Category: Reviews

In Giants, you play a chief competing for tribal prestige on Easter Island by building the biggest and most numerous statues your civilization has ever seen.

The monumental statues of Easter Island, known as moaïs, are one of the most fascinating exploits attributed to mankind. How did a handful of sculptors, tucked away on a miniscule island, ever manage such a feat? Isolated from the rest of the world, they built more than 800 statues, each weighing several tons with certain measuring nearly 10 meters tall. Cooperation between the tribes, innovative use of wood and their earnest hard work are certainly part of the explanation for their incredible feat. These stone giants are one of the rare vestiges of a highly refined civilization, the Rapanui, who prospered for more than a millennium in peace and tranquility. Now it’s your turn to relive their inspiring adventure as builders of the moaïs!

The game is set during the golden age of the Rapanui, the native inhabitants of Easter Island. As chief of your people, you must use your leadership skills to elevate your village to top status. While this mostly involves successful construction of complete moaïs (each statue has a headdress to cap it), you can enlist the help of opposing but like-minded tribes, either through peaceful teamwork or scheming tactics like seizing possession of materials that are still en route from quarries to their building platforms, and hoarding the logs used to transport the statue pieces. Tribe markers, which represent your level of influence on the island, are used to reserve the best ahus (stone building platforms) and moaïs for future use. In addition, you have a sorcerer who can put a magical whammy on rivals who interfere with your plans of island dominance, though, as chief, you also have the privilege of invoking the power of the sorcerer’s magical Rongo tablets. Be careful, as sneaky acts may grant your opponents some of the precious prestige points you need to ultimately win. If you lead well and use your resources wisely, your workers will thrive and “your masterpieces will stand tall for centuries.”

Game Contents
• 1 game board
• 5 tribe chief figurines
• 5 sorcerer figurines
• 30 sculptor figurines
• 30 Rongo half-tablets
• 14 headdress miniatures
• 17 small sized moaïs
• 12 medium sized moaïs
• 6 giant sized moaïs
• 30 tribe markers
• 5 screens
• 5 banners
• 1 first player pawn
• 2 quarries tiles
• 7 forest tiles
• 5 score counters
• 35 bases
• 5 special dice
• 27 wooden logs
• 1 pawn receptacle
• One rulebook

The gameboard for Giants is a huge, beautifully stylized map of Easter Island, with a representation of a stone mural on the reverse side that depicts a team of workers building a moaï. (The glyphs in the mural are decorative gibberish, as the Rongo tablet markings they’re modelled after have never been deciphered.) A great deal of thought has gone into the aesthetics of the entire game, from the box’s lush artwork and the insert tray with one section shaped like the profile of a moaï, to the visual diversity of the gamepieces. Each of the five players has a screen that not only handily lists a cheat sheet of the game rules, but is illustrated with a tranquil scene of island life done in one of the themed colours assigned to each tribe. The tribes also have individually designed figurines and symbol-emblazoned playing pieces in their colour, with different appearances for each tribe’s chief,  sorcerer, and workers, a touch that gives the players’ little plastic avatars a bit of personality. The realistically sculpted moaï figurines, in three shades of grey plastic speckled to resemble stone, are similarly well-crafted, as are the double-sided playing pieces made of durably thick cardboard.

Giants takes a while to set up the first time out of the box, as there are many gamepieces to prepare and familiarize yourself with, but once you’ve read through through the rules the turn-based action is fairly straightforward. The rulebook provides illustrated example scenarios that clearly explain some of the more complex moves, as well as an entire page on the story of Easter Island. This latter inclusion elevates Giants from a fun adventure game to a potential teaching tool, as most people recognize the giant stone heads of Easter Island without knowing the history behind them, namely how the construction of the moaïs decimated the island’s forests and nearly destroyed its entire ecosystem as a result. There are a maximum of five players in Giants, but more can be included by turning tribes into teams of students, making this educational game perfect for the classroom setting. Hopefully, in playing Giants, you’ll be able to change the fate of the Rapanui clans for the better.

Giants supports 3-5 players, ages 10 and up. Game length: about 60 minutes.

Order now at Amazon.com:
Giants

Or order directly through the Asmodee Editions website.

Giants is distributed by Asmodee Editions (US), a subsidiary of Asmodee Editions (France), in partnership with Les Éditions du Matagot. For more information on Giants, visit the official game website at Giants: The Board Game (in English, German, and French).

I’ve been in the gourmet coffee business most of my adult life. As a longtime barista, the idea of the game Barista from Discovery Bay Games intrigued me. When I picked it up and examined it for the first time, I smiled at the faux burlap print that covers the box. (The newest edition comes in a black and blue pinstripe box.) As a coffee fanatic, I have a small collection of the burlap bags that green coffee is shipped and stored in. Then I opened the box and began examining the game pieces, and was pleased to see an accurate selection of drinks depicted on the cards and dice.

Starbucks may have been the first big company to make wide use of the drink marking boxes, but it is by no means the only company using them. While the customer may not understand the importance of drink calling in order, it helps assist the barista improve the accuracy of the drinks, especially during peak periods. That the creators of the game took the time to include proper drink calling in the gameplay thrilled me to no end. Baristas around the world should rejoice and purchase this game to play with their friends, and offer it along with their other in-store games for customers to play.

The gameplay is simple and easy to catch on to. The object of the game is to be the first barista to accurately “build” the customer’s drink. Along the way, you can slow down and trip up your fellow baristas, quite literally if you draw a “spill drink” card to lay on them. Some of the cards are similar to Uno, with wild cards that can be anything, steal cards that allow you to take an ingredient card from another player’s hand, or a re-roll that lets you change one of the drink dice. Each time you win a hand, you receive 2 golden “tip” tokens. The first player to get 5 tip tokens wins the game. With a 2-player game, we modified the tip rule for game win, increasing 5 coins to 10 to lengthen gameplay.

Another fun twist on the gameplay is betting with your tips in what is called a “Barista Challenge”. If you already have at least 1 token, you can bet it against any other player that you will have more correct ingredients than them at the end of the hand, even if you don’t win the hand. If you win the challenge, you get a tip coin. If you lose the challenge, you lose a tip coin.

One point of confusion in the gameplay is setting down matching ingredients. The instructions say that you can set your matched ingredients face down on the playing surface so you are only holding the unmatched ingredients in your hand. The cards that are set down are still considered to be part of your hand, though, so when another player gets a steal card, these cards would be the obvious targets to take. The instructions don’t specify if they can be taken or if they are safe. We chose before a few games not to lay down cards, so as to randomize success when the steal card is played.

The box has a molded insert that neatly and securely holds all of the game pieces, and is small enough to store on an average bookshelf. The large dice are easy to read and the cards are thick, coated, and seem to be highly durable for many years of fun gameplay. While the demitasse cup is the right size for a dopio espresso macchiato, it’s actually for shaking up the dice. Perfect for any coffee lover, Barista is fun, fast-paced, and educational for anyone who drinks coffee and never knows how to order their drink.

The game includes:
52 Playing Cards
4 Drink Order Dice
1 Tip Token Bag
20 Tip Tokens
1 Espresso Cup Shaker

The deck is made up of different coffee cards:
Drink — Cappuccino, Mocha or Latte
Size — Short, Tall or Grande
Milk — Nonfat, Breve or Soy
Shots — Single, Double or Triple
Wild — A wild card can represent any element of a specific drink order.
Roll — Player must re-roll one Drink Order Die.
Change — Player must change one Drink Order Die.
Take — Player must take one card from another barista.
Spill — Player can choose to spill one opponent’s drink.

Barista is distributed by Discovery Bay Games, and is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or one of Discovery Bay Games’ many other Retailers.