DeepFUN.com
Bernie DeKoven
November, 2003
USA |
 |
10 Days in Africa is an innovative game
of strategy and luck for 2-4 players. Definitely strategic,
with enough luck to keep the game surprisingly fun.
Like Hasbro's RackO, the object is to put
ten randomly selected cards into some sort of sequence.
You fill the wooden card holders with cards one at a
time. Once a card is placed, it can't be moved - only
exchanged with a card from the deck or one of three
discard piles. Unlike RackO, the sequence is topological,
rather than numerical. A win depicts a path, by foot,
car, and/or plane, that leads from country to country
to country, spanning all ten cards.
At first, we found ourselves thinking more
than we really had to, so playing time for the four
of us was more than an hour. The rules are a paragon
of brevity and elegance, but it took a while to gain
a proper appreciation for the geopolitical innuendos
of the African continent. And it took another while
to understand the implications of the different modes
of travel. Or the significance of the three, face-up
discard piles and the strategic covering up or revealing
of the cards thereupon.
It's a learning that is easily curved by
playing. Just make the first game not count. Consider
it an opportunity to play with a set of wonderfully
thick little cards that fit ever so handsomely into
their wooden card holders; a chance to get a bit more
familiar with the geopolitics of Africa; a learning
experience. A learning-geography-like learning experience,
as a matter of fact. As a matter of fact, the
most fun I've ever had learning geography. Even
though the map could have really been a map of anywhere.
In fact, maybe precisely because the map could have
been a map of everywhere. Which probably explains why
you might also consider buying Ten Days in the USA,
or, for that matter, Ten Days Almost Anywhere - the
Paris Metro, perhaps? Downtown Kabul?
As we were finishing the first round of
the game, one veteran Games Taster said: "let's remember
this experience. It's a benchmark for the kind of excellence
the Major FUN Award represents."
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