When I first heard the news that my good friend and fellow gaming fanatic Stephen Glenn was having one of his games published by Kosmos, I was ecstatic. I mean, there are many veteran game designers out there who would LOVE to have one of their games published by one of the “big boys” in the German game industry. To accomplish this with your very first game is truly an amazing feat.

The news only got better. It was announced recently that Balloon Cup had made it to the list of nominees for the 2003 Spiel des Jahre, Germany’s most recognized and prestigious game award. Again, a simply incredible accomplishment and honor. Fortunately, Stephen is well grounded and humble and won’t let his head swell up like one of those balloons in his game!

My first opportunity to play Balloon Cup arrived during Alan Moon’s Gathering of Friends in mid-April. I witnessed the game being played many times prior to finally getting a chance to play. Rick Thornquist of Terminal City Gamers fame was my teacher and he proceeded to completely crush me and deflate my opinion of the game. I was the victim of a simply horrid hand of cards and throughout the entire match I captured two … count ‘em, two … cubes. Not balloon cups, mind you, but two CUBES. No matter what I tried, I simply didn’t have a chance. Uggh.

I was so incredulous that I demanded an immediate second playing. The second game was much more competitive and even though I swept Rick, the game was tight and really could have gone either way.
The theme, of course, is loose-fitting, as is the case with many German-style games. Players compete in several balloon flights, with the victor of each race winning various colored cubes. Ultimately, when a player accumulates enough cubes of a particular color, he may trade those in and capture the trophy card for that color. The first player to collect three of the five trophies has the most hot air and is victorious.

The components are typical of the Kosmos 2-player series – high quality and functional. Included are an assortment of colored wooden cubes (more deforestation!) – including a cloth bag in which to place the cubes -- 65 playing cards (13 each in five different colors), five trophy cards and four land tiles. These land tiles are numbered 1 –4 and set out in order. A number of cubes equal to the number depicted on a tile are drawn randomly from the bag are placed on each tile. Players will alternate playing cards to these tiles in efforts to win the cubes upon them. The card play is reminiscent of several games, including Lost Cities, Schotten Totten and Heave Ho. Amazing how such a simple concept can be adapted to so many different games.

Players each begin the game with eight cards (Hello, Lost Cities!) and will, in familiar fashion, play a card then draw a card. Like Heave Ho, players can play on either side of the “board” (the land tiles). However, there are a few restrictions:

1) Cards played to a land tile MUST match the color of one of the cubes upon that tile. So, if there are no red cubes on a particular tile, players may not play red cards to that tile. Further, the colors of the cards played must match EXACTLY the cube mix on that tile. So, if there are 1 green and 2 yellow cubes on the ‘3’ tile, each side must eventually have 1 green card and 2 yellow cards played to it.

2) The total number of cards that can be played to EACH side of a tile is equal to the number of cubes upon that tile. So, for example, only two cards per side can be played to the ‘2’ land tile. Kinda makes the options on that ‘1’ tile VERY limiting …

As soon as a tile has the maximum number of cards played to each side, the winner of the cubes on that tile is determined. If the tile depicted meadows, then the player whose cards on his side of the tile total the least value wins the cubes. If the tile depicted mountains, than the player with the greatest value grabs the cubes. This gives the players some interesting choices on where to play their cards. Since a player can play cards on either his or his opponent’s side of the tiles, the game has a rather nasty element as players can force their opponent’s cumulative total to be more or less than the optimum amount. This creates some interesting choices and introduces some delightful tension to the proceedings.

Once the competition for a particular tile is complete and the cubes taken, the land tile is flipped to its other side, which depicts the opposite type of terrain. The appropriate number of cubes are drawn from the bag and placed onto the tile and the battle continues.

This process continues until a player accumulates enough cubes of a color to win the matching trophy. The amount of cubes required to win each trophy varies depending upon the color. For example, three gray cubes are required to win the gray trophy, while seven red cubes are needed to capture the valuable red trophy. The first player to win three of the five trophies wins the match.

One problem, however. Once a particular color trophy has been captured, the remaining cubes of that color are worthless, right? Well, not exactly. Once a particular trophy has been captured, players may trade in three of that color cube for another color, but ONLY if that is the final cube needed to capture the trophy of that color. This is a very clever and neat mechanism to eliminate the problem of worthless cubes. It can create a potential problem – one of potential stagnation. You see, it is quite possible that a player may actually avoid winning the competition on a particular land tile if it would allow him to capture a particular trophy. Why is that, you say? Well, if the player takes the trophy – let’s say blue – then the blue cubes his opponent possesses now become ‘exchangeable’. This just might allow that player to trade in three blue cubes, grab a cube of the color he needs in order to capture that particular trophy – let’s say red. So, this can cause the card-play on a particular land tile to cease, which will somewhat limit the options available to the players. Although this can be problematic, it also can cause a race for other tiles to secure the needed cubes and alleviate the need for the ‘locked’ land tile.

Sadly, the game does have one potential problem that is not dealt with in the rules. It is possible for the game to stagnate based simply on the draw of cubes from the bag. As mentioned, the color mix of the cubes is limited: 5 Grey, 7 Blue, 9 Green, 11 Yellow and 13 Red. When drawing cubes, if 3 or 4 of the grey cubes, OR 4 of the blue cubes are drawn at once, the game can, as the designer says, “lock-up”, possibly making it impossible to win either the grey or blue trophy.

Fortunately the designer has stepped forward with a solution. If the above listed combination of cubes is drawn, you must replace all of those cubes and re-draw. Simple enough, but still enough to cause the designer fits!

I’ve found Balloon Cup to be a fun diversion with some nice tension and interesting decisions to be made. Although it uses familiar mechanisms, there are enough new ideas here to give it a fresh feel. Yes, the potential “lock-up” problem is a concern, but not enough to destroy the overall experience. Balloon Cup fits extremely well into the Kosmos 2-player line of games and is one that should be played with a fair amount of regularity.