Viking Valley

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Viking Valley
Game data
author Marie and Wilfried Fort
graphic Maximilian Meinzold
publishing company HABA
Publishing year 2019
Art Child's play
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 15 to 20 minutes
Age from age 6

Awards

Valley of the Vikings is a children's and skill game by the French game designer couple Marie and Wilfried Fort . The game for two to four players, ages six and up, takes around 15 to 20 minutes per round. It was published by HABA in 2019 , and in the same year it was named Children's Game of the Year .

Theme and equipment

In the game, the players try to emerge as the winner of a Viking competition in the Viking Valley. This consists of the annual barrel bowling , in which the players have to bow around colored barrels with a ball. If you manage to knock over the right barrels and thus bring your own Viking figure to an optimal position, you will be rewarded with gold coins. The winner is the player whose Viking clan has the most gold coins at the end of the game.

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

  • a large game plan with the "Viking Valley", made up of 7 parts
  • eight winning flags,
  • four ships in four player colors,
  • four Viking chips in four player colors,
  • four wooden barrels in four player colors,
  • a cardboard part "Kugelschubser",
  • a ball, and
  • 24 gold coins.

Style of play

Before the game, the game board is put together from the seven individual parts and placed in the middle of the table. Each player chooses a color and receives the corresponding Viking ship and the Viking chip. All Winkinger chips are placed in front of the first field of the jetty, the ships come in front of the respective players and a gold coin is placed in each of the ships. The rest of the coins, the ball and the ball pusher are placed next to the game board. Then the eight winning flags are shuffled and one flag is placed face up in each flag hole on the board. The four barrels are placed in any order in the marked holes in the middle of the game board and the first player receives the ball and the ball pusher.

Starting with a starting player, the game is played in clockwise order. The active player places the ball in the hole in front of him and pushes it with the ball pusher towards the set up barrels. He tries to knock over some of these and is allowed to push the ball again until at least one barrel has fallen over. For each fallen barrel, he moves the Viking chip in the matching color one space forward on the jetty, skipping occupied spaces. If several barrels have fallen over, he can determine the order in which the chips are moved. If a Viking chip is moved beyond the last space of the jetty, the corresponding Viking falls into the water and thus triggers a coin distribution, the move ends immediately and the Viking chips are scored according to the flags above them. The distribution begins with the Viking who has run the furthest forward on the pier, and all gold coins won are placed in the appropriate ships. There are three different options:

  1. the flag shows one to four coins: the Viking receives the corresponding number of gold coins.
  2. the flag shows an opposing Viking: the Viking receives a gold coin from him.
  3. the flag shows the same Viking: the Viking receives a gold coin from each opposing Viking.

The Viking who fell into the water does not get gold coins. He is placed back on the field in front of the jetty and starts again from there.

The game ends when the last coin is dealt. The winner of the game is the player with the most gold coins in their own boat.

Versions and reception

The game was developed by the French game designer couple Marie and Wilfried Fort and published in 2019 by HABA, a publisher specializing in children's games, in a multilingual version in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch as well as in German, English and French packaging. The married couple and parents presented their self-developed game for the first time as a self-made prototype at the Festival International des Jeux in Cannes in February 2017, where they met Jenny Bessière, Head of Toys Sales at HABA France, and Markus Nikisch , himself a children's game designer and ideas scout in Germany HABA editorial team. Together with the HABA editorial team, game editor Annemarie Wolke developed the finished game on this basis. The graphic design comes from Maximilian Meinzold .

In May 2019, Valley of the Vikings was launched alongside the games Fabulantica and Go Gecko Go! nominated for children's game of the year and was able to win this award in July. The jury commented on the game and the decision as follows:

“'Valley of the Vikings' is an exciting foray that you can just play with if you are skillful. The tactical considerations when fighting for positions on the footbridge become clearer with increasing experience and guarantee long-lasting fun. "

Even outside the jury of the Game of the Year, Valley of the Vikings was largely positive. The game critic Wieland Herold described it as "an exciting game with excellent material that children always like to play along with and specifically demand" and the children's game magazine attests it "a simple but more than convincing game principle".

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f game instructions Valley of the Vikings ; accessed on July 22, 2019
  2. ^ Valley of the Vikings , versions at BoardGameGeek. Retrieved July 22, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Valley of the Vikings is “Children's Game of the Year 2019” - A look behind the scenes at haba.de; accessed on July 22, 2019
  4. ^ Valley of the Vikings on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV ; accessed on July 22, 2019
  5. ↑ Wieland Herold : Valley of the Vikings, review on mit80.de, April 17, 2019; accessed on July 23, 2019
  6. ↑ Wilfried Just: Valley of the Vikings, review on kinderspielmagazin.de, June 9, 2019; accessed on July 23, 2019

Web links