Pueblo (game)

Pueblo
Game data
author	Michael Kiesling , Wolfgang Kramer
graphic	Joachim Krause, Wolfgang Scheit, Ole Höpfner, pinball
publishing company	Ravensburger
Publishing year	2002
Art	Board game
Teammates	2-4
Duration	about 60 minutes
Age	from 10 years on
Awards
Game of Games 2002 German Games Prize 2002: 8th place Dutch Game Prize 2002: nominated Japan Boardgame Prize 2002: nominated Tric Trac d'Or 2002: nominated International Gamers Award 2003: nominated

Pueblo is a tactical board game by Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer , published in 2002 by Ravensburger . In 2002 the game was awarded the Austrian “ Spiel der Spiele ” game award.

Game idea and process

The Taos Pueblo in Taos County , New Mexico .

Shape of the building blocks used in the game.

A pueblo (Spanish: "village") is a type of settlement that is particularly widespread in New Mexico and Colorado. The residential complexes typically consist of numerous cuboid residential units that are built next to and on top of one another.

The players take on the role of builders who are supposed to build such a pueblo on behalf of their chief. Both their own and neutral modules are available for this. The chief, however, monitors the construction on a random basis and punishes those builders who visibly built their own stones. The winner is whoever has collected the fewest penalty points at the end of the game.

The game material includes:

• 27 building blocks in player colors
• 16 building blocks in neutral beige
• Chief figure
• 4 counting stones in player colors
• Game schedule and scoring bar
• 4 turn order cards (only professional version, see below)
• 4 places of worship (only professional version)

The game board shows the construction area divided into 8 × 8 fields on which the pueblo is to be built. A path leads around the construction site, from which the chief inspects the work. Depending on the number of players, players receive 5–8 of their own and 4–7 neutral components.

The game is played in turn. When it is a player's turn, he first places a building block from his supply on the game board. Then he moves the chief figure one, two, three or four spaces further (no dice are rolled). The row determined in this way is now evaluated: For each colored area that the chief can "see" in his row, the corresponding player receives one penalty point per level - an area on the second level, for example, earns two penalty points. If the chief stands on a corner space, the quarter of the building area is rated “seen from above” instead. The penalty points are recorded on a separate " Kramer bar " (point counting bar); its name goes back to one of the two authors of the game, Wolfgang Kramer .

The game ends when all the building blocks have been installed and the pueblo is thus completed. The winner is whoever has accumulated the fewest penalty points.

variants

In addition to the rules for normal play, the instructions contain two game variants:

The dismantling can be played as a supplementary game phase directly after a normal game or a professional game. Here, the previously built pueblo is dismantled again by the players taking back one neutral or one of their own building blocks. The movement and scoring of the chief takes place as in the regular game.

In the professional version , some L-shaped cult sites are placed on the game board before the start of the game , which cannot be built over. The construction of the pueblo is also divided into two phases, whereby the turn order of the players is determined by auction mechanism for each phase. The dismantling variant can also be played after the professional game .

Reviews

In 2002, Pueblo was awarded the Austrian " Spiel der Spiele " game award. The reasoning states:

"" Pueblo "offers a really innovative game idea, has an atmospheric design and its complexity lies precisely at the intersection where casual and frequent gamers are equally enthusiastic."

- Games committee of the Vienna Games Academy

At the German Games Prize 2002, Pueblo came in eighth. In the same year the game was also nominated for the " Dutch Game Prize " and the " Japan Boardgame Prize ". The following year, Pueblo was on the nomination list for the “ International Gamers Award ” in the “General Strategy: Multiplayer” category.

The reviews were consistently positive to very positive: The reviewers described Pueblo as an interesting and challenging tactical game that uses only a few rules and offers a high level of appeal. However, the correct placement of the unusually shaped stones required some practice and spatial imagination , especially in the later game . The game material is high quality, but individual reviewers would have liked stones made of wood instead of plastic.

background

According to the game report at spieletest.at, the game was originally intended to appear under the title Kasbah and thematically located in the Arab world.

In 2006, Pueblo was "reissued" in the form of an expansion for the board game system brettform 640 from the Korean manufacturer Brettform Co.

Web links

• Pueblo in the Luding games database
• Pueblo in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Nominee Lists of Japan Boadgame Prize 2002 (English)
2. ↑ Leaflet Game of the Games 2002 (PDF; 939 kB)
3. ↑ Györög Kurt: review at Topolinos homepage of 2 April 2002
4. ↑ Hans-Peter Stoll: Review by H @ LL9000 from June 13, 2002
5. ↑ ^{a b} Arno Steinwender: Review at spieletest.at from August 9, 2002
6. ^ Carsten Wesel: Review at fairspielt.de from August 18, 2002
7. ↑ Michael Weber: Review by Reich der Spiele from October 31, 2005
8. ↑ Brigitte and Wolfgang Ditt: Review by Pöppelkiste
9. ↑ Brettform Co. ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at spielbox.de