Blue Lagoon
Designed by: Reiner Knizia
In Blue Lagoon players are competing explorers, intent on grabbing the best spots for themselves in what amounts to a race – albeit there’s no finish-line, so it’s more Black Friday than anything else.
The board shows the lagoon in question, which has eight islands in total. Each player starts with a big stack of reversible settler tokens (land one side, water the other) and five village pieces. Turns couldn’t be simpler – simply place a token or village onto an available spot on the board. Boats can go anywhere on the water, and land-settlers can go next to any of your previously-placed tokens or villages.
But underneath that simple premise is a highly interactive puzzle: you’ll score points in a number of ways at the end of the round based on your presence in the islands (all eight, ideally!) how many spaces you occupy there (each island scores for most-placed tokens and villages) how many islands you’ve connected together (this must be an unbroken connection!) and the resources and statues you’ve collected there: resources score for sets and statues are simply 4points per statue. All of these scoring criteria overlap, and as well as trying to maximise your own score you’re also trying to stymie your opponents. When the last resource is claimed the round is scored, and the process starts again for the second and final round – with the one difference being that now you can’t start at sea, but must begin placing tokens from wherever your villages are.
After the second round, the game ends!
Sam says
A very cleverly designed game that has so much going on within the simple rules. I’m not great at this type of thing, where you’re juggling multiple scoring criteria for yourself v multiple scoring opportunities for others, but I can’t help but admire how highly interactive it is despite the learn-in-five-minutes ruleset. All that said, while I’m a huge fan of this designer it’s unusual for him to explore such fiddly scoring criteria – and for me, it slightly clouds my impression of the game. I’d play it happily, but I don’t think it’s the same standard as the not-too-dissimilar Through the Desert, for example, which is leaner without being meaner.
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Take That!
Mmmmm, yes, a fair bit. You'll always want to do more than you can achieve, and every game will have a moment - several, in fact - when somebody else occupies a space you really, really wanted!
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Fidget Factor!
Low - because all you're doing is placing a token (or village) the game speeds along.
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Brain Burn!
Simple rules. The burning here is the Hobson's choice-type scenarios that crop up.
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Again Again!
The board and parameters never change, but despite that Blue Lagoon offers a lot of replayability due to the fact it's so combative, and even has some strategic options too - you might abandon one scoring criteria to maximise others, or try and get a bit of everything...
