Taluva is a simple little game with an evil twist that makes it fun for gamer and non-gamer alike. I do enjoy this game mainly because I can aggravate my mother while watching reruns on tv. I say reruns because you actually do need to pay attention to this game. It looks very simple but looks can be deceiving:

The game comes with 4 sets of tokens. In each set are 2 big towers, 3 temples, and 20 huts. Also in the box are 48 tile pieces that are 3 hexes formed together to make a tile. The tiles are used (as usual) to form the playing board. One thing I want to say real quick about the packaging: the developers made slots to set the tiles into (3 stacks of 10 and 2 stacks of 9) so that the tiles won't fly all over the box if you tilt it. That's nice and makes set up for play easy.

Speaking of play: unlike other tile-laying games I've played with my mom, this one is not strict about matching land-types. The land types are water, stone, grass, jungle, desert, and volcano. Each tile has a volcano on it and then 2 regular land types that are either different or the same as each other. When you lay the tiles out, you don't have to match water and water or anything. Here's the twist: you can build upwards, lay a tile on top of the others. In this instance, you have to match a volcano with a volcano and the piece you are placing must go across at least two tiles. So no laying one tile right on top of another.

"But what about the cool little pieces I get to play with?!" After you lay a tile, you get to place a piece. You can place a single hut on the first layer of tiles to start a village. Then you can expand the village by adding huts to identical land-types connected to your original hut. So if the first hut was on a desert and you want to expand to jungle of which there are two jungle hexes connected to the desert, you place a hut in each hex. A little trick with the huts: they don't have to be placed on the tile you just placed. Another thing: if you're expanding on the second or third level, you put 2 or 3 huts in that hex, respectively. Now, once you have three hexes claimed is when your village is "officially" large enough for a temple. The big towers can be placed anywhere next to one claimed hex but only if you place the big tower on a level 3 tile.

"Wow! That's a lot! But wait, what if I want to play a tile as a second level but there's huts in my way?" Oh, this is where the fun starts! You get to smash huts out of the game. They do not go back into the player's pool, do not pass go or collect the $200. They are gone. Oh, but there is a catch: you cannot smash all the huts in a village. You have to leave at least one sad little hut behind to bury the dead. Oh, yeah, one more catch: you cannot smash any temples or towers.

"Okay, so what's the point?" The point is to be out of 2 types of pieces before everyone else. If you are the first person with no huts or temples, you win! Just placed the last of all your towers and temples? You win! This is called the premature win. The normal win is that you run out of tiles to play and the player with the most temples built wins. If a tie you look at most towers built. Again, if there is a tie you see most huts built. On the flip side, if you just placed a tile and you can't place a single hut or tower from your pool due to how the board has played out? You lose! that's right, if you can't build anything after placing a tile then you're done playing the game.

So as you can see, there are some nuances to this game that make it difficult to focus entirely on the tv. This is why I recommend restricting the tv watching to reruns while playing this game.

This is a game that I would recommend for a non-gamer to try. There are some little twists and extra rules that you need to pay attention to, but they are easy to understand and remember. It's not like there's some weird rule that you can't set a tile with the volcano facing north in the afternoon of a Sunday in the Western Hemisphere unless you are playing the red pieces. You just have to remember not to crush all the huts or any towers while matching volcano over volcano across two tiles and then place a piece. Not too complicated and it has an evil little twist of crushing huts!