Little Known Gem | Maka Bana

Andy Novocin

(AndyNovo)

Canada
Kitchener
Ontario

I've never written a game review before but Maka Bana deserves more attention that it gets on BGG. My wife and I moved to France last year where Maka Bana seems to be a household name (the game stores here all carry it and the local game groups seem to know it), but when I went on BGG to see what sorts of goodies were available in the forums I found very little. So I want to spread the word about why this game has become our gateway game of choice.

Maka Bana is a 2-5 (really 3-5 I'ld say) player, 45minutes to an hour, fairly light weight game which is simple to teach. We've taught it to about 7 people (a couple of those using only our baby French) so far who have all enjoyed it and wanted to play again shortly thereafter. So the rules are very intuitive and simple. The game itself is beautifully balanced.

Here's a quick summary of the rules:
If you haven't played it before take a look at an image of the board from the site (I do really love the colorful map):

The squares on the board are places where the players will plop down tiki huts. The beaten path splits the board into 4 beaches (A, B, C, D) and each square is uniquely identified by the beach, its terrain (water, grass, sand, gravel), and the pattern (tribal tattoo, fish, flowers).
Each player starts with an identical set of cards, one for each possible characteristic (an A card, B card, C, D, sand card, fish card, etc.) and two painting cards.

Each round players will pick a spot that they want to build a tiki hut on (they'll grab the appropriate 3 cards and set them aside).

Then they each reveal only one of the three cards (a clue).

Then each player blocks one of the spots where no one can build this round.

Everyone reveals and sees which huts get built this round.

At the end of the game each hut is worth 1 point, every chain of huts is worth extra (1 for the first hut, 2 for the second, 3 for the third, fourth and more...), and each beach gives out 4 points to the person with a majority of the huts on that beach.

The two painting cards can be used (once the game board is getting filled up) to target someone else's tiki and change its color.

Thus ends my rules review.

Now usually simplicity doesn't sell me on a game (although it's a good point for gateways). What this game does so well is take the great parts of an intrigue/bluffing game and boil them down into purest form. Every round you find yourself balancing your own incentives and your desire not to be blocked, since you have to give up a clue you want to be sneaky but not ineffective. Every round is filled with tension and excitement and the game is very well balanced. In my opinion Maka Bana is to intrigue games what Chinatown is to negotiation games, the purest version out there. More direct then Citadels with no downtime.

Each round each player has to make 2.5 difficult (and simultaneous) decisions, 1.5 are selfish and require a bit of bluffing/sneakiness (where to build and which clue to give), the other is tactical, open, and deductive (where to block given the clues). Anyway, it's a beautifully balanced and straight to the tension game which deserves more love (from more eloquent people than myself) on BGG. For those who like intrigue games I'ld say it's well worth finding yourself a version (likely in French) and printing up the English rules from BGG.