Annotated Games: 4 Players, version 0.4

This game was played during the game testing of The Mara. For testing purposes, Yellow plays a 2 card strategy and Red a 1 card strategy. Blue starts with a 0 card strategy to learn more about the animals first while Blacks plays a "quick" strategy to drop off tourists as soon as possible if better cards are available.

Each round is documented with player action, picked up cards (animal+colors) and current victory points. Tiles that are known only to some players are faded out.

Start

Round 1

All players pick a up a tourist card except Blue, who starts without a tourist and learn about the surroundings. Unfortunately, only one animal matches the tourists at the nearest lodges.

Round 2

Yellow stays at the lodge and picks up a 2nd tourist card while the other players drive. Red is fortunate to find an orange bird matching one of her tourist, as is Black finding a green carnivore matching one of her tourists. Blue has no tourist card yet but finds a green and an orange primate matching two tourists at the nearby lodge and end her turn there.

Round 3

Yellow can only drive 1 track with her 2 tourist cards and hope to find a 2nd animal to take a photo of. Unfortunately she only peeks at a teal carnivore. Red decides not to gamble and takes a photo of the adjacent orange bird, and Black decides the same and takes a photo of the adjacent green carnivore. In between, Blue picks up the primate tourist card.

Round 4

Yellow drives another 1 track and this time she's fortunate to find a second amphibian for her tourists. Red drives 2 tracks but finds no more birds. However, she knows that Yellow is also looking for birds and hope to benefit from her findings. Blue ponders whether it's worth picking up a 2nd tourist card and go to the nearby purple carnivore but decides to hurry to the primate first. Black drives on but finds no more carnivores on her route.

Round 5

Yellow takes a photo of the two amphibians and brings up her score to 3 VP. Red doesn't expect to find any birds among the tiles peeked at by Yellow and drives towards Mount Kilimanjaro instead. Her journey is rewarded with a teal bird. Blue finishes her drive to the two primates she saw earlier while Black chances upon the orange carnivore during her drive.

Round 6

All players take photos this round except Yellow, who keeps driving without finding any animals. She hopes to "jump" an opponent jeep to hurry towards a lodge and drop off one of her tourist cards.

The test was interrupted to test a version where peek is part of the photo action to allow players to drive quicker past tiles they already know.

P&P (PDF, A4)	P&P (PDF, US Letter)

Annotated games

• Version 0.9: 4 players
• Version 0.6: 4 players
• Version 0.4: 4 players

If you like those game mechanisms, I can also recommend: