King Korbinapalus

This is the game that got my girlfriend hooked into games, period. We both are sushi lovers, so the theme alone got her attention. The fact that you trade hands, rotating the sushi around like a robo-sushi joint – sealed the deal. We play this now at least 3 – 4 times every 72 hours.

It’s a great introduction for Card Drafting. In particular, my lady likes the fact that the set you create are done in different configurations with different payoffs, giving it a feel of a group of mini-games.

At first, we were all about grabbing the Pudding Cards at all costs (aka Pudding Arms Race), given that in a 2 player game, the person with the most puddings at the end essentially has 12+ points – quite a dramatic bonus. But eventually, we starting doing the math as we went along and you start to see when it’s a good time to simply let the Pudding Campaign go, as it may or may not benefit you at a certain point, and your efforts are best spent elsewhere.

It was a good 2 – 3 months before we felt like we grew into the different strategies that the game offers.

We did play it with 4 people once, which is practically a completely different game. The planning of making your sets – assuming what is possible in your next hand-return, watching what your opponent is creating and reacting properly – is quite difficult. We’ve only played a 4-player game three times, so we might need to play it more to grow into the possible strategies for that configuration.

But as a 2-player game – it is a weekly standard for us. My lady bring a copy in her purse when we go out. The artwork is adorable as well – it tends to attract attention from onlookers. Great gameplay, great graphic design – great game!

Played this over the holiday weekend with friends. As mentioned above: the theme is irrelevant – you could have written the colors and numbers by hand on index cards and discs and it would still work.

Having said that – it’s a testament to the design that it’s still an intriguing game. There is a puzzle-type feel to it that seems like you can “figure it out” if you just play one more time….

I also enjoyed the ramp-up speed element of the game: after using your jewels chips to buy cards that contain jewels, you start using your cards more than your jewel discs to buy more elements (which have more buying power), to the extent that the end of the game always has a swiftness to it. It feels more exciting to play than it probably looks like to others watching, but not playing.

Sits in a nice sweet-spot for a two-player game (though you can play with more). Overall, I could see this as a nice time-filler when you have a good 20 – 30 minutes to kill while waiting for guests to come over, waiting for a plane, etc. The canniness of the math involved is satisfying.