Lookout Spiele | Mandala | Board Game | 2 Players | Ages 10+ | 30 to 60 Minute Playing Time

Product Information

If you claim cards of a color that is already present in your River: Simply place all the cards face down in your Cup. To begin, each player receives a hand of six cards. Each player receives two random cards face down in their cup, then two random cards are dealt face up into the central mountain strip of each mandala.

For you see, the board in Mandala isn’t a regular cardboard affair. No, in Mandala, it is a beautifully printed linen cloth that just begs to be flapped out when you take it from the box. Mandala is a two-player game were you’re trying to score more than your opponent by collecting valuable cards. Note: although this game is very colour-centric, the individual suit patterns on each card suit should help players with colour vision issues play without any disadvantage. Making it an accessible abstract!

Then give each player two cards which only they look at and then place face down onto their own “cup." You can only take cards from a mandala and add them to your cup once it has been built up and is ready to be destroyed. Mandala is a 2 player only game and it has to be one of the prettiest games available. The playmat included is so pretty that it also includes washing instructions in case you get it dirty. But you don’t want to just stand there all day admiring the game, you want to actually play it. So how do you? Read on to find out. Set Up

If you have 7 cards in hand, draw only 1 card; if you have 6 cards in hand, draw 2 cards; otherwise, draw 3 cards). Mandala is played over a series of turns. Each player has three options as to what to do on their turn, but first, there is a bit of explanation needed. The board for Mandala, which is a nice linen cloth, is divided up into different areas. In the middle there are two mandalas, one on the left and one on the right. At any time on their turn a player can play cards to either of the areas. Each mandala is broken up into three areas. In the middle there is what is called the mountain, and on each side of the mountain is a field area where a player can play their cards. Placement rules are fairly simple, there are six different colored cards in the game, and in each mandala, a color can only appear in one of the three spots, either in the mountain, or in one of the player’s fields. A player may only play cards into their field or the mountain, but not the other player’s field. The board also has two additional areas for each player, a scoring line, called the River, and a pile for scoring cards, called the Cup. 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. When scoring, each player will take the cards from their Cup and score them based on where that color sits in their River. The cards in the River do not score, only cards in the Cup. Add up the total points and the player with the most points is the winner. When drawing new cards you must never go over your hand limit of 8 cards. Also you may never end your turn with no cards in your hand. If you were completing the action ‘grow fields’ and you had 4 yellow cards in your hand you would not be allowed to place all 4 cards in the field. Completing A MandalaAnd then the winner is the player with the most points and end game. Pretty simple but pretty strategic! Two-player games are an important market in the board game industry. Seemingly, no company has embraced this as much currently as Lookout Games has with their “Fur Zwei Spieler” series of games. The newest title I’ve had the pleasure of playing from this line is Mandala from Trevor Benjamin and Brett J. Gilbert. Mandala is a hand management game where the two competitors are attempting to create the highest scoring pile of cards. 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 It's a game where you need to remain flexible and adapt to a situation where control shifts during a round. The only other element of the linen cloth to note is the wider circle around each mountain. That space immediately below a mandala is called the “field." This is where a player may place cards on each round in the hope of controlling the connected Mandala.