Add in matching stone patterns to constantly moving artists, the adjacency rule, and the possibility that your opponents are sacrificing the big points through grabbing those mandala bonuses by simply scoring a few tiles at a time, and you’ve got pretty predicaments!

As soon as cards of all 6 colors have been played into a Mandala (consider the cards in its Mountain and its two Fields), the Mandala is complete and must be destroyed at the end of that turn; this may cause the game to end. It’s a game you grasp straight away but then discover more and more as you chip away at the mountain. Like a multi layered film the more time you spend with it the more you see, and because Mandala only takes 20 minutes to play you will more often than not play at least two games in a row. Highly recommended for abstract and two player game fans, but also for anyone who often finds themselves playing at two players. You cannot move the cards in your River, and must place each new card beside the previous one, without leaving any gaps. Important: The hand size of 8 cards is a hard limit. You may never have more than 8 cards in hand. In particular, you may not draw 3 cards and discard the excess.Then give each player two cards which only they look at and then place face down onto their own “cup." In the mountain area, players can only place one card each turn, following the rules of color. After placing a card in the mountain, that player draws up to three cards. Keep in mind the maximum hand size is eight, so if three would take you over that hand size limit, you only draw as many as you can. You do not overdraw and discard. MItchell T: An original and interesting card game. It requires judgment, finesse, and some brinkmanship. There is some depth here, but the cards will also surprise you. You do gain skill as you play, but it is easy to learn and lots of fun to play.

Add a card into either mandala - here you must follow the “rule of colour” which means that the card you lay can either match an existing colour or be a new colour. It cannot be a colour which your opponent has already added into the mandala or their field surrounding that mandala. But you can keep adding to whichever suits are in the mandala, regardless of who laid that colour (suit) first.

Object of the Game

Scoring is completed by using the cards in your river and multiplying them by the cards in your cup. Each position in your river is worth a different amount of victory points from 1 point for the first position to 6 points for the sixth position. Take your cards from your cup and place them below the matching position (same colours) in the river. Multiple the number of cards in your cup by the position it is in the river for all of your river cards and add all of your scores to get a total. The player with the highest score wins. Note that some river cards may not score you any points if you do not have the same colour represented in your cup. In the event of a tie the player who has the fewest cards in their cup wins. Conclusion

Rather, this is a how-to-play guide that goes into the nitty-gritty of how this game works in a little more detail to help you decide whether Mandala could also be a game for you. The Line -n Up! Starting with the player who played the most cards in their Field, the players take alternating turns to choose one of the colors present in the Mountain of the just-completed Mandala.

Game Play

Mandala has grabbed me with its immediate gameplay and variety. In fact it’s easier to play than it is too explain! I didn’t expect a game like this to have so much variance in gameplay, but the subtle changes to scoring and colour value added to the mind games that transpire makes this one of the best two player games I’ve played. It is a game I can play with my mum and my friends, and one that they have a chance of winning too.