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

Product Information

Note: if both players have the same number of cards, the player who didn’t complete the mandala goes first. In the rare case that a player did not have any cards in their field when the mandala was completed they still take cards from the mountain but place them straight in the discard pile without adding them to their river or cup. Finally, turn over two cards and place them in the centre of each plain rectangle, bisecting the geometrically patterned circle. These four cards are the beginning of each of the two mandalas. The first thing that hits you upon opening the box is a rather overpowering smell. It emanates from the player board which looks a bit like a tea towel, and if you end up hating the game would function as one rather well. Annoyingly I keep forgetting to air it out, but that's ok, because that smell is the biggest, perhaps only, real misstep Mandala makes. Repeat for each colour along your river and the player with the most points in total is the winner!

Cards in the Mountain will be claimed when a Mandala is completed and added to your Rivers and Cups to earn points at the end of the game. From the cards each player collects from the mandala, one of each colour will go into their river and the remaining cards will go face down into their cup. Note that you have to put any new colour collected on the lowest available spot in your river. Those colours are now set in terms of the multiplier they will score when you reveal the cards in your cup at game end. Any cards collected which already match a colour present in your river go straight into your cup.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. The first thing that hits you upon opening the box is a rather overpowering smell. It emanates from the player board which looks a bit like a tea towel, and if you end up hating the game would function as one rather well. Annoyingly I keep forgetting to air it out, but that’s ok, because that smell is the biggest, perhaps only, real misstep Mandala makes. Add cards into one of your fields – again following the rule of colour, they can either match an existing colour or be a new colour but again you cannot add a colour which your opponent has already laid down into the manadala or their field surrounding that mandala. It’s funny, I am normally a person who likes to play games with more than two players. The social aspect of board gaming is probably the biggest pull there is for me. I like sitting around a table full of friends and having fun over a board game. So much so that I normally refuse play games that have higher player counts at two players. I always feel like I am missing something, both in the game and at the table. These two-player games from Lookout, and even previously from Kosmos, are built for two players and you don’t feel as if you are missing anything, the entirety of the game is out there for you to see. My wife and I have had a wonderful time with Patchwork over the years, and Targi, and Agricola All Creatures Big and Small. Those are the games that we reach for when having a night gaming with each other. Mandala gives us another option, another fun, strategic, really well put together and developed option. As players lay cards into their fields or onto the mandalas, there will come a time when one of the mountains contains all six colours which means it has completed.

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.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.

And then the winner is the player with the most points and end game. Pretty simple but pretty strategic! You can play multiple cards of the same colour to one of your fields, but you don’t get to draw any cards. When all six colours are present on a mandala then it will score. The person who played the most cards to their field will get to choose one set of same coloured cards from the mountain. If this colour isn’t already present in their river they place one of the cards face up in the leftmost space and any further of the same colour face down in their cup. The players switch turns choosing from the remaining colours on the mountain. 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. 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!

Setup

Over the course of the game, players play their coloured cards into the two mandalas. Building the central shared mountains and laying cards into their own fields. If you claim cards of a color that is already present in your River: Simply place all the cards face down in your Cup. 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! You are doing this in an effort to gain cards to your personal supply that will score you the most points. Each time that a mandala has all six colors in it, that mandala is evaluated. The players look and see who has the most cards in their field, that person gets to have the first choice in what cards to take from the mountain. You take cards of one color of your choice from the mountain and if that color is not already on your River, you place the first one of that color on the furthest left spot. The spots are numbered from one to six, those numbers are the points that each card in your score pile that matches will score. So the first one you take goes to your one spot, but any time that you take any more cards of that color, they go immediately into your Cup. You can only have each color represented once on your River. After the first player chooses card(s), the second player get to choose as well, as long as they have cards in their field when the mandala is evaluated. If they don’t, they still choose card(s) from the mountain, but they discard them instead of gaining them for their scoring. Once the mountain is empty, discard the cards from the field, and draw two new cards and place them in the newly empty mountain and play continues. Note: if you do not have a colour in a spot on your river when end game is triggered, any matching cards in your cup will score zero – don’t get the hump!

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! Finally, shuffle the objective cards and deal two face down to each player. Both are kept (secretly, mind you!) as players will get to decide which one best boosts their score at the end of the game. On each turn, you will be trying to gain cards that are of value to you by taking them from one of two central mandalas being built up over the course of a round. Cross-eyed over cards? Don’t worry, I’ll smooth out the mind moguls by taking you through a round step by step:

Object of the Game

And just when you think your brain has had enough kaleidoscopic crunch, your secret objectives are also sitting in front of you, waiting to be worked on to ensure VP bonuses at end-game time. Pebble-Dash It's helpful to note at this stage that the six squares in front of each player represent a player’s “river” and is where the cards in their cup will be sorted for scoring at the end.