Game: Ubongo BMM

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Emil 109 — 2008-07-31T08:59:00+00:00

Greek edition

Thread: Re: The smallest of the series packs the least punch

JoSch — 2008-07-17T07:55:50+00:00

Your review is right on spot. I played Ubongo before and liked it a lot. So I got this one. I rarely was so disappointed by a game. I won't play this again as it is much too easy.

Thread: The smallest of the series packs the least punch

stormseeker75 — 2008-07-16T21:14:59+00:00

I initially picked up Ubongo because it looked like something my fiance would enjoy. She's really into puzzles so I figured it would be perfect for her. We basically purchased it without doing any reading. Luckily for us, that proved to be a wise decision as we've gotten quite a lot of gaming out of it. We eventually added Ubongo Extrem to our collection as well thanks to a friend in Germany. When we found out Bianca was going to Germany on business, we new we had to get some games and the rest of the Ubongo series seemed like a great way to go. I've already written a review of Ubongoas Duell, so now Ubongo BMM gets its turn. As yet one more game in the series, does BMM have anything worth offering to the Ubongo family, or is it just an unloved child?

Rules

Thanks to Scott Russell, you can read an English translation of the rules here on BGG. If you're familiar with Ubongo, you already know the basics of gameplay. Players are competing to finish puzzles the fastest. BMM, like the rest of the games, has its own spin on how this works. If you want to know more, just read the rules.

Components

BMM comes in a compact little box which is around the same size as Great Wall of China or CIA vs. KGB. Inside the box you will find 32 cards, 28 pieces (7 in each of 4 colors) and the rulebook.

The cards are standard playing size and are double sided. One side has a 2-piece puzzle while the other has a three piece puzzle. The cards are pretty sturdy and have an eggshell finish. The pieces come in 4 colors (red, green, yellow, and blue) and have 7 pieces to each color. As usual, the cardboard is pretty solid. The one big difference is that unlike other Ubongo games, these pieces are only colored on one side. They can't be flipped like in the other games. We'll talk a bit more about this later on.

Thats all you get in the box, which is enough to play the game. There isn't a whole lot to the game so there's not a lot of need for components.

Gameplay

Its just like Ubongo...

Sure it is. Players are competing to solve the puzzles as fast as they can. The shapes are familiar and the general look and feel is the same.

....but different

The biggest difference is how the actual gameplay works. To start, seperate the cards by color and place the stacks on the table with the side you want to be playing on face down. Put the pieces in easily accessible areas. The start player takes a card from any of the face down stacks. All remaining players do this, but they can't take a card from a stack thats already being used this round. The start player shouts "Ubongo!" and the players race to finish the puzzles. When one player finishes again yells "Ubongo!" and counts to 20. The winner, and anyone else who finished their puzzle in the allotted time keeps their card while everyone else gives their card to the winner. As soon as the cards are gone, the game is over with the winner being the player with the most cards.

A bit too easy

Another big difference is the one-sided puzzle pieces. This has a dramatic effect on making the game much too easy. If you can only lay a piece on one side, that eliminates a lot of possible orientations thus allowing players to complete the puzzles even faster. Additionally, the puzzles are only 2 or 3 pieces, so there's less challenge than any other Ubongo game. The 2 siders are so easy that the game becomes more of a dexterity race to find the pieces you need than an actual puzzle game. By Ubongo standards, even the 3-piece puzzles are easy. The combination of one-sided pieces and simple puzzles really takes the challenge away from this game.

A variant to make it a bit harder

There's a variant in the rules which is designed to make the game harder. In this Pro Variant, only the winner keeps his card, with everyone else's getting put on the bottom of the stacks. I find this to be a tremendous improvement over the basic rules because this makes it more important to be fast. The basic rules create a situation where you don't need to be fast, you just need to complete it in a reasonable time. The Pro Variant puts much more emphasis on the puzzle solving speed.

Replayability

Any game with puzzles is bound to have its replayability questioned. In the other 3 Ubongo games I haven't seen this as a problem. BMM on the other hand may have replay issues due to the simple puzzles and one-sided pieces. There's not nearly as much to this version as the others and I think players could become very familiar with the puzzles very quickly. This game should only be played occassionally to help prolong its playable life.

Game length and player numbers

There's no timer in this game, but the simple nature of the puzzles means that play should go extremely fast. I can't see any puzzle taking more than 30 seconds to complete. Since there are only 8 cards of each color, a game could easily be over in 10 or 15 minutes.

The game plays equally well with 2, 3, or 4 players. While the instructions say that 1 person could use this as a puzzle, there's not nearly enough depth to these to keep anyone very busy. If you want puzzles, buy Ubongoas Duell.

Portability

Ubongo BMM is designed as the travel version of the game. They've pretty much got the size of the game down right and the simplicity of the puzzles means that this is a game you could drop down in a moment's notice and have people playing in no time. If the goal was to create a simple portable version of Ubongo, then they succeeded.

Theme

No theme here, this is an abstract puzzle solving game.

Compare it to...

If you've read this far, you'll know that already.

Overall

Unlike the other games in the Ubongo series, this one failed to thrill me in any sort of way. While the other games have found new ways to challenge players, this one is a huge step backwards in terms of difficulty and skill. This game wasn't designed for that however. It was designed to be a portable version of Ubongo that you would play almost anywhere. To that degree its a success.

However, I have to rate this a 5/10. I really enjoy Ubongo and if this version had more challenge or replayability, I would certainly rate it higher. There's just not enough here to make me want to take this anywhere. I'd rather take my Travel Ingenious or a bunch of other smaller games. Even Travel Blokus would be better if I wanted a puzzle game to travel with.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Ubongo BMM. They got the idea right, they just failed to bring anything new or exciting to the table. You could do almost the same thing with regular Ubongo if you just use the cards and pieces without the scoring track. I recommend you pass this one up unless you're an absolute completist or you just really love Ubongo.

Thread: Re: Ubongo Review

LetsGetTrivial — 2008-01-23T23:26:54+00:00

AnakinOU wrote:
I think this review is of the original Ubongo, and not this spin-off/variant/younger sibling.
Agreed. Someone should contact an admin to have them move this.

Thread: Re: Ubongo Review

msaari — 2007-09-14T16:15:34+00:00

Yes, this is definitely under the wrong game.

Thread: Re: How does this differ from Ubongo?

msaari — 2007-09-06T17:43:40+00:00

Let's correct a mistake: the cards have two- and three-piece puzzles, so one side is basically useless - the two-piece puzzles are just too easy.

Then, more detail: In basic version, whoever finishes first counts to 20 (or less). Everybody who finishes keeps their cards, those who don't give to the first finisher. In the pro version, only the first finisher keeps the card.

Less replayability and not quite as good a game, but the pro version can be played in about five minutes, which makes it actually worth owning.

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Zopper-Alf — 2007-09-03T09:35:13+00:00

what you get with the game

Thread: Re: How does this differ from Ubongo?

Joe Casadonte — 2007-05-29T13:07:36+00:00

My thanks to both of you!

Thread: Re: How does this differ from Ubongo?

lorna — 2007-05-29T03:35:06+00:00

I don't read German so I can't really say the rules. It looks like a travel edition of Ubongo with much smaller pieces in a small box. Of interest, the 4 colors vary in the number and shape of pieces in each color. It comes with a deck of small cards the pieces fit on top of like the original game. Hopefully someone will add more to my vague description.

Thread: Re: How does this differ from Ubongo?

Scholle — 2007-05-29T03:34:58+00:00

Without going into too many details:

1. It costs about five Euros.
2. The box is much smaller.
3. The cardboard pieces are thinner and smaller.
4. Instead of 36 large double sided boards, there are 32 small double sided cards.
5. Each card only has one puzzle on each side (three and four piece puzzles), instead of the six different puzzles you get on each board side through use of the die in the bigger game.
6. There's no scoring gems and no scoring board.
7. There's no sand timer.

That's it. A travel edition for a lot less, with less replayability. A good gift game. When you consider how much air you usually find in a Kosmos game I reckon this is a great idea. Bring on more travel editions I say.

Thread: How does this differ from Ubongo?

Joe Casadonte — 2007-05-29T01:50:58+00:00

Can someone explain how this is different from the first Ubongo? Thanks!

Thread: Re: Ubongo Review

out4blood — 2007-05-22T05:55:41+00:00

Bosco312 wrote:

Overall: This game can be fun but suffers from a couple of problems (in my opinion). First, the rules don't say whether or not players may move simultaniously or if they have to wait for those who called 'Ubongo' before them to take their gems first before moving. If the former, there can be a lot of hand-slapping and arguing about who took gems away from whom, and if the latter, well, the sand will run out long before everyone is able to get gems. This brings up the next point...the timer shouldn't be too long, but the one in the game is too short. We opted to let the timer run out twice while playing, especially since we had younger kids playing.

Hmmm? In our (German) version of the rules, it's quite clear (as clear as you can be in German) that you can take gems in any order, but you can only move the # of spaces based on finishing order. So the first guy can move 3, but the second guy can only move 2. But if the first guy is slow on getting gems, that doesn't stop the second guy from taking raight away.

Occasionally that can be advantageous to the first player, because he might prefer the gems that are 3rd and 4th in a line, rather than 1st and 2nd.

Thread: Re: Ubongo Review

AnakinOU — 2007-05-21T21:46:17+00:00

I think this review is of the original Ubongo, and not this spin-off/variant/younger sibling.

Thread: Ubongo Review

Bosco312 — 2007-05-21T20:37:05+00:00

First impression: The bits to this game are nicely made and they fit into the box quite well. The 'gems' are of the same type that come with the game "Niagra" (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/13308). The artistic aspect of the game is okay, although the shape of the pawns got some funny looks from my wife. My only complaint about the bits is the color of the pawns. Most of them are distinct enough, but there are two pawns that are hard to tell apart if you're playing under a camping lantern in a tent (like we were). Those pawns are 'white' and 'pearl' color. Not really a big deal most of the time.

Set-up: There is a track that has six long 'paths' on it, and each path has twelve holes in the track where you will randomly place the colored gems that players will try to collect. Each player gets a card with an 'empty' area on it made up from grid squares. Players also get a collection of puzzle bits to try and fit into that area (think
"Blokus" (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2453) bits). The starting player gets a six-sided die imprinted with icons on it, and a standard 2-3 minute sand timer.

Game play: The player flips the timer, rolls the die and everyone looks at the icon. The icon will have a match on each players card, and this will tell the player which three (easy) or four (expert) puzzle bits they must use to exactly and completely cover the empty area on their card (each card has two printed sides, one 'easy', one 'expert'). Players must quickly figure out how to arrange the bits on the card to cover the space, and when they are done, they shout 'Ubongo'. In a four-player game, the first person to do this will be able to move their pawn up to three spaces side to side to end up on a track where they will take the next two gems that appear along that path. The second person to complete their 'puzzle' will be able to move two spaces, the third can move one, and the fourth will not be able to move. Anyone who does not complete their puzzle AND move AND take their gems before the sand runs out is out of luck and they get nothing. Once the round is over, each player gets a new card and the next person in turn will get to roll the 'icon' die. There are nine rounds in a complete game.

Scoring: After nine rounds the players sort and count their gems by color. The player with the most gems of one color wins. If there is a tie, then the tied players compare the amount of their second most plentiful color, then third most, etc., until a winner is determined.

Overall: This game can be fun but suffers from a couple of problems (in my opinion). First, the rules don't say whether or not players may move simultaniously or if they have to wait for those who called 'Ubongo' before them to take their gems first before moving. If the former, there can be a lot of hand-slapping and arguing about who took gems away from whom, and if the latter, well, the sand will run out long before everyone is able to get gems. This brings up the next point...the timer shouldn't be too long, but the one in the game is too short. We opted to let the timer run out twice while playing, especially since we had younger kids playing.

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samoan_jo — 2007-05-07T15:57:49+00:00

Ubongo BMM - Kosmos - German box back

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samoan_jo — 2007-05-07T15:54:03+00:00

Ubongo BMM - Kosmos - German box front [higher quality]

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Arneji — 2007-05-05T12:37:01+00:00

Correct solution to image # 206398

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erfalucho — 2007-04-24T18:31:28+00:00

Solution to image #206398

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Arneji — 2007-04-24T18:00:58+00:00

Can anybody solve this one for me?

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Arneji — 2007-04-24T14:38:33+00:00

All the pieces

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Arneji — 2007-04-24T14:29:13+00:00

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Goodsound — 2007-02-26T18:29:27+00:00

German Front Cover