Playing the haul from Spiel!

Kuan is an abstract strategy game for 2 players that takes around 10 minutes or so to play.

Amanda had picked this one out of the preview as something she thought I might like and actually bought it for me when she was picking up some games from the same stand. I have to say I am glad she did.

You get 10 tiles each, 5 red and 5 blue. The goal is to place a tile such that after that placement is resolved there is a line of 5 tiles of the same colour (either horizontally, vertically or diagonally). You can also win by forcing your opponent into a position where they need to place a tile and they do not have a tile in their supply they can legally place. The game is very reminiscent of “go” in that if you trap tile(s) between two tiles of the opposing colour, then you capture the pincered tile(s) into your supply, and your opponent must use tile(s) from their supply to match the colour of the tiles doing the pinching.

It is to connect 4 what snooker is to pool. I say that, because you are neither the red nor the blue player, it’s just whichever is the best piece to target on your turn for a victory that you care about. Which means (like snooker) placing a tile that brings you closer to victory, but doesn’t grant it, may very well help your opponent take victory on their turn.

The game is very easy to learn and can be played very quickly, and definitely feels like one of those games that are high depth but low-complexity.

The stone tiles, whilst having a kind of “pebbles found on the beach” quality to them, are quite nice. The matt is functional but perhaps could have been slightly higher quality. I am also not entirely sure about the cartoon characters used in the instructions and on the matt, they don’t seem to really fit the theme of the game (albeit the game is pretty abstract and the theme more or less just window dressing).

A few friends have played it and the feedback has generally been positive (though I would say not as positive as War Chest).