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In LLAMA, you want to dump cards from your hand as quickly as you can, but you might not be able to play what you want, so do you quit and freeze your hand or draw and hope to keep playing?
Each player starts a round with six cards in hand; the deck consists of llama cards and cards numbered 1-6, with eight copies of each. On a turn, the active player can play a card, draw a card, or quit. To play a card, you must play the same number as the top card of the discard pile or one number higher. If a 6 is on the discard pile, you can play a 6 or a llama, and if a llama is on top, you can play another llama or a 1. If you quit, you place your remaining cards face down and take no further actions in the round. If all players have quit but one, that player can continue to play, but cannot draw more cards.
The round ends when one player empties their hand or all players have quit. In either case, players collect tokens based on the cards in their hand. Each different number card in hand gets you white tokens (each worth 1 point) equal to the value of the card while one or more llamas gets you a black token (worth 10 points). (You can exchange ten white tokens for one black token at any time.) If you played all your cards, you can return one token (white or black) that you previously collected to the supply. You then shuffle all the cards and begin a new round, in which the first player to play will be the one who emptied their hand or was the last one to quit in the previous round.
The game ends at the end of the round where at least one player has forty or more total points. Whoever has the fewest points wins!
The original title of this game is a German acronym and stands for Lege alle Minuspunkte ab, that is, "discard all minus points", with "Lama" also being the German spelling of "llama".
The Polish game Lato z Komarami features gameplay nearly identical to LLAMA except that the game has one less "llama" card, and the penalty for llama cards in hand is 10 points per card, instead of being 10 points for one or more llama cards.
This page includes videos and mentions from the whole L.L.A.M.A. family. Drill into a specific game below.
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- Game based on Llama
- Llama
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Play — Play a card, draw a card, or quit the round.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I did ask for a copy and Bezier graciously gave us a copy of Rebel Princess.
- This game is an asymmetric trick taking game.
- princes are bad in this game and each round has a different rule.
- also got some postcards of dogs with jobs. Super excited about this game.
- I love the art in this game.
- photo from Flip 7 getting a whole page spread with Junior, my other model, Florane, and Phil from One Minute Board Games.
- they did showcase the Super Boss Monster commercial.
- Thank you all so much for joining me on another haul, specifically the Gen Con haul.
- This concludes the Gen Con series.
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- llama is a card game for two to six players
- on your turn you have three options you can play a card you can draw a card or you can quit
- knowing when to keep going and when to quit is a key part of winning Atlanta
References (from this video)
- high social interaction
- fun with friends and family
- not for players seeking deep strategy
- humor and lighthearted misdirection
- family-weighted party game
- silly, social
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card shedding — Players dump cards in a way that minimizes their hand while avoiding penalties
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Uno is the McDonald's of games.
- There are 101 games that are better than Uno.
- In the description, I've grouped all of these games by publisher so you can easily find them and check them out.
- play board games like an animal.
References (from this video)
- Increases accessibility via mass-market reprint
- Potential to broaden discoverability for new players
- Not a new design; relies on an existing property
- Unknown
- Unknown
- Unknown
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- unknown — Unknown
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Dump the Skunk, which is just essentially a straight reprint of RER Kinesia's Llama.
- It just left me wanting more. It has all the things that I enjoy in Marvel United, but with the DC characters, and they did go very thematic with it and made some great choices when it comes to equipment and how certain things interact.
- Vivo is an incredibly clever little trick taker that otherwise was not generally available for folks and AllPlay really knocked it out of the park.
- I think what they did with Quax was wonderful and if you still haven't checked it out, please do.
- The reprint of Ethnos came with a mixed reaction, one that I'm still fascinated by because in the hobby, we get used to a lot of symbology...
- Kitio's Botswana in the new version from 25th Century is just a chef's kiss perfect package.
- Unmatched just continues to knock it out of the park.
- 20 Strong Tangle Woods is absolutely remarkable.
- Magical Athlete deserves all of it because the dedication that CMYK put to making this happen, the personality in the game, the personality in the characters, the just silly, ridiculous fun around the table.
- No game this year has motivated me to do a video where I do a bunch of voices for characters except for Magical Athlete.