Friday Filler: Holi: Festival of Colours

Celebrated as the Festival of Colours, Love, and Spring, Holi is the Hindu festival that both celebrates the eternal and divine love of the deities Radha and Krishna and commemorates the victory of Vishnu as Narasimha over Hiranyakashipu. It is notable outside of India as the festival in which richly coloured ‘gulaal’ powder is flung by the celebrants resulting in street scenes that are a riot of colour. It is also the theme of Holi: Festival of Colours, a board game from Floodgate Games, in which the players will try and outscore each other by placing more of their colour on the board, grabbing sweets, and hitting each other with their colour. It combines area control mechanics with elements of hand management and pattern building, the result being a colourful, abstract design that has a very physical, vertical presence at the table. It is designed for two to four players, plays in about half an hour, and is designed for players aged thirteen and up. That said, younger players who plenty of experience with board games should have no difficulties learning to play Holi: Festival of Colours.

The components to Holi: Festival of Colours really begin with its Courtyard Tower. This is a three-level tower with each level consisting of a clear plastic tray with a six-by-six grid of spaces. The Courtyard Tower requires construction for each play. It does wobble slightly, but is sturdy enough. The other components consist of four Helper Cards, twenty-four Sweets Tokens, a Score Tracker and four Score Markers, twenty-one Rivalry Cards, fifty-two Colour Cards in four colours, one-hundred Colour Tokens, four Player Markers, and the First Player Marker. All of the Sweets Tokens, Colour Tokens, and the frame for Courtyard Tower are done in rich, vibrant colours. Colour Cards show the pattern of spaces in a three-by-three grid that Colour Tokens will land on when thrown. The Rivalry Cards are bonus cards. For example, ‘Sweet Tooth’ scores extra points for each Sweets Tokens and ‘Snack’ forces a player to give up a Sweets Token if another player scores a Direct Hit on him.

To set up, the Courtyard Tower is put together and Sweets Tokens are placed on the ground and middle levels. Each player receives the Colour Tokens and Colour Cards in his colour and a Helper Card. Two or three Rivalry Cards are revealed. These affect scoring or add a new rule to game, often radically changing how the game is played. It is suggested that the Rivalry Cards be omitted for a simpler play experience.

On his turn, a player can take between one and three actions, in any order. The mandatory action is the ‘Throw Colour’ action, whilst the others are Move and Climb. For the Throw Colour action, the player chooses one of his Colour Cards—he always has three in his hand and plays it. Each Colour Card indicates the point where the player’s Marker is located and then the pattern where the Colour Tokens will fall when he throws him. The player can rotate the Colour Card to fit the pattern onto the board. If a Colour Token lands on another player’s Marker, then a Direct Hit is achieved. This scores the player a point and the Colour Token which lands on the other player’s Marker goes into the other player’s supply of Colour Tokens. Colour Tokens in another player’s supply will score the scoring player further points. This can only happen when the players have their Markers on the same level.

Alternatively, a player can simply expend the Colour Card to place a Colour Token anywhere on the level. This includes on a Sweets Token, but not on another player’s Marker.

The ‘Move’ action enables a player to move his marker to anywhere on the level. This can be anywhere, including on Colour Tokens, which are returned to the player’s supply. If they belong to another player, they go into the moving player’s supply and will score the other player points at the end of the game.

The third option is ‘Climb Up’. When a player’s Marker is surrounded on all four orthogonal sides, the player can choose to move up to the same space on the next level up. Once a player has moved to an upper level, he cannot move down. Once on an upper level, when a player does a Throw Action, if there is no Colour Token in the squares in the corresponding squares on the levels below, then the Colour Token will fall to the level until it lands on an empty square. This means that a Colour Token can fall from the top level to the ground level.

Play continues like this until each player is unable to do the Throw Colour action and have run out of their Colour Tokens. This triggers the end of the game. Each player score points for the Colour Tokens he has on the three levels of the Courtyard Tower, the higher the level, the more points scored; Colour Tokens in other players’ Colour Supply; and lastly for each player who has a fewer number of Sweets Tokens than he does.

Physically, Holi: Festival of Colours is a very nice-looking game. The Player Markers are bright and cheerful and eye-catching. The rules are easy to understand and the components are of a sturdy quality, though the Courtyard Tower does wobble a bit despite its sturdiness. It remains to be seen if the Courtyard Tower will stand up to too much taking apart and putting together necessary for each play. The artwork is excellent and the cover of the box is stunning.

Holi: Festival of Colours is simple to learn and play. It is perhaps a little fiddly to play between levels, especially when working out where Colour Tokens will land when they fall from another level and if there is another token below. The game does include a ‘Take That’ element in that another player’s Marker can be targeted with a Direct Hit, but this is very much a minor part of play. The Rivalry Cards do add a much-needed element of randomness to the game in scoring and rules, though it is a pity that they are used for all of the players rather than each player being able to draw his own and keep them secret until the end.

From its box artwork to its Courtyard Tower, Holi: Festival of Colours is eye-catching. That it takes a little known—at least in the West—Hindu festival and turns it into a pleasingly light, but physically impressive and tactile game, is an indication of the skill of the designer and publisher. Game play is solid rather than spectacular, but Holi: Festival of Colours is a decent game, not so light as to be less enjoyable for experienced gamers, but not too difficult for family or casual players. Overall, Holi: Festival of Colours an impressively lovely looking game, with easy to understand and playable rules, with a playing time that suits a filler.

Empire Building Filler Thriller

Eight-Minute Empire could be described as wargame. It has armies, their leaders contest for territory, and at the end of the game, the leader who holds the most territory wins the game. It is though not a wargame—certainly not in a traditional sense—but is instead a Eurogame that combines area control and card drafting mechanics with a set collection mechanic. It is a little game with big themes that can be played through in the eight minutes of the title with just two players, but just twenty minutes with the maximum number of five players.

Published by Red Raven Games, inside Eight-Minute Empire’s small, square box can be found one double-sided map board, a four-page rulebook, forty-two cards, and five sets of armies, forty-four coins, and ten Goods Tokens. The map board depicts various continents broken up into regions, connected by safe sea routes. At the centre of the map stands a city—this is the starting point for the game. At the top of the map is a line of numbers—[0], [1], [1], [2], [2], [2], and [3]. These are the costs that a player will have to pay for the cards placed in the corresponding line placed at the top of the board. The cards are marked with an order that the leader will give his armies and with a Good such as a Carrot, Pine Tree, or a Gem. A leader will gain more Victory Points if he has managed to collect these symbols in sets by the end of the game. The five armies—in blue, green, pink, red, and yellow—each consist of fourteen cubes (the armies) and three discs (the cities). The coin tokens are used to purchase cards and the Goods tokens replicated the symbols on the cards and are used as part of the game’s advanced options.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled and six laid out at the top of the board face up. Each player receives his armies and some coins. Initially he will use these to bid on who goes first in the game, but their primary use is to purchase cards. He will also place three armies in the starting region. On his turn, he will purchase one of the cards at the top of the board, the cost being determined by its position in the line. Cards towards the left are free or cheap and get progressively more expensive to the right.

Purchasing a card gains a player its Goods symbol and an order that he can give his armies. This order may be to place armies (from his reserve onto the board), move armies (already on the board), move armies by sea (already on the board along a sea route between continents), destroy armies (remove an army from the board), or build cities (in a region where a player has armies). Some cards give a choice of options, others two options, while others give the player the choice of Goods symbol at the end of game to add to the sets he is collecting.

Each player has two aims in the game. The first is to dominate as many regions as possible—a player needs to have the most armies in a region to hold it, though having a city in a region will also contribute towards the number of armies in a region. The second is to collect sets of Goods tokens. At the end of the game, a player will receive a Victory Point for each Region he controls and for each Continent he controls. He will also receive Victory Points for each set of Goods cards he has, the number varying from one Good to another. For example, three Carrots scores a player one Victory Point, five Carrots two Victory Points, seven Carrots three Victory Points, and eight Carrots five Victory Points, whereas one Gem scores a player one Victory Point, two Gems two Victory Points, three Gems three Victory Points, and four Gems five Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

The Eight-Minute Empire rulebook does feel a little cheap, but it is clearly written. The other components are all of a high quality. It could be argued that the auction at the start for first player delivers little given its potential cost. One way to balance this would be to have an auction at the start of every turn, but the game does not include enough gold for this. If it did, it would also mean that the players might have too much gold with which to purchase their cards. Another issue might the game’s lack of theme. My suggestion would be that the Emperor’s sons’ rivalry threatens to erupt into civil war, so he directs his sons to take their armies and compete for dominance without course to open conflict.

Interestingly, the game’s feel and flow will be influenced by the cards drawn. For example, the lack of Sea movement cards would limit travel to other continents, concentrating the contest for territory to a limited area, whilst lots of them, would enable the players to spread their armies and vie for wider regions. Balance this against the need to collect Goods for sets and limited gold to spend, and a player has some tight choices to make over the course of cards he must choose—varying according to the number of players, more players means fewer cards. Eight-Minute combines tactical play in its armies and area control with strategic decisions in the Goods needed for sets in a pleasing presented and re-playable package. The result is that Eight-Minute Empire is a rather charming little filler.