I first ran across the game Tonga Bonga in various GeekLists. Most of them were about Underrated games, or the best games you’ve never heard of, or things of that nature. The picture of the boats looked pretty cool so I clicked on it. I read some of the reviews and session reports and I was intrigued. Not enough to actively pursue the game though, since there wasn’t a whole lot of information about it available, but enough to put it on my want list. Well, someone offered it to me in a trade and I took it. My verdict after playing it? This IS one of the best games I’d never heard of and it IS underrated.

Tonga Bonga is a game by Stefan Dorra for 3-4 players. You are trying to become the wealthiest ship owner. In order to do this, you must hire crew for your ship and race around the seas against your opponents. As you reach various islands you will receive payments; the faster you get to the islands, the better your payment will be.

Including the island of Tonga Bonga, there are 6 islands on the board. All players’ ships will leave from the island of Tonga Bonga. They must then reach four different islands and then race back to Tonga Bonga. When a player returns to Tonga Bonga the current round is finished and then the game ends. The player with the most money wins.

For such a light and simple game, the mechanics are really quite unique. Dice are used to determine the movement of the ships, but this isn’t your basic “roll and move” game. The dice that you roll don’t move your own ship, but are instead distributed to the ships of your opponents. These dice become the crew for the ships; the better the crew, the farther the ships move. How do you decide where to put the dice? Before the rolling of the dice, each player offers up wages to attract a crew. Money is placed on 2 different spaces on your ship. One is for the Captain and one is the First Mate. Usually, the higher dice will get placed where the most money is, but this is not always the case. Although you’re trying to make money, and therefore you want to place your crew where the best payment is, you also don’t want to give a player who’s too far in the lead too good of a crew. Also, your crew members can be bumped down into lower ranks if other players place higher ranking crew members into the same ship you were in. So, you need to be aware of several different factors when placing your crew as well as when you are making your money offers to attract crew for your own ship. Also, there’s vomit! That’s right, one side of the dice shows a seasick sailor. If you roll a seasick sailor, this sailor does not go to sea and the die is not placed.

So, while there is definitely a ‘luck of the dice’ factor in Tonga Bonga, there certainly is a lot of room for strategy no matter what you roll. If you roll high numbers you’ll probably make a lot of money, but you’ll also be moving your opponents’ ships farther. If you roll lower numbers, you might not make as much money (although it’s still possible), but you’ll be able to hold your opponents ships back.

And that brings us to the race for the islands. When you reach an islands bay, you’ll receive a $25 payment. Quite a hefty sum. You’ll also leave behind a camp (a cube in your color). This shows which islands you’ve been to so that you can reap the benefits of later visitors. You see, when you reach an island you receive $25, but you also must pay $5 to every other player that has already been to that island. So, while the goal is to have the most money, the race is certainly important.

I have not had a chance to play Tonga Bonga with only 3 players yet, but from what I’ve read, it’s not very good. Just judging from how the game is played, I can see that that might be the case. I’m working on a 3 player variant to make the game more interesting and I’ll post it here on BGG when I get it worked out.

While Tonga Bonga won’t set the gaming world on fire, it ranks right up there with Ticket to Ride as my favorite light to middleweight game that can be used to introduce people to the world of German boardgames. With beautiful artwork, cool components, simple rules and a fairly quick playing time, this is a game I’ll be playing for years to come.

I noticed in one of the photos that this game contains the deck for Meuterer. Are they one and the same game or does Tonga Bonga allow Meuterer to be played on its board? Do you know anything about this?
Dave
keel131@comcast.net

Hi Dave,

Meuterer has no connection to Tonga Bonga. The photographer was demonstrating how roomy the game's box is, that it can store other things besides the base game. And I've noticed some people here like to save space by putting their smaller games into the particularly spacious boxes of other games.