Designed by: Wolfgang Kramer
Viva Pamplona! takes its inspiration from the famous Running of the Bulls of Pamplona, Spain. Each year the bulls chase the runners through the streets of the town, and here in Viva Pamplona, the running is replicated – with a welcome lack of gore and animal anxiety. Everyone takes 30 courage points each before the race is on!
The board shows shows the route the runners and bull will take. Each round is simple: players take turns rolling dice and move two of their three runners matching the result: each die moves a different runner. If you roll an arrow symbol you can move a runner anywhere between 1-6 spaces, or even none at all. After all players have taken a turn, a card is flipped that shows how far the bull moves! This is anywhere between one and five spaces. But! some cards don’t move the bull at all, instead scoring courage points for the runners in the bull’s current position (3pts per runner), in the spaces directly ahead of it (2pts / 1pt) and losing courage points for any runners behind the bull. So each turn is a essentially a miniature gamble: cluster next to the bull if you can, and hope he doesn’t move? Or push on ahead to avoid getting left behind if he does. Additionally, if your runner arrives into a space where you outnumber any opponent, you can push (one of) them forward, or back, and claim courage points off them for doing so.
There are a few (orange) spaces on the track where stopping costs you a point, and there’s the slippery tomato double-space where if you stop on it, you slide backwards, as though down a snake in snakes and ladders. Apart from that, the only other thing to note is how the game ends. As soon as the bull enters the arena, the game will end. If you arrive in the arena before that, then your runners will score points (-the later they arrive the better!). But any runners behind the bull at the end score minus points! Once that’s all been calculated, the most points wins.
Currently out of print, sadly
Outside of the occasional bit of pushing, there's nothing too nasty
Very low - turns rattle around and the game only takes a half hour or so
Low - the rules are easy and the game, though it certainly hands players decisions to make, is something of a lottery thanks to how the bull moves
Fast, silly, and hard to predict - if you pine for strategizing and control, it might be one to skip. But as a slightly chaotic race with big swings and loud groans, it does a good job
2-6
Players
8+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
I never want to run with the bulls, but I'll happily play Viva Pamplona! again. Like Midnight Party, it takes the classic, and arguably tiredly over-used, mechanic of roll-and-move and injects it with enough of a twist to feel like there's just enough agency to wrestle with the experience in a far more enjoyable way, than say, Monopoly, where after the initial phase of buying, the game more or less plays you. You've three runners, and two dice to assign. Just that simple tweak makes Viva Pamplona a fun but fast-moving undertaking, and the flipping of the card - especially with more players - is always a tantalising moment.