My first game review, on a game that has not been reviewed at all! My lucky day indeed!

This is a game that I had wanting to play for several months now, and spent several hours yesterday playing the game in both 2 and 3 player formats to try and get a good feel for it.

Game Packaging
Like Red Dragon Inn, Tiki Mountain comes in a well printed full color box. Not made of flimsy material, it doesn't feel as if the box is going to come apart on you after a year or so of going back and forth from the shelf to the table. The plastic tray inside is compartmented to give you spaces for the cardboard counters, an area for the colored "gems", you totem spinner, cards, player mats and game board. All of the other bits stack nicely over the cardboard bits bin, so you don't have to worry about them shifting and spreading all over the box. (I bag mine anyway. Can't resist the compulsion to bag my bits.)

Game Components
Like the Packaging, the components are brightly printed and well made. I know that some gamers don't like to see games that have cardboard cut-outs for playing pieces, but each of the little Tiki's are unique with front and back art for each, I had no issue with them. You have an assortment of cardboard squares that are used to represent different obstacles that are placed during game play. I like they way the have been printed, the artwork on each is a smaller segment of the art work on the card that brought it into play, with either an icon or a number telling you how it impacts the movement of the players.

The game board is a nice arrangement that folds out into a 4 piece segmented board with great artwork and bright colors. Very sturdy and heavy, when laid out, it doesn't have uneven areas at the seams that give an unstable play surface.

The totem spinner is a fun way to increase your totem collection. I know some others have said they were not very happy with this item as it seemed flimsy, but I am not really sure how it could have been made any better. It suits the purpose quite well, and adds a nice bit of randomness to the game play. Brightly colored like the rest of the game, it has great artwork to indicate the number of totems you get at the end of your turn.

Playing Cards.
Can't say enough about them. Slugfest has put a lot into the cards, from the great artwork that is unique for each one, they sturdy cardstock, border art, and a nice coating / finish to them that seems to make them pop a bit. The game revolves around the cards and how you play them, so it makes sense that so much went into them. But the artwork adds so much to the game play. The humor of the art helps add to the fun feel of the game, and at least for our group got us more into the playing, rather than just reading off some instructions to one another.

Rule Book.
Not really a book per se. A full color sheet, printed front and back it covers the pertinent information about the game. I will say that there are a few instance in which you don't know if you can play a card against others, so a little more info couldn't hurt. But that might result in a full book being printed and it having to cover all the cards in detail.

Game Play

The meat of any game, no matter how nice to look at, is how well it plays. My initial impression of Tiki Mountain is that, the more that play, the more fun it will be. It is listed as a game for 2 to 6 players. With 2 players, it seems to have a bit of a slow start, building your collection of totems and items, as you try and move up the mountain. The two of us that were playing were a bit hesitant to start playing obstacle against each other at first, but once we moved up different paths some came into play. Once one of us got to the top, the game was over very quickly. Since neither of us had used much magic, we had a large supply of totems (you need at least one of each type to offer yourself as a sacrifice to the Volcano God)and one of us could jump right in. There was always one player that got off to a huge lead, and once that happened it was very very difficult, if not impossible to take the lead away from that player.

Three players made for much more fun. Right off the bat, items were being stolen through the use of Tiki Magic. Obstacles were being thrown about with abandon. A lot of back and forth, and everyone was very close together on the race up the mountain. Two of us reached the summit, but neither could jump in, because we had been spending our totems like crazy to try and slow down the other players.

The three player game took longer than the two player, but felt faster due to the amount of interaction. Now it is going to be about finding the "sweet spot" of players. 4 will more than likely be fun, with a good mix of back and forth amongst the player without giving up the ability to climb the mountain. 5 could be, but could turn into a huge mess of magic and obstacles being thrown about. 6 might take all night. That is just a feeling on my part, but since each player can throw out as much Tiki Magic cards as he has in his had each turn (as long as he has the totems to power them) a player that is well ahead or really behind could make life very very difficult for the rest of the players.



Final Impression

Overall, a well done game. It looks GREAT the quality of art is impressive on all the game components, not just one or two things. The game played smoothly, with no real interruptions in play except for a few times when we were not sure about a card being able to be played or not.

Otherwise this could be a game that you can play with your gamer friends, or non gamer types when they come over. It is easy to get started with, has plenty of humor to be found, and hey, how often to you get to play a game who's objective is to be the first to kill yourself?