Game: Giza

Image

Brian Schubert — 2008-07-04T05:53:26+00:00

Giza Board - Layout

Image

stalkeroi — 2007-09-08T22:08:22+00:00

What a tension... at the open day in cultural center in Warsaw, Poland

Thread: Re: [Review] Giza

Browarion — 2007-08-27T07:42:48+00:00

Sunny Games wrote:

Anyone seen any English Rules yet??

No, unfortunatelly STILL not (look at the dates).
But Tom's review and downloaded aids are all you need, though not structured as rules should be , to play with confidence of right rules.

Nice game, though I still need more plays to assess

Thread: Re: Giza review from Moritz Eggert from Westpark Gamers

silverthorn11 — 2007-08-09T15:24:46+00:00

a great short game, pitched at the right level as a light and fast filler for gamers and non-gamers alike. I like games which you can explain the rules in 5 mins! This is fun to play and gives me just the right amount of headache (decision making) to make me want to play it again when it's done. I think to play this game twice in a row is imperative.

Image

silverthorn11 — 2007-08-09T14:55:43+00:00

end game

Image

silverthorn11 — 2007-08-09T14:51:10+00:00

Image

silverthorn11 — 2007-08-09T14:45:54+00:00

Thread: Re: Designer's Notes: Giza

Keahi — 2007-06-05T04:00:33+00:00

I just played this game tonight and found it interesting, you post has helped clear me understand the game better.

Thread: Re: Designer's Notes: Giza

chezzilla — 2007-05-13T02:21:53+00:00

My wife and I really enjoyed the game....her strategy was to dicard a lot in the beginning and she luckily absconded the sphinkx tiles two games in a row. I have introduced to my game club....very successful. Thanks for a great game

Image

elSchwabo — 2006-11-04T13:00:50+00:00

The cover

Thread: Re: [Review] Giza

Sunny Games — 2006-11-01T16:01:19+00:00

Anyone seen any English Rules yet??

Image

1Aspielerin — 2006-10-29T21:35:52+00:00

Essen 2006

Image

ddkk — 2006-10-18T04:09:03+00:00

Box Back Cover (hi-res)

Image

ddkk — 2006-10-18T04:08:09+00:00

Box Cover (hi-res)

Thread: Re: Designer's Notes: Giza

mvettemagred — 2006-10-02T13:53:03+00:00

Thank you for this detailed review of Giza's mechanics. I played the game for the first time this past weekend at ROBA, my local game group. I believe the game was donated by your company (thanks!). I really enjoyed the game, and while I caught on to some of the strategy, your article has given me a few new ideas. For example, I hadn't thought to use the Scarabs to protect my own pyramids -- very clever.

I'm looking for quick yet fun filler games, and Giza fits the need. I plan to introduce it to my neighborhood gaming friends the next time we get together. I'm sure they will like it too.

Thanks for the great game.

Thread: Re: Giza review from Moritz Eggert from Westpark Gamers

kimbo — 2006-07-10T17:50:19+00:00

Also no bag in the version (English) of the game I bought...

I added a bag from another thinking it would be a better way of mixing and choosing tiles but after one game I did away with the bag. It's important to be able to see how many tiles remain. One strategy might be to end the game by discarding and taking the last tile(s). This is harder to do if the tiles are in a bag.

Great game. Light and easy but well liked by the non-gamers I have introduced it to. Some gamers have taken a dislike to the game but they tend to dislike lighter games as a general rule anyway. I discount their opinions in this case.

Image

eve_brunner — 2006-06-20T01:17:12+00:00

Treasure Tiles

Thread: Re: Giza review from Moritz Eggert from Westpark Gamers

Bergbau — 2006-02-22T16:09:20+00:00

Try to play the team variant. It feels less luck dependant that way. 2x2, 2x3 eller 3x2, it all works pretty well. Summarize the points at the end.

/Strömer, from Sweden

Thread: Re: Giza review from Moritz Eggert from Westpark Gamers

thengz — 2006-02-21T05:41:43+00:00

As “Dividends” this is a high production quality game, with a small box packed to the rim with tiles, boards, a very good rulebook with illustrations and a nice bag to draw tiles from.

Hmmm... I'm not sure if its only me, but i didn't have the bag in my Giza set. Personally, I feel that this game is really light and I didn't really enjoy it. However, my girlfriend's 10 year old cousin did like it alot, thus, this might be a good game if you want to start them young...

Thread: Giza review from Moritz Eggert from Westpark Gamers

Eggo — 2006-02-03T12:02:02+00:00

Giza
by Fun Factory

Asia in general has had a huge boardgaming boom in recent years – somehow gaming goes well with Asian mentality, and anybody who has ever seen huge Mah-jongg gaming hall with hundreds of people intensely playing will understand that Asians are as avid players as anybody on this planet, perhaps even more so. It is therefore not surprising that there are also more and more high quality games from Asia.
Fun Factory, a new company from Singapore, has already produced one other big game, “Dividends” (which we reviewed on this site as well), “Giza” is their “small” game, catering more for the “family game” market instead of the “gamer geek” market. As “Dividends” this is a high production quality game, with a small box packed to the rim with tiles, boards, a very good rulebook with illustrations and a nice bag to draw tiles from.
“Giza” has players try to build pyramids. Each player has three building “sites” on his/her tile board, and a fourth building site for building a sphinx. Players take turns drawing building tiles that can be placed constructively on your own tile board or destructively on other players tile boards. Pyramids, much like in “Tikal”, but there they are excavated, are built from the bottom up, but you can decide on which level you start a pyramid. “5” is the lowest level and “1” the highest. Each of these tiles comes in negative (e.g. “-5”) or positive (“+5”) versions. You can only place “higher” tiles on “lower” tiles, so you could place a 1,2,3 or 4 (negative or positive) on a 5 tile, but not a 5. The Sphinx consists of three defined tiles of which one is negative (the first one) and two are positive. Very lucrative are “treasure” tiles which can only be placed on the same level. Of course there are also some special tiles: The “demolition” tile destroys the uppermost tile of a stack, and the Scarab tile closes off a stack and can only be removed by basically sitting out a turn.
Once a pyramid is “topped off” with a 1 tile it is considered finished. The first player who finished his three pyramids ends the game, another ending condition is the exhaustion of the draw stock.
This is a VERY quick game. Even with the maximum number of players (6) one can expect to finish a game in 30 minutes maximum. The turn angst basically comes down to: “Do I play an evil tile on another player” or “do I further the construction of my own pyramids”. Doing the former creates an enemy and might even be a kingmaking decision, doing the latter creates envy and lures other players into dumping bad tiles on you. The choices are limited each turn, as the selection of playable tiles is relatively small, sometimes you won’t even be able to play a legal tile, which kind of takes the decision away from you.
If this sounds dull it does not necessary mean it is a dull game. The question is rather with WHOM you are going to play this game. The luck element is doubtlessly high, although the designer has gone to great lengths to create a stochastically solid selection of tiles that make some moves dumber than others when you think about probabilities and look at what tiles the other playes have already used. With a round of “statisticians” this can actually lead to some pondering, much like the higher tiers of “Carcassonne” play also demand that you know the selection and probability of certain tiles appearing quite well to win against a seasoned opponent. But Giza is much lighter than Carcassonne, and the mathematical demands are not as high. I personally enjoy it, while some seasoned gamers find it too light and random, especially when the kingmaking element of who attacks whom really kicks in. With families it becomes an ideal gateway game, though, which can be played with adults and youngsters alike, and also with non-gamers who find the usual Euro game fare “too heavy” for their tastes. If you like this game will therefore depend very much on the kind of groups you play in, it might be very succesful in one group, and less in another.
It was a design decision to keep this game very short, actually the number of turns is rather low. If the game was longer and included a huger variation of tiles it would be more of a “gamer’s” game, as then some building strategy would become more important than in the current incarnation of the game. But I don’t see anything wrong with creating a quick game with simple rules and lots of interaction that can be played by virtually everybody, or is there?
Moritz Eggert

Explaining the rules: 5 minutes
Playing the game: 30 minutes
Production Values: very high, nice looking solid tiles
Travel ability: the game travels well, with a small and sturdy box
Graphic design: excellent
Egyptian Theme: apparent
interaction: high, but sometimes you might be frustrated by the tiles available to you
naughtiness factor: high, some players might feel “picked on”

www.westpark-gamers.de

Thread: Designer's Notes: Giza

eve_brunner — 2005-11-16T02:01:35+00:00

GIZA: DESIGNER'S NOTES

Game Rationale

As a gamer myself, I have no qualms playing one of those 12+ hours civilization/empire type games where rules explanation may take up to an hour or more. But sometimes, there is a need to play something that requires very little rules explanation, plenty of interaction, and where the whole game can be completed within half an hour or less. It was for this purpose that Giza was designed. The great difficulty lay in trying to inject strategy into such a short and compact game.

With its short play time and easy rules explanation, Giza serves: (1) to introduce non-gamers to the world of board-gaming, (2) as a ‘warm-up game’ among ‘early arrivers’ in a gaming session before the rest of the gamers show up, (3) as a ‘brain relief filler’ in between heavier games, (4) as a ‘warm-down game’ after a day or night of heavy gaming, and/or (5) as a quick portable game e.g. for students in a university cafeteria or among friends in a café.

Game Objective

The aim of Giza is to accumulate as many points as possible on one’s own map board while trying to impede other players from doing the same.

Game Mechanics

The essence of Giza is to maximize one’s options with the 4 tiles drawn into his/her hand, while taking into consideration the probability of occurrence of the various tile-types. While tile-drawing in itself is luck-based, the greater challenge lies in deciding which tiles to play, and which tiles to hold onto for future use. Holding onto tile(s) effectively reduces one’s options in the current and next few rounds, thereby incurring on-going opportunity cost in the game. For example, holding onto the precious Sphinx Head Tile for many rounds will effectively limit a player’s options to 3 tiles per round rather than the maximum of 4.

While it would be ideal to start pyramid construction with a high scoring +5 Stone Tile, and then try to load bonus Treasure Tiles along the way, the risk of this pyramid being ‘attacked’ by other players’ negative Stone Tiles is much higher. On the other hand, if one were to start construction with a lower scoring Stone Tile e.g. a +3, then the risk of this pyramid being ‘attacked’ by opponents’ -4 or -5 Stone Tiles are effectively eliminated. On the whole, as one’s pyramid gets higher, the number of ‘attack’ Stone Tiles that may be played onto his/her pyramid gets less. Herein lies the conundrum in Giza – whether to take high risks and possibly reap higher returns, or play safe by taking low risks but reap lower returns.

While playing Giza, one has to remember that every tile played is an opportunity in itself because it serves to directly advance one’s own position, or to disadvantage another player’s position. Hence during the game, one should try as little as possible to forgo a turn to discard & replenish one’s hand (unless absolutely necessary).

Also, during the game, players should not only concentrate on their own map board, but watch what is happening on other players’ boards. Because as the game progresses, the pyramid levels in the game progresses towards the upper levels, hence holding onto Stone Tiles like +/- 5 and +/- 4 and the respective Treasure Tiles would start to become useless.

The Treasure Tiles have strict requirements in that they have to match the corresponding +/- Stone Tile level. So players can only earn these bonus Treasure Tile points if they can fulfill this strict requirement. The counter-balance to bonus Treasure Tile scoring is that in trying to fulfill the requirement, players would usually incur opportunity cost. This is because by holding onto Treasure Tile(s) for later use, one’s immediate playing options would be reduced from the maximum of 4 tiles down to 3, 2 or even 1.

Building the Sphinx is the ultimate example of the high-risk/high-return mechanics in the game. Naturally, one would consider building the Sphinx only if he/she has the Sphinx Head or at least the Sphinx Body Tile. However, as mentioned above, holding onto the Sphinx Head and/or Body Tiles while waiting for the right moment to play them (for example when most of the Demolish Tiles have been played) would mean that the playable options in that player’s hand is reduced considerably for many rounds. This represents opportunity cost for the ‘Sphinx strategy’ player. If going for the ‘Sphinx strategy’, one would have to try to get the other players to use up their Demolish Tiles, which means playing negative Stone Tiles at every available opportunity. It is difficult, but certainly possible to do so. If a player is able to complete building the Sphinx by the end of the game (something I have witnessed quite a few times), then he/she truly deserves the huge amount of points awarded.

Lastly, the Scarab Tiles serve two unique strategic purposes in the game – if played against an opponent, they retard the targeted player’s progress. However, if used wisely, the Scarab Tiles can help preserve one’s own valuable constructions (hint: on the high-scoring pyramids or the Sphinx).

As you play the game, I hope that you will discover for yourselves the intricacies of probability optimization, risk-versus-returns, and opportunity cost that I’ve packed into this little pyramid building game.

Dr Nikki Lim
nikki-lim@funfactorygames.biz
2005 August 28th

Thread: Giza. Team play

Bergbau — 2005-10-21T12:20:48+00:00

Giza is a good game, a nice filler. I once finished a game in 57 seconds!!!

Anyway, the team play makes it even better. 2*2, 2*3 or 3*2, everything works.

You just play normally and sum up your teams score at the end of the game. The game ends when one players scoreboard is full, or when all tiles are drawn. Same as in the rules.

/Strömer, from Sweden

Thread: Team Play

Bergbau — 2005-10-21T12:20:23+00:00

Thread: Re: [Review] Giza

Bergbau — 2005-10-18T13:34:53+00:00

I discovered this little gem in Essen. We played a team variant also, with both 4 and 6 players. It is not in the rulebook, but was excellent. You just add the two teamplayers points. Of course you can still place your tiles everywhere.

Playing time is 10-30 minutes, but in a 2-player game we managed to finish in mere 57 seconds!!!

/Strömer, from Sweden

Thread: User Review

phoeniix — 2005-09-13T06:00:06+00:00

First off, I bought this game when it was first released as I had wanted to support the local gaming community (the designer is a Singaporean). There had been no reviews written then.

When I first picked up the game, I was very impressed with the weight of the game. The game box measures about 20cm by 16cm and weighs about 500g. Inside the box are 6 thick cardboard map boards, one for each player, and 83 playing tile pieces. I've read a comment on the playing pieces and I must disagree strongly that they are of inferior material. The boards and playing pieces are of good cardboard quality and it can definitely withstand some rough usage. They are definitely not flimsy. You might consider getting a pouch for the tiles though as players are supposed to pick them randomly during play and while using the box as a container is acceptable, it is somewhat difficult to make sure people are honest in not looking at what they are picking. I know 'cos I was tempted several times.

The map boards are all the players need to build their pyramids. On the map board itself are printed with the site of three pyramids (Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure) and one sphinx. The background gives the player an impression of an overhead view (ie looking downwards) and as tiles are placed upon the map board, it gives a passable illusion of the pyramids being erected. The rule book provides plenty of examples so there is little to no confusion on how the game is played.

OBJECTIVE
The game ends when a player has completed all three pyramids and the one with the highest score wins the game. The rules are designed as such that a player could chose to place any tiles in his hand either on his map board or another players. Hence, it is possible to employ the practice, onto a certain level, of kingmaker in this game.

THE PLAYING PIECES
Before I go into the rules, let me give you an idea of the playing pieces.

- 50 tiles with a range of numbers (-5 to +5) which are used for building your pyramid or hampering others.

- 9 demolish tiles, for removing a tile in play, either from your map board or another players

- 6 Scarab tiles used either on your own sphinx or anywhere on another players mapboard. This prevents a player from building their pyramid/sphinx until they spend a turn removing it.

- 12 treasure tiles (ranging from +1 to +5) to be played on the appropriate stone tile. The number on the treasure tile must match the stone tile being played on. It gives the player additional points.

- 1 Sphnix head, 2 Sphinx body and 3 Sphinx feet. This provides additonal points to a player who manages to complete building the Sphinx. Be warned though because only the body and head provide positive points, the feet is worth -5 points.

GAMEPLAY
Game play is simple. During a player's turn they are allowed to place only ONE tile from their hand OR discard any number of tiles. Once done, they then draw up back up to four tiles. As mentioned above, a player can play a tile either on his mapboard or another players. The restriction is that when placing a stone tile, the number on the tile being played cannot be bigger than the tile already on the board. Thus, you can't play a number 4 tile on a number 3 tile. This process is repeated until someone completes their pyramid. Thats it. Sounds simple no?

Since players are allowed to place tiles onto any mapboard, technically any players can "speed" up the pyramid building process and hence the game. And a pyramid is considered complete when a number 1 tile has been placed on the pyramid site. So it is possible for the game to end when a player has played three number 1 tiles on his mapboard

PERSONAL THOUGHTS
Personally I think this game has a great concept/theme but it is a little too simple and too light for my taste. I mean if Ticket to Ride is classed as a "Light" game, this game would be in the class of "Very Light". There is little strategy involved in this game as when played in a large group, it is often difficult in getting more than 20 points for other players more often than not would be playing either negative stone tiles, demolish or scarab tiles on anyone who seems to be getting ahead. I would say that this game has a certain element of a king making ability as I've seen a boyfriend help his girlfriend win a game once by helping her build her pyramids while stopping others. While the other players can gang up against another player (this has happened once too many times) it quickly degenerates into a game of who has the least negative points. The game is alright when played with at 3 players, better with at 4 or more. 2 players is a little boring and I am not so inclined to play this game again with just 2 players. There are other better 2 players games out there.

When played with just 2 players, a game can be finished in just 10 minutes and in a group of 5, it takes about 20. Rules are simple to explain so no worries about teaching this game to a non-gamer. I think this game works well enough as a filler but if you have an entire afternoon, then this game just does not do it. Beautiful components and boards though.

Thread: [Review] Giza

TomVasel — 2005-08-17T21:35:41+00:00

Fun Factory is a new company based in Singapore that has recently started producing board games. Their first game, Dividends, was a fun romp that could handle up to twelve players and a game I rather enjoyed. Their second game was Giza (Fun Factory, 2005 - Nikki Lim) and was about building pyramids in Egypt. It was a smaller game than Dividends, and upon reading the rules, I felt as if there was a high "take that" factor involved in the game.

If you like games that allow you to play cards (or tiles) on other players, then you'll probably enjoy Giza. It's a bit simplistic, which may turn away some more serious gamers, but with the right crowd it can be enjoyable. I like the components, theme, and gameplay, but don't know how often I'll bring it out -it just doesn't really "do" it for me. But for people who are looking for a simple "take that!" game, Giza may be what you're looking for, a change of pace from the myriad of card games that dominate this genre.

Each player is given a player board, with four spaces on it (Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure; and the Great Sphinx), as well as a listing of all the tiles in the game. All of the tiles (eighty-three of them) are shuffled together and placed face down in the middle of the table. Each player draws four tiles, and one player is chosen to go first. Play proceeds clockwise around the table.

On a player's turn, they may either play a tile or discard any number of tiles from their hand, drawing back up to four tiles. The tiles that a player may play are:
- Stone Tiles: Each stone tile shows a number from "-5" to "5", and can be played on any of the three pyramid spaces on ANY player's board. However, a stone tile can only be played on an empty space, or on a tile that has a higher absolute value than it. (For example, a "-2" can be played on top of a "+5", "-3", or "-4+, but cannot be played on top of a "+2" or "-1")
- Treasure Tiles: Each treasure tile shows a number from "+1" to "+5". They may ONLY be played on top of a stone tile that has the same absolute number. (A "+2" treasure tile may be played on top of a "-2" or "+2" stone tile, but may not be played on top of a "+2" treasure tile or "+3" stone tile.)
- Demolish Tiles: These tiles may be played on any space on the board. The demolish tiles remove the top-most tile in that space, discarding both tiles.
- Scarab Tiles: These tiles may be played on any space on the board, keeping any other tiles from being placed on that space. A player may skip their turn to remove one scarab tile from their board.
- Sphinx Tiles: These tiles may only be played on the Sphinx space and must be played in order: Sphinx Base (-5 points), Sphinx Body (+10 points), and Sphinx Head (+15 points)

This continues until the last tile from the middle of the table is drawn, or if one player has completed their three pyramids (they all have a "+1" or "-1" at the top). The game then ends immediately, and players total their points. Each player adds all the tiles in their pyramids and sphinx and compares the sums. The player with the most points is the winner (ties broken by number of treasures).

Some comments on the game…

1.) Components: The tiles are about a square inch and are of a decent thickness with sand coloring as their background. They really look good on the player boards. All over the boards and tiles roams Egyptian artwork, drawn clearly and simply, making everything easy to identify, yet keeping with the theme. Each level of the pyramid looks larger than the next, which helps the game work visually. Faint Egyptian writing occurs on the tiles, and the theme works really well. Themes are often pasted on games such as these, but for Giza, the theme is realized. Everything fits well in a small, sturdy box.

2.) Rules: The rulebook is eight pages long and has many, many detailed illustrations and examples throughout it. For the game being as simple as it is - the rulebook does a terrific job of explaining the rules - one of the best I've seen. Even though it adds to the cost of the game, it's always nice when a publisher takes the trouble to make sure that the rules are not ambiguous in any way and includes plenty of examples.

3.) Tiles: The tile mix is printed on each player board, which is important for each player to know. Knowing when to play the right tile is important, as players will sometimes even play a negative tile upon themselves, just to build themselves up a little bit more in the future. Take one step backwards to take two forwards, and all that. Knowing when to play scarabs and demolish tiles is important, as sometimes Demolish Tiles should be played on oneself, to rid one of an annoying tile.

4.) Get 'em! One of the biggest problems (or fun features) is the fact that anyone can attack anyone at any time with no provocation. So, players can conspire to take one person out, or always attack the leader, etc. I've seen players score very low scores just because everyone attacked them, for whatever reason. If you don't like games where people can gang up on others, than perhaps Giza might not interest you.

5.) Luck and Fun Factor: There is a high luck factor in the game - that of the tiles that players draw. There is only one Sphinx head and three of each treasure. If players manage to never get any of these tiles, the game can be a bit boring for them. While knowing when to play the right tile matters - negotiation with other players is important - sometimes I feel that luck is the single most determining factor of the game. I don't mind this luck, but it might deter some players.

Giza is a small, light, fun game for up to six players; and if you don't mind a game where players can gang up on each other and where the fickle winds of fate can change the outlook of the game in a moment, then you'll enjoy it. I don't mind playing Giza and expect to play it in the future. Sadly, though, there's nothing that really grabs me about the game, with the sole exception of how the pyramids build upon each other. Nice mechanics abound, and the game certainly is enjoyable; but it's a little too light for me. Whether it's a game for you should depend on how much you like the theme, simpleness, and ability to affect others.

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games."
www.tomvasel.com

Thread: Thumbs up for the designer!

phoeniix — 2005-08-10T13:33:09+00:00

I don't know about you guys other there but when I found out that this game was designed by a Singaporean, I did not give it a second thought and bought a copy myself. Hell, I'll support local talents anyday!

Thread: Don't underestimate your non-gamer opponent

elijah234 — 2005-08-05T02:01:21+00:00

My wife and I played a game of GIZA. Although I had played this game with her before, she needed a refresher on the rules (she’s a non-gamer, after all). But it was helped by the simple rules and the visual aids in the rulebook.

We started off benignly playing tiles on our own construction sites. I guess no one had any nasty tiles yet. I blazed away with a +5 tile each on Khufu and Khafre followed with a +3 tile on Khufu. She took a more conservative approach, building up Menkaure from a +3 tile, then a +2 tile than adding an ankh. I didn’t like what I saw so I demolished the ankh. That was just a blip of the ‘nasty’ before we continued our benign gameplay. I added a +5 tile to Menkaure so now I had three +5 tiles on my pyramids! She added a +4 tile to Khufu with diamonds. That should have been a warning to me but I guess I wasn’t paying attention in my euphoria of having three +5 tiles.

Now the benignity ended and we began a tit-for-tat demolition derby on each other’s pyramids. I also placed the Sphinx’s legs (-5 points) on her construction site (I was pretty confident she wouldn’t get the body - +10 points – as I had just thrown one away). Anyway, she demolished the legs. I then finished my Menkaure with a +3, +2 and a +1 tile, while she placed a +5 tile on Khafre. Again, I was confident I still had more points than her.

By now, I had two pyramids that had capstones (+1 tiles) on them and they were pretty decent pyramids. My Khafre was only a +5 tile but I thought that would be sufficient. Only problem was that I went through 3 discard turns before I got a capstone and it was a -1 tile at that. So to end the game, I placed it on her Khafre (she also had capstones on the other two pyramids). I thought I’d be coasting to victory with my three +5 tiles as a pretty good points base but I had only 23 points to her 26!

Thread: Initial impressions and review

elijah234 — 2005-07-25T10:40:25+00:00

GIZA is a tile-laying game where players aim to build the best of the 3 great pyramids of Giza. Players each have their own gameboard, where they build their own pyramids but they can also place tiles on another player’s gameboard. Of course, they’ll want to place the good tiles on their own gameboards and the nasty tiles on their opponents’ gameboards! It is this element of being able to influence your opponents’ gameplan, with its huge “take that” element, that makes this game shine as a fun filler when it’s played with many people.

Contents and components

The game consists of:

6 mapboards
83 tiles
1 rulebook

All this fits into a small box, about one-third the size of an Alea full-size game like Princes of Florence. That makes for a game that’s easy to carry anywhere. The fact that it’s made up of stiff cardboard boards and tiles also means that it’s quite hardy for outdoor use. No need to worry about cards flying about and such! The quality is excellent throughout. The gameboards are sufficiently thick; not flimsy stuff. The graphics are great too. A nice touch is the representation of the Giza location itself as a map, with the pathways and other buildings as decoration, and gives a historical feel to the gameboard. Each mapboard also has a table showing how many of each of the different tiles there are in the game – for those ‘tile counting’ gamers. The tiles are of decent size and the 3-D graphics give a more ‘easy on the eye’ pictorial representation. This is an improvement from the prototype, which had 2-D graphics. The rulebook is well laid out. Simple rules lend to easy description but as an added touch, color picture examples are used liberally in the rulebook, which is good for those non-gamers who are easily put off reading even one page of words in a rulebook.

Rules

The aim of the game is to score the most points and end the game. There are 4 construction sites on which players may build: the 3 pyramids and the Sphinx. (The Sphinx is a little special and I’ll deal with that later.) For the pyramids, points come from good construction material and treasures (which give positive scores) that you want for your pyramids. The pyramids are built by placing 1 segment on top of the other; players can only place a smaller segment on top of the largest segment although levels in between can be skipped. There are five different sizes of pyramid segments from 1 to 5. While the good construction material gives positive scores (from +1 to +5), the poor construction material gives negative scores (-1 to -5). The game ends either from one player having the capstone (either the -1 or +1 point pyramid segment) on all 3 of his pyramids or when the tiles run out.

Players start with four tiles. During a player’s turn, he may either play a tile on his own or another player’s board and then he draws a replacement tile, or he may discard up to 4 tiles and replenish an equal number of tiles. Obviously, a player will want to place the good tiles on his gameboard while placing bad tiles, like the poor construction material or a scarab (which prevents players from adding more tiles to that construction site) on the player’s board. Players can also play a demolish tile on their own construction sites or that of another player, removing the top most tile on that construction site.

The Sphinx is where the game throws in some more uncertainty on top of the uncertainty of the tile draw. The Sphinx is made up of 3 parts, legs, body and head. The legs are worth -5 points, the body +10 points and the head +15 points. So having just the legs would be bad. However, while there are 3 leg tiles, there are only 2 body tiles and only 1 head tile! So a player is never sure about the true value of the leg tiles. Even if he has the body and head tiles, they can be demolished by other players, leaving him with only the legs, and -5 points!

How the game plays

The game plays quickly because of its simple rules. This is especially so for a 2-3 player game – about 15 minutes to play. With fewer people, the strategy is less random, with less “human interference”; the tile draw being the main uncontrollable variable. The gameplay is simple and can be boiled down to “good tile – for yourself, bad tile – for your opponent”. Like most tile-draw games, while the tension is in waiting to draw the one tile we really need, it is also about making the best of what we have. Nevertheless, the tricky part comes when all you have are beneficial tiles yet none that you really want. How can this happen? Because there are more good pyramid segment tiles than bad ones (There are 7 of each type of good pyramid segment tiles and 3 of each type of bad ones). Thus one agonising decision players have to make is in placing a +2 tile on their +5 tile or wait and hope to get a +4 or +3 tile! The demolish tile gives players flexibility although players must weigh carefully whether it’s better to demolish a bad tile on their own board or a good tile on an opponent’s board. As players are not allowed to see what’s under the top tile of another player’s stack, this game is also an exercise in memory. Players who miscalculate their opponent’s points may end up losing a game by ending the game prematurely!

With more players, the game takes longer, perhaps about half an hour to play, and has a less controllable feel to it, as there are more players that can mess with your plans. But that’s where the real fun is. Trash-talking is de rigueur in such games! Given that players may not remember all the tiles in their opponent’s stack, there is also an element of bluffing. And the winning player may be the one that’s able to fly under the radar of his opponents!

Replayability

Because the game is simple to play, plays quickly, and offers the variability of tile-drawing, it is immensely replayable, particularly as a light filler. I’ve not played enough of the 2-player game to know how fast that would tire out but in a large group game, GIZA offers a lot of fun, with high unpredictability and player interaction. Players will want to play it again and again.

This game really shines as a filler in a large group setting and its simple rules allows non-gamers to pick it up easily, making it also a good party game. At the same time, it also provides a challenge in 2-3 player games. There is a level of randomness, like most tile drawing games, but that’s what adds to the variability and replayability of the game.