Memoirs of a Board Gamer

Vanuatu was my most favorite game of the convention. The game's action track is the meat of the game. Players get three chances to put tokens in action boxes and when the box is resolved they get to take that action (e.g. move boat, fish, dive for treasure, ship cubes, paint a picture, fly tourists to an island, etc.) . The crux of the problem is turn order and how that relates to the order of box resolution. In most cases you need to have the actions resolved in a specific order to work (e.g. move boat and then fish not the other way around). However, if a player in front of you has the same or more tokens in the box than you, you have to wait for them to take the action before you can.

It's very cut throat and simple yet a bit hard to teach without an example. Your first round or two may leave you scratching your head but then it will click....Ohhhhh I get it!

I really liked it. There seemed to be multiple paths to victory, the order the tiles come out keeps it slightly variable although we did have a bit of trouble near the end figuring out how to place the last few tiles in valid positions.

Vanuatu is a definitely buy for me and I'm looking forward to playing again.