Game: Bunte Runde

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garygarison — 2008-08-30T05:43:45+00:00

Homemade. Self-adhesive foam shapes affixed to the backs of Scrabble Jr. tiles.

Thread: Seems interesting. Try it with...

garygarison — 2008-08-14T21:33:04+00:00

...Qwirkle tiles. Or Rage cards. Or Blink cards (using the color & shape attributes and disregarding number).

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minordemon — 2008-03-29T10:54:15+00:00

Run from the darkness!

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minordemon — 2008-03-29T10:52:19+00:00

Little man closeup

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minordemon — 2008-03-29T10:50:21+00:00

Box insert and components

Thread: Re: Bunte Runde Review

S.K. Lator — 2007-08-21T17:45:25+00:00

Great review- convinced me to finally buy it yesterday. We played it four times with two and three players, worked great each time and felt different with different players.

I own Tutankhamen, too, but (although Tutankhamen may be the more sophisticated game) I'm afraid Bunte Runde will hit the table more often...

Thread: Re: Bunte Runde Review

KMontzka — 2007-02-08T16:43:17+00:00

Excellent review!
Since the rules are in German, your write-up is essential.
Thanks, Scott!

Thread: Play at least three times in a row of your first game

minordemon — 2006-12-04T08:17:12+00:00

I have played die Bunte Runde a couple of times with 2, 4 and 6 players.

The rules are extremely easy. For the setup you place the pieces in a circle. On a turn you move the marker man 1, 2, or 3 steps and take that piece in front of you. When the last piece of a colour and/or a shape is taken that colour/shape scores one coin per piece owned. The game ends when you run out of coins. Most coins wins.

I expected this short game with easy rules to be a real good game for non-gamers. This is not really true.

The first couple of turns you just grab a random piece. When people have collected some shapes and colours you can start to think about what you can grab to finish something of yourself or to avoid an other player to finish something. But you have to make an effort to switch from random grabbing to thinking. The first game is completely random grabbing. The second game you can start some thinking. Maybe at the third game you can play it properly.

The problem is that you need to play several games to get it. After the first game it feels a lot like 'is this a game?'. Non-gamers tend to just stop after the first play.

Comments on number of players:
2 - works but you have little control over the other player. It feels a lot like you need another player.
4 - works best for the players i've played with.
6 - did not work at all. It takes a long time for your turn to come again (well not time, but pieces) so you cannot plan what you might get.

Conclusion
I have a feeling I can really like this game. I need to play it a lot more, and get some people interested as well. You really need to get over the threshold to start playing competitively. For such a short game it should be pretty easy, but you need to play at least three games in your first session.

I still need to try the Veleno variant, which sounds very interesting.

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Werbaer — 2006-07-25T11:08:20+00:00

content of the box

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Werbaer — 2006-07-25T10:54:54+00:00

version for older childs: wooden tokens in 6 shapes and colors

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Werbaer — 2006-07-25T10:54:45+00:00

version for young kids: cardboard chits with 5 different pictures in 5 colors

Thread: Veleno variant

msaari — 2006-06-05T05:28:08+00:00

Bruno Faidutti suggests in his Ideal game library that the scoring is altered to what Alex Randolph did in his game Veleno. That is, your final score is the sum of your score and your left hand neighbour's score.

I'm not sure yet if the screw-your-left-hand-neighbour is really a problem, but I do think the variant improves the game.

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Orski — 2006-05-29T12:46:48+00:00

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Orski — 2006-05-29T12:02:10+00:00

Cover is one of the cutest ever!

Thread: Re: Bunte Runde Review

Favre4MVP — 2006-01-18T17:27:04+00:00

I'll have to look into this one a little more. I sounds like fun.

It sounds a lot like Knizia's Tutankhamen, but with enough differences to make it worth having both. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Tut. It's a lot of fun and you can get it for less than $10.

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Scott Tepper — 2006-01-17T13:44:38+00:00

At the beginning of the game

Thread: Re: Bunte Runde Review

Metaphora — 2006-01-17T02:01:20+00:00

Great review, Scott! Thumbs up.

There, I said it. Now, will you please stop calling my house every 5 mins? Sheesh!

Thread: Bunte Runde Review

Scott Tepper — 2006-01-10T04:49:07+00:00

Ok, I admit it. I like finding little gems of games that people haven’t heard of (it’s not so hard with my game group, because they pretty much depend on me to introduce them to all the new games that we play), and then I am quietly thrilled when they are really pleased that I’ve introduced them to something new that they like.

It appears that I’ve done it again with Bunte Runde.

I first read about this game from Bruno Faidutti’s website, and wrote it down on my list of games to look at while at Essen. I tend to respect Bruno’s recommendations, so even though, by his description, Bunte Runde didn’t sound all that flashy, I thought it was worth examining. I’m so glad I did.

Bunte Runde (Colorful Round), by Winning Moves, seemed to slip under the radar at Essen. I don’t know why, but Winning Moves didn’t seem to be pushing this game very hard. Instead, they seemed more intent on promoting Blokus and their Sudoku variant.
This is surprising, given that Bunte Runde is designed by a fairly-well known designer, Reiner Knizia(yeah, him!), it’s a quickly learned game that can be scaled from children to adults, the components are well done, and IT’S A FUN GAME!

So let’s break it down…

The components: This is something interesting that you don’t see very often. There are actually two sets of components for this game. One set is for adults, the other is for children.

The “adult” components are 36 wooden shapes(cube, triangle, circle, stick, rectangle, oval) painted in six different colors, making one piece of each color/shape combination.

The “children’s” set is 25 cardboard disks, each with a different animal/color combination drawn on them.

There is one wooden player-figure that is painted brown(a color not used on any of the other pieces) and shaped like a person; sort of like a larger, better articulated meeple.

There are also 37 gold plastic coins: 36 small ones, and one large one(for a special circumstance). If playing with the cardboard disks, you only need 25 small coins and the large gold coin.

And there is a one page rules sheet. It’s the same size as the rules in Transamerica.

The Preparation couldn’t be much easier. You set up the game by arranging either the wooden shapes, or the animal disks, randomly in a circle. Whichever set you choose not to play with is returned to the game box. Then place all of the coins in the center of the circle. One player places the player-figure on top of any of the pieces in the circle. And now you’re ready to begin.

The Gameplay is just as simple as the preparation. On your turn, you move the player-figure either one, two or three spaces clockwise and then take the piece that the player-figure is standing on, and place it in front of you. Then the next person clockwise takes their turn.

If, on your turn, you take the last piece of a shape(ie. the 6th stick), then that shape scores. Everyone who has a piece(s) of that shape takes one of the small coins from the center pool for EACH piece of that shape that they possess.

The same thing would happen if someone took the last piece of a color, for example the last green piece. Then everyone who had a green piece would take a coin for each green piece they possessed.

Occasionally, when a piece is taken, it is the last of a shape AND a color. Then a double scoring occurs. You score the shape as normal, and then the color as normal.

The game proceeds until all the small coins are gone. Then the game is over and the player with the most coins wins.

That’s it.

Sounds kind of boring, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that was my reaction when I first read about it. But it’s not boring at all. Actually, I’ve observed, as we’ve played this game over and over, that the game gets pretty tense, especially near the end.

Here’s where I misunderstood the game when I first read about it, that contributed to my idea that it wasn’t much of a strategic game. I thought that with 36 different pieces, and 36 coins, that at the end of the game, everyone would have 6 pieces and 6 coins. Wrong!

That’s not what happens.

Although I’m sure there’s some sort of mathematical reasoning behind it (this is a game by Reiner Knizia, after all), for the life of me I don’t have the energy(uh smarts?) to figure it out. All of the pieces are NOT taken by the end of the game. I think usually five or six are usually left behind when the game ends, and here is where the clever strategies of the game develop.

Since all of the pieces will not be taken by the end of the game, and thus not all shapes and colors will score, you need to constantly look at what pieces your opponents have taken, because that will affect the chances of YOUR pieces scoring.

Ultimately, although this rarely occurs, you have the potential for all of your pieces to score twice: once for their color, once for shape. Your opponents will be trying to choose their pieces so that your pieces score as infrequently as possible and theirs score as frequently as possible.

I must disclose that, although I’ve played this game many times, I believe I’ve only won one game of it. For me, that’s a good thing. It means that the game is not too simplistic.

I’ve seen strategies of trying to diversify with piece choice, as well as trying to concentrate on only a few shapes/colors, and neither is a guaranteed win. You have to try to gauge what your opponents will choose so that your pieces have a greater chance of scoring.

I’ve seen negotiating during the game as well, “If you take that piece, I’ll take the next one which will trigger scoring for both of us”. I’ve also seen people negotiate to do one thing and do something completely different when it came around to their turn! Ooooh, mindgames…

I don’t want to make this game appear as a cutthroat game of Diplomacy. It isn’t. Played with children, or adults who act like children(Sorry, I couldn’t resist), this is a quick, light, cute game. But played with adults, this is definitely a game of psychology, especially as fewer and fewer pieces remain. Will an opponent take a piece that guarantees them an easy one or two point score, or will they take a piece that might get them a larger score later on, but that risks not scoring at all.

I’ve seen scores in a round vary from 4 to 12 coins. The game plays so quickly, about 5-7 minutes per round, that we often play one round per the number of players, and then add the scores together for a grand total.

Ummm, I almost forgot to explain that large coin, didn’t I? Sorry about that.

In the event that the last piece taken triggers a double scoring, but there are only 6 small coins left, then the large coin comes into play. Someone takes the large coin(worth 6 coins) and puts 6 of their coins into the middle to be distributed for scoring. This doesn’t happen very often, but it is important when it does occur so that there are enough coins to go around.

Impressions of the Game: This is a surprisingly good filler game. My review comes from having played about 10-15 games of Bunte Runde so far in the last 2 months, and mind you, I usually push my gamegroup to play something new each time we get together(how else am I going to get through my collection of unplayed games?).

Two of my friends have borrowed the game as well, to play with their families during the holidays, if that’s any indication of how popular this game has been with my group.

I need to remark again about the components of the game. The wooden pieces are the perfect size for this game. They’re very nicely done, and as you play the game and collect the pieces, I’ve observed that people have a difficult time keeping their hands off of them, they are so nice to hold. They’re also strangely fun to arrange into little sculptures. I know this sounds kind of weird, but for any person who has made cheerleading pyramids with their meeples while playing Carcassonne, this odd little habit will not seem all that foreign.

And the idea to include a 2nd set of pieces that are geared more towards children really emphasizes the value of this game. One of my friends, who is a schoolteacher, immediately, upon playing the game, wanted to play the game again using the animal disks, because she thought they were so cute.

If you couldn’t tell, I am very impressed by this game. If memory serves, it cost 20 Euro at Essen. Considering the number of plays it has already gotten, it’s a great value.

Even though this is a filler game, I have a feeling that Bunte Runde will be one of the most played games in my collection this year. It plays quickly, it’s easy to teach and play, the components are nice, and although it may, at first glance, appear to be light, is really a deeper strategy game.

I have heard through the grapevine that Rio Grande Games may be picking up this game for distribution in America. I hope this is the case, because this is a game that deserves to be played.