This game is really two games in one, almost like a left-brain/right-brain thing. There is the game that makes you stare blankly, and the game that makes you pull your hair out and throw stuff. (Not the hair... doesn't exactly do much damage to throw hair... I mean, what's the point?)

Overview

Everybody starts off with some colored beads which represent currency of some ambiguous nature. I suppose on a desert island (where the game is set), glass beads very well may be the currency. Anyhow, on this island, different stuff comes up for auction, ranging from stuff to eat, like bugs or fish, to companions like parrots and monkeys, (although I'm sure the monkey would appreciate it if you kept the two groups seperate and distinct). The game works on a modified Dutch auction, where the price starts high and goes cheaper and cheaper until someone stops the auction, though the person stopping the auction is not guaranteed of winning the bid.

What I like about the items up for bid (cue Janice with the hand motions) are that the items with the lower point values produce more income where the items worth the top point level produces no income, so you can follow multiple strategies to winning, save your cash to win the big auctions vs win the smaller items to keep replenishing your money.

The left brain... or is it the right brain... I can never remember...

Okay, so one side is the analytical part of it, which is understanding the mechanics of the auction. For me, it seems straight-forward. I remember my wife picking up on it right away when I taught her. But the thing that keeps this game on the shelf more than any other is the fact that I get so many blank stares and "This game is too hard" shrugs when I try and teach the auction. AND IT ISN'T THAT HARD!!!

3 pass cards, 2 stop cards, one strike card. Everyone has the same set of six cards. Everyone plays a card facedown at the same time, then people get a chance to stop the auction. Nobody stops it... everybody plays another card facedown... pause for a moment... repeat until someone who played a stop card turns it up. Then everybody turns up their most recent bid and crams the combination into the flowchart.

If one and only one person played a strike, they outguessed the group and wins the auction.
If noone won because of a strike card, and only one player played a stop card, that person wins the auction
If there are more than one stop cards played, then those players turn up their entire sequence of bids. Whoever played the most pass cards wins the auction. It's kind of like playing chicken.
If there is still a tie, then those players still tied pay as if they won the auction, then hold their own private auction just like before starting with all 6 cards

If-then... if-then... if-then. That's it. And if you win the auction, then you pay a number of stones equal to the number of cards left in your hand. Play a stop on the first round of the auction and win it then, you have five cards left in your hand. Pay five stones. Manage to catch everyone else playing strikes and not stopping the auction until the fifth round and you get your strike in... one card in hand, one stone back to the bank.

WHY CAN NOBODY LEARN THIS?!?!?!

Whatever part of the brain the first part was... this is the other part

So the auction is sort of blind bidding... but it sort of isn't, since it is more of a bluff than a bid.

See... I know you want what is up for bid, especially since you get your income next turn. So you may try to buy it early, except you won't because you never do try to win early, but you may because someone else may try to buy it early and take it from you, so maybe you will, but you won't. But next round, you will play your strike to win when someone else tries to steal it from you, except nobody will play a stop since they think you'll play your strike, so maybe you'll not play your strike and save it for next round, so maybe I'll play my strike next round except I won't because someone else must be figuring the same thing and they will, so noone will stop the auction then... so maybe you'll try and buy it now, but I don't think so, but I'll play a stop just in case, but I won't stop the auction.

/play a card
/wait to see if anyone else stops the auction

Okay, so you didn't stop the auction, but you may have played your strike expecting....

And that's the other half of the game, the never-ending sequence of second-third-and-fourth guessing, which really does fit in nicely in a light filler game.

Voted off the deserted island?

I like this game, quite a bit actually. Problem is, there isn't much going for it as a two-player game, so it doesn't make it off the shelf with just my wife and me. But when there are more people, there always seems to be something else I'd rather introduce to the group. I think a lot of the reas is that I don't want to deal with the frustration of teaching the game. I know that they won't get it. And I'm not teaching it poorly, I don't think. My wife tells me I'm doing a decent job of it. But it just seems like more of a problem to teach than it's worth. Were I to get it taught, though, I'd rate it about an 8, a good game for what it is. But since I have to deal with teaching...

6 out of 10.