A turn you can do 3 things.

1)      Play a clue card.  A clue card MUST narrow the possible locations by at least one to be played.  These cards read something like “This treasure is in the largest jungle”, “This treasure in not in the scrublands”, or “This treasure is within two spaces of a hut”.  Strings of clues will ultimately be played, so mark yours.  Helping narrow down the location guarantees you a share of the loot.

-          Treasures can only be retrieved when the search has been narrowed to 1.  Duh.

2)      Move your SUV.  This might be hard to explain with words but here goes.  An SUV gets 3 moves.   Moving within a single terrain type counts as a move, and crossing into a new terrain type counts as a move.  So you can start on the far side of the jungle, and drive 6 spaces to a new border for a single move.  But crossing over from the jungle to the beach is one space and counts as a new move.  Then you can move anywhere into the beach for the final move. 

-          Picking up a treasure kills the remainder of your SUV’s move.

3)      Discard your clue hand and draw 4 new cards.

Scoring

Picking up treasure starts the scoring phase.

Each loot card has a value of 2 through 6.

Each player that helped narrow the search gets a share of the loot, and the player that picked up the treasure gets an extra share.  Order of who played the clues matters too, first one in gets first choice.

So for example, a treasure string has the pattern of blue, red, red, green, blue and then red picked up the treasure.  Blue gets two shares and first choice.  Red gets three shares and green gets one share for six shares total.  Seven loot cards are dealt; each player gets to peek at his shares worth (blue 2, red 3, green 1) with one remaining secret.   These are shuffled then revealed one at a time.  First player in (blue) gets to either take or pass on this treasure, and it works its way down the string, each player taking or passing in turn.  If no one takes, that treasure is discarded.  

At this point statues trigger.  Look at a statues facing, then travel along that facing till you reach the end of the island, at that spot an ‘amulet’ is dropped.  Rotate the statues clockwise for the next amulet drop.  An SUV must drive over an amulet to retrieve them, but picking them up does not cost moves like picking up treasure.  Amulets basically give you free moves.  If you play an amulet you can do any of the above 3 moves listed and go again. In addition, you can remove ONE treasure marker from the board.

After all loot is allocated, the player who picked up the treasure immediately starts a new clue string for that treasure.

Game play

Game play is surprisingly quick.  After the example turns I was absolutely convinced that this game would be an analysis paralysis nightmare.   Totally not the case.  First, you only have 4 clue cards to look at.  Second, chances are you can’t play at least 2 of them anywhere anyways.   Turns go pretty quick.

The tactical and strategic decisions are solid.  How much do I narrow down this treasure?  Which treasure do I narrow down?  When do I go and pick something up?  These are all interesting questions.

A couple of possible design flaws, one a little nit picky and one not so much.

Nit Picky:  Having a terrain type of lake that you can travel through and ocean which you can not drive through is needlessly confusing.   Once we adapt to that contradiction the game plays fine, but honestly, a million different terms for terrain in the lexicon and the designer picks lake.

Not so Nit Picky:  In 3 player, it looks as if the first player to go has a huge advantage.  Being first on the clue string is pretty important and player one gets to start 2 treasures.  In the two games we played, the first player to go won by 10+ points both times.

Tips

*Moving your SUV has huge opportunity costs.  Unless you pick up a treasure that turn, it costs you a loot card.  Have a good reason before you move.

*Amulets only get you one move.  So if you spend a move to pick up a single amulet you have effectively passed.  Only get amulets on the way to a treasure OR if you can get at least 2 with the same move.

*Early game, it looks like getting a lot of cards down early in a long clue string is a great move.  Once treasures start getting picked up, I’m not sure that the big strings are worth it.  But having 2 games total under my belt, I can’t say for sure what the ideal clue string is.