Originally published in 1997 as Arabana-Ikibiti by the designer's own publisher Bambus Spieleverlag, and reprinted by Funagain in the US, this later edition is from Kosmos and Rio Grande.
A simple 2 player game, players use cards to place or remove bridges from a collection of islands. If you get the majority of bridges around an island, you put one of your marker stones on it and also throw off any of your opponents bridges. That may mean they no longer have a majority of bridges on the adjacent island and so lose a marker stone.
Your hand is limited to 5 cards. You play as many as you like, but you only draw 1 card back, either from 3 face-up cards or the draw deck. You play 3 rounds, scoring each round when all the cards are taken. If you own more islands than your opponent, you score 1 point first round, 2 points second round, but in the third round, you score the difference in islands owned as points. So if you win the first round and I win the second, you have to finish the last round owning at least 2 more islands than I do to win the game.
This edition has excellent graphics and neat wooden pieces and it plays very well. The actual pattern of islands and bridges is very smart and well-balanced. At first, players build up their strength on the board. But by the second round, bridges are being thrown off and the contest heats up. The last round can be fierce, with control of the board ebbing and flowing as islands are lost and recovered. It's that recovery that matters the most. Placing one bridge gets you one island, but throwing out the other bridges loses your opponent's control and the knock-on effects are powerful. Hand management is important too, holding back a card could mean a quick response and defense.
Kahuna is part of the Kosmos two-player series.
Online Play
Re-implements:
Re-implemented as:
for Kahuna at 
