Kerala: The Way of the Elephants

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Kerala: The Way of the Elephants
Game data
author Kirsten Hiese
graphic Claus Stephan , Antje Stephan
publishing company Cosmos games u. a.
Publishing year 2016
Art Placement game
Teammates 2 to 5
Duration 30 minutes
Age from 8 years

Awards

Game of Games 2016

Kerala: The Path of the Elephants is a placement game by the German game designer Kirsten Hiese , which was published in 2016 by the game publisher Kosmos Spiele . In the same year it was awarded the Austrian Spiel der Spiele prize.

Style of play

In Kerala: The way of the elephants , the players want to shine as a participant in an elephant festival in the Indian province of Kerala through the most splendid festival area and to receive as many points as possible. It is a placement game in which the festival area of ​​the other players is enlarged every round by placing another tile. The winner is the player who scores the most points for his seat at the end of the game.

In addition to the instructions, the game material consists of:

  • 5 starting tiles in five colors (blue, black, green, purple and red),
  • 10 elephant figures in five colors,
  • 100 game tiles,
  • a cloth bag and
  • a scoring block.

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, each player chooses a game color and receives the corresponding elephant figures and the starting tile in this color. The two elephants are each placed on the starting tile. If there are five players, all 100 tiles are shuffled and placed in the cloth bag; if there are fewer players, the number is reduced according to the game instructions. The scoring pad and a pen are set aside for settlement at the end of the game. Then the starting player is determined (according to the rules of the game, the youngest player).

Game flow

The starting player receives the bag with the game tiles and draws as many tiles from the bag as players participate. He places this face up in the middle of the table, then selects one of the tiles and places it next to a field of his festival area on which one of the elephant figures is located. The elephant figure is then placed on the newly created tile. After the player, the other players also choose a tile in clockwise order and place it accordingly. When all players have taken a tile or passed, the next player receives the cloth bag and draws new tiles.

New tiles must always be placed on the fairground in such a way that they are horizontally or vertically adjacent to one of the two tiles with one of the elephant figures. The elephant figure is then drawn onto the new tile. Instead of occupying a new field, a player may build over tiles that are already on the table. The same rules apply for building over as for laying out: only tiles in the vicinity of the elephant figures may be built over and then the figure must move onto the resulting pile. A player may pass twice in the game if he does not want to take the cards that are still available and add them. To signal this, he puts one of his elephant figures on its side.

There are a total of six different tiles in the game, each in five colors:

Tile action
Elephant symbols (1, 2 or 3) For each elephant symbol in the fairground, the player receives one victory point at the end of the game.
Colored bow If at the end of the game there is a tile next to the colored sheet in the color of the sheet, the player receives 5 plus points in the final scoring.
Move the elephant figure If the tile is placed in the fairground and then an elephant moves onto it, the player may move one of his own elephant figures onto any other tile.
Move the plate If the tile is placed in the fairground and then an elephant moves onto it, the player may immediately move any tile or a pile from his fairground to any other place. The tile must not be completely surrounded and the fairground cannot be divided into two parts by moving it.

The active player's turn ends when all actions of the activated workers of all players have been carried out. Finally, the player draws the top worker tile from his worker draw pile and puts it into his hand. Then he refills the open display of the jungle tiles to two cards. If the plates are used up in both cases, there is no need to re-draw.

End of game and evaluation

The game ends when the last tokens have been distributed from the bag and attached to the corresponding festival areas. Then the scoring takes place on the scoring block. To do this, the two elephant figures are first taken from the fairground and put aside (lying elephants are laid aside). The evaluation is carried out as follows:

  • Each player may only have one contiguous field of each color. If he has several fields of the same color, he has to remove the surplus fields and receives 2 minus points for each removed tile (even in potentially existing stacks). The exception is your own color, from which a player can own two fields.
  • Each player should have a space of each color if possible, for each missing color he receives 5 minus points.
  • For every elephant figure still standing the player receives one point.
  • For every colored sheet adjoining a tile of the correct color, the player receives 5 points
  • The player receives one point for each elephant symbol that is in the fairground after the removal of surplus fields. The points are scored color by color.

The winner of the game is the player with the most points; in the event of a tie several players share the victory.

Expenses and reception

The game Kerala: The way of the elephants was developed by Kirsten Hiese and published for the Nuremberg Toy Fair 2016 by the game publisher Kosmos Spiele . In the same year the game was released in English under the title Kerala: The Way of the Elephant and in Spanish by SD Games.

The game was awarded in 2016 at the Austrian Games Prize of the Vienna Games Academy Game of Games .

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Rules of the game for Kerala: The way of the elephants at brettspiele-magazin.de; accessed on May 9, 2017.
  2. ↑ Versions of Kerala: The Way of the Elephants in the BoardGameGeek database; accessed on May 9, 2017.
  3. ↑ The winning games 2016: Spiel der Spiele 2016 on spielepreis.at, June 25, 2016; accessed on May 9, 2017.

Web links