Let me start by saying that the only experience I have with any of the GIPF series is playing ZERTZ once at Essen. I liked it, but it wasn’t a game I would buy for myself.

Recently, I discovered TZAAR at the gaming club, and I felt inclined to do a review of it, since there aren’t a whole lot at the moment.

TZAAR is a two player game, and it is the last of the GIPF series, replacing TAMSK. I have never played TAMSK, so I cannot comment on the fact if the replacement was for the better.

TZAAR plays on a hexagonal board (see picture). There are two starting variants…there is a fixed starting position, or a variable starting position, where all the playing pieces are placed on the board in a random fashion.


There are two colours, black and white, one for each player.

Every colour has 3 different pieces: 6 tzaars, 9 tzarras and 15 totts
The tzaars have a silver dot and lining on the pieces. Tzarras only a silver dot, and the totts do not have any paint on them.

What is very important in this game is that all the playing pieces, like in ZERTZ, have equal power, the tzaars are not stronger than the totts!

Every turn, you have two actions. The first action has to be a “capture” action. The second action can be a “capture” , “stacking” or a “pass” action.

Capture action.
You take one of your pieces, and move it in a straight line until it encounters an enemy piece which is of the same height or lower than your piece. Now you can take the opponents piece and put your own piece on the place where the opponents piece first was (just like a rook or bishop move in chess). You cannot "jump" over pieces, not even your own.

Stacking action.
You take one of your pieces, and move it in a straight line until it encounters a friendly piece. You can now put your “moving” piece on top of that piece, to create a stack. A stack with a height of two can capture all 1 or 2 height stacks (obeying the rules of capturing of course). A stack with a height of 3 can capture all 1,2 and 3 stacks etc.

Pass action.
You pass =)

The game ends when:
A player runs out of Tzaars, Tzarras or Totts.
A player can not make a capture action on the beginning of his/her turn.

In a stack, only the top piece counts as being in play. If you stack a Tott on top of a Tzaar, you effectively reduce your number of Tzaars available by 1.


What do I think of the game?
Well, as a newcomer to real abstract games (except for Chess and Checkers, which I don’t really like, for various reasons), I was pleasantly surprised. This game plays very fast and offers a lot of choices every turn. You can think very deeply about the choices, but when you do, it mostly won’t take longer than a minute or so. So in my experience there is some Analysis Paralysis, but not for great amounts of time. The game offers some neat strategies, like capturing all the tzaars, tzarras or totts, or even manoeuvring so well, that your opponent cannot capture any pieces in his turn, because there are no available pieces for him to attack you with.

The game is very easy to learn, but in my experience gets better with repeated plays, since you are starting to see the possibilities at that point, instead of just “doing something that looks best”.

Summarized:

Components: The board and box is very bland compared to the other GIPF games, just Brown and black, no cool futuristic designs. The playing pieces are very nice and big, and stack perfectly. The silver paint is very bad though, and looks very cheap. But I’ve heard that this is a pre-release version. So I hope the components will improve with the new version.

Rules: very clear, simple and let's not forget: good

Gameplay: (very quick abstract game. Setup takes almost no time (if you do the random deployment variant). It gives you a lot of meaningful choices, without bugging down too much because of AP (like in chess)

Strategy: I think you can have a strategy in this game, like taking all the tzaars or something, but I do think the game is more tactical. Because the board constantly changes and shrinks, you cannot really plan ahead more than 1 or 2 turns (or at least, I cannot)

Tactics: I think the game is highly tactical. Every turn you look around to see what is the best to do at that moment. And if your opponent put you in the position to do so, you might even change the strategy you had in mind (like suddenly attacking Tzarras instead of Tzaars).

Fun factor: I really like this game. I always thought of abstract games as being very slow, AP-heavy and maybe even a bit boring. This game really fits none of those accusations, and offers a deep, enjoyable experience in a very short time-span. At the boardgaming club I normally play it as a filler, before going home.

Fart factor: None, but I didn’t expect any, so that’s alright .

I grade it a 8, using the BGG rating system: meaning I'll never turn down a game and probably will suggest it myself.

Should you buy it? For gameplay, yes, buy it, immediatly...NOW!
But I don't know when the finished game will be released, so you might want to wait for that one, before spending your money. Not that the quality is really bad, it's more that it's...uninspiring or something