Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Having placed the cloth between you both, shuffle all 108 cards and place them face down in a draw pile. I am currently stoned. No, not that, you naughty Nellies! I mean that I am filled to the brim with gorgeous, chunky, colourful, patterned tiles. Having recently binged on Mandala Stones like a squirrel let loose in a nut factory, I am very happy indeed. As soon as cards of all 6 colors have been played into a Mandala (consider the cards in its Mountain and its two Fields), the Mandala is complete and must be destroyed at the end of that turn; this may cause the game to end. Mandala has grabbed me with its immediate gameplay and variety. In fact it’s easier to play than it is too explain! I didn’t expect a game like this to have so much variance in gameplay, but the subtle changes to scoring and colour value added to the mind games that transpire makes this one of the best two player games I’ve played. It is a game I can play with my mum and my friends, and one that they have a chance of winning too.
Important: The hand size of 8 cards is a hard limit. You may never have more than 8 cards in hand. In particular, you may not draw 3 cards and discard the excess. On each turn, you will be trying to gain cards that are of value to you by taking them from one of two central mandalas being built up over the course of a round. Repeat for each colour along your river and the player with the most points in total is the winner! In the rare case that a player did not have any cards in their field when the mandala was completed they still take cards from the mountain but place them straight in the discard pile without adding them to their river or cup. Finally, shuffle the objective cards and deal two face down to each player. Both are kept (secretly, mind you!) as players will get to decide which one best boosts their score at the end of the game.MItchell T: An original and interesting card game. It requires judgment, finesse, and some brinkmanship. There is some depth here, but the cards will also surprise you. You do gain skill as you play, but it is easy to learn and lots of fun to play. To begin, each player receives a hand of six cards. Each player receives two random cards face down in their cup, then two random cards are dealt face up into the central mountain strip of each mandala. Add a card into either mandala - here you must follow the “rule of colour” which means that the card you lay can either match an existing colour or be a new colour. It cannot be a colour which your opponent has already added into the mandala or their field surrounding that mandala. But you can keep adding to whichever suits are in the mandala, regardless of who laid that colour (suit) first. Interestingly, the rulebook refers to “red stones”. I don’t think it is my eyes, but the stones appear to be blue, pink, purple, and yellow. I presume the production process therefore has altered the colour slightly, but I am not complaining – the bright pink pops! A colour based game is not going to appeal to everyone, of course, and I don’t know how user-friendly it is for gamers with Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD). Final Thoughts
If you claim cards of a color that is already present in your River: Simply place all the cards face down in your Cup. As players lay cards into their fields or onto the mandalas, there will come a time when one of the mountains contains all six colours which means it has completed. Then give each player two cards which only they look at and then place face down onto their own “cup." Most of the time during play, a player is going to either want to place a card in the mountain area of a chosen mandala, or on their field of a chosen mandala. The rules of placement are a bit different for each. For you see, the board in Mandala isn’t a regular cardboard affair. No, in Mandala, it is a beautifully printed linen cloth that just begs to be flapped out when you take it from the box.In the mountain area, players can only place one card each turn, following the rules of color. After placing a card in the mountain, that player draws up to three cards. Keep in mind the maximum hand size is eight, so if three would take you over that hand size limit, you only draw as many as you can. You do not overdraw and discard. Mandala Stones is an abstract strategy game designed by Filip Głowacz. Publishers Board&Dice have put out many games that feature wonderful components. Mandala Stones continues within this trend. There’s a strong presence of pattern-building and set collection in this game. Mandala Stones is somewhat abstract in nature, comparable to the likes of Azul. Cross-eyed over cards? Don’t worry, I’ll smooth out the mind moguls by taking you through a round step by step:
Cards in the Mountain will be claimed when a Mandala is completed and added to your Rivers and Cups to earn points at the end of the game. This is the typical Lookout Games box size for their two-player line, and for the most part components-wise it lives up to the games that came before it. I don’t necessarily like the cards being square, that makes them entirely too hard to shuffle for me — especially given that there are 108 of them. The linen mat is a really nice touch and I love that folks are thinking outside the box as far as what they can make their components from, but every time I unfold it from the box and place it on the table, I feel like I should iron it first, as it’s like playing on a permanently pleated shirt, but that’s just my neurosis. But that’s all the game is, cards and the linen board, oh and the rule book. It almost feels minimalist. By way of an overview, players build up the two mandalas by adding a card from their hand into one of the two mountains in play during a round. However, you can only play a colour which has not already been placed into either the mandala or its field. If you add a card to a mandala, you can replenish your hand by taking up to 3 cards (so long as you do not have more than 8 at any one time). Continue taking turns until all the colors in the Mountain have been claimed. Then, place all of the cards in both of the Mandala's Fields in the discard pile so that no cards remain in the Mandala. You can only take cards from a mandala and add them to your cup once it has been built up and is ready to be destroyed.From the cards each player collects from the mandala, one of each colour will go into their river and the remaining cards will go face down into their cup. Note that you have to put any new colour collected on the lowest available spot in your river. Those colours are now set in terms of the multiplier they will score when you reveal the cards in your cup at game end. Any cards collected which already match a colour present in your river go straight into your cup.
Then, the central mandala scoring board and main board are placed within easy reach. And believe me, you are going to want to be up close and personal with those gorgeous stones!
Completing a Mandala
It’s a game you grasp straight away but then discover more and more as you chip away at the mountain. Like a multi layered film the more time you spend with it the more you see, and because Mandala only takes 20 minutes to play you will more often than not play at least two games in a row. Highly recommended for abstract and two player game fans, but also for anyone who often finds themselves playing at two players. It's helpful to note at this stage that the six squares in front of each player represent a player’s “river” and is where the cards in their cup will be sorted for scoring at the end.
Great Deal 
New Comment