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Tonga Bonga by Stefan Dorra Rating: 8/10 after 1 play

Tonga Bonga by Stefan Dorra art unknown publish Ravensburger Players: 3-4 Duration: 45 mins. PACE: Quick. 4 different phases, and each one is fairly simple, so not too much slowdown. COMPLEXITY: Light. Easy -- incredibly easy -- to learn, but quite a bit to figuring out how to win. One of my highest praises: it is more than the sum of its parts. LUCK: Low. Even bad die rolls can be good because it denies movement points to your opponents. My friend Sean rolled garbage all game and won. It's all how you play. TENSION: Low. There isn't any hardcore tension, simply because the phases develop one bit at a time so everything is out in the open. VICIOUS: Medium. Well, you get to decide which die to give to which player, how much money to offer other players, whose shipping lane to block, which islands to get on to make more money -- all kinds of sneaky tricks. SOCIAL: High. Light enough to talk around, and friendly enough that everyone will want to. VISUALS: Excellent. The board, the customized dice, are all nice, but the superb quality of the boats puts this into the realm of excellence. Very pleasing to the eyes. THEME: High. Better crew can move a ship further; ships squeezing through narrow chennls have to slow down; better wages = better employees. Very well done for such a light game. GAMER APPEAL: Probably. There are a lot of layers to this game. Much more than one would think from a cursory glance. Very nice system and unique mechanics NON-GAMER APPEAL: Yes. Beautiful bits, simple rules, interesting decisions, but nothing unfriendly here. Short duration helps too. 2 PLAYERS: No. REPLAY: High. I expect this to be one of my most played family games. RATING: 8/10 I've played 2 times. Good with 3-4 players. Best with 4 players.

Quick summary | A beautiful game with very unique mechanics. Players offer salaries to prospective employees, then players rolls their dice and assign 'sailors' (dice) to different ships. Obviously better sailors / higher rolls, are going to head to the ships with best income offered. Better sailors means moving further, which allows players to get to islands quicker. Islands pay 25 to the first person there, but after that players must pay 5 to each player already on the island, so the race to get there first is important. This game is a very tricky balance of acquiring movement without paying to much to your opponents, and trying to gain money for yourself with helping them move too much. Wonderful family game, and good gamer 45-filler.

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