Gazebo Board Game Review - A Knizia Classic is Back!
Transcript
Hello my friends. Today we're out by the garden and we're going to be sitting in patios and we're going to be having interesting, beautiful gazebos to sit around. Today we're taking a look at Gazebo. This is a abstract strategy game from Reiner Knizia. Bitewing Games is the publisher. This is a re-implementation of an older game, uh Qin, spelled QIN. Uh let me show you how it's played and I'll see you on the other side.
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So in this case, this player gets to place this if this here. This says that they basically are the owner of that. either by drawing a face-down domino from uh the supply. And in this case, these are all in their hand, they're secret from the other player. Or each player starts with five of these dominos which have a different color back. They would randomly take one of these and put it in their hand. Again, all these would be secret. And there should be one that has a single color on both. These are more powerful dominos but by default, you'll only have five of these over the course of the game. Now it's the next player's turn and they can place next to something that's already there, any one of these next to any one of those. Or they could place off the starting spot where uh you know, somewhere else with one of the other corners that has a color there. Well, let's say the next player plays and they're going to place this. First of all, they created a nook cuz it's size two or higher right there, the green ones. But because it's adjacent to this patio, they'll get to place another one. Essentially, you know, put two of them out instead of just one. Now maybe that first player now plays this. They put their they made a nook and maybe they draw one of their uh dominos that has the same color on it into their hand for next turn.
So maybe the green player does something like this and starts a nook like that. Let's say that first player uses a a single color one like this. Now this is one, two, three, four big and it has one gazebo. We're going to show you what happens when you get one that's five big in just a moment. Now let's say the green player goes here making this now a size three. We'll show you why he did that in a minute. Now let's say the purple player goes here. They now have one, two, three, four, five. That is known as a big nook. They get a second gazebo. But now that there's multiple different nooks around this patio, if someone has a majority of gazebos, they steal it. So this one now has two gazebos adjacent to this. This player only has one gazebo adjacent to this. And so the purple player is going to steal it. So this goes back to that player supply and then this comes in like this.
So the green player goes, "Yeah, well I got a trick up my sleeve, too." This one has a size of three blue. This one has a size of two blue. Before placing a domino, this one has more. If the green player plays this here, this one had three, they only had two. This is now one big nook. This one absorbs this one. And so in this case, this player will have to take that back. And once you have a big nook, it cannot get absorbed by any other big nook. And one of the last examples I want to show you is if the purple player now places this, they are adjacent to this and it's a not just a patio, it is a fancy patio cuz it's too large which means they actually get to place two on there. Now fancy patios can get stolen just like regular patios can as well. Now the last example I'll show you is if someone goes here. If you go on one of these Zen squares, this is specific for this board, the player that places this gets to draw, if they want to, one of the single color dominos from the supply, not yours, but there's a supply of these out in the you know, to the side of the board. You can draw one of these instead of the regular uh dominos that have the two different colors on them. That's pretty much the basic game on the first map. The back map has some different rules and the expansion map to do as well, some of the different special spaces and such.
Whoever runs out of gazebos first is the winner. Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is giving 15% off premium game mats and accessories specifically to my US and Canada audience using code Game Boy Geek 15 off for a limited time only. Hear more about this at the end of my final thoughts. Now Reiner Knizia is one of my favorite designers. I have not played the original game this was based on uh Qin, QIN. Uh so I was interested in seeing this. I I have read about what they've done to redevelop the game and all those changes. I seems like they would be very good changes. Uh and the people that have played both seem to think so as well. But this is a great abstract game. Very simple. Place a domino and draw one. That's pretty much it. Oh, and if you have a certain things, you put a gazebo or two of them on there. That's it. It's a race. It's simple turns, tons of depth. I mean literally, place a domino, draw a domino. That's your whole turn. That is this the the hallmark of a Knizia design. Simple turns but tons of depth. This is huge on my depth to complexity ratio. Now part of the things that was redeveloped in this game was the domino drawing because in the original game, the the single color dominos that have like the same color twice on a domino were sort of mixed in with the other ones and there was a little big luck factor there. You just might get the better dominos. So here, you have to do specific things in order to get those. Like on the the base uh side A board, you know, you place with a Z. Uh you do certain things to get the the the the double dominos.
And and I like that there's there's certain things that you need to do in order to get those. You don't just get them. You could you could you can get them by doing certain things. I like that. Uh I like that you can get, [clears throat] you know, you like I just mentioned, you the different boards. There's an A side, there's a B side and then there's also some expansion maps. The the section expansion board is an expansion board that's double-sided. But like in this case, each board works a little bit differently which I think is really cool. Uh but in this case, you play on one of those Zen spaces and that's how on the first one and that's how you get, you know, the the extra you know, the the better the better domino. It's the the the the one that's two different colors on there. So I like that. There's different ways to get those things uh and it really really sort of balances the game if you will. It takes the luck factor out of it to a point. It's still you're you're still drawing dominos. You might not get the one you want. But it definitely balances it more than it probably would have been before. Uh I like that you're trying to race to place all gazebos. You can see who's in the lead. You could see how far am I behind.
You could you know, you kind of gauge that. But it is a race. You're trying to get them out as fast as you can. Uh I like that there's a difference between the patios and the fancy patios holding one or two gazebos cuz that will change your your your decision space as well as to like which one you're going for, which ones are worth more, what how do I get in there and take those? Cuz if I overtake that from someone, their two are coming off and my two are going on. It's a big point swing in this game. I like that you can absorb another player's nook. And as soon as I read about this in the rules, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is like a a nod to Acquire." You know, like the the amazing economic game from Sid Sackson from back in the 1960s uh where like, "Hey, if you're bigger than them and beforehand and you place one, you can absorb them and now you're the big one." And if you're a certain size, you know, you don't you can't be absorbed and stuff like that. That's a really cool thing. It doesn't happen a ton but with sneaky placement and setting up for long-term planning, you can make it so that you can do that which I think is a really cool. You can also get steal someone else's patio by, you know, having more of yours around it. And so sometimes you're fighting for things that they already have. Sometimes you're going out to new places and getting getting uh you know, other patios that aren't yet uh that don't have a gazebo on them yet. Uh and I like that because you're setting up for long-term plans.
This is a very tactical game. You're you're always thinking, "What am I going to do right now?" But you're also thinking about, you know, what am I going to do two, three, four, five turns from now. It's my long-term plans as well. Um the variable boards boards really help this. I feel like personally that I like the game best with two cuz it's very chess-like. Like it's very again, you could think three, four turns in a row. You kind of build this over here. You're like, "Huh, if they put one here, I'm going to be able to go here." And it's kind of like you start to work on different parts of the board. You kind of get them set up the way. If if I go here, they'll go here. I'll go here. Uh if they don't go here, they'll probably go down here and I'll do this. And it's so like I like that aspect. With three or four players, it that it's you're still thinking ahead but more things happen in between your turns so you can't quite, you know, extrapolate out everything that you think what's going to what what's going to happen. And you can't really set yourself up set yourself up exactly for what you're going for because there's a lot of other variables before it's your turn again. Um I don't dislike any of the player counts but two is definitely my favorite. Uh also there are deluxe dominos available which I showed in the overview there which are just super nice. Uh anything negative I could say about the game? Uh so the play mats, I like the play mats. It's what allows it to you know, be in this nice small travel box. And they tend to stay wrinkled a little bit where their folds are. You really have to like hold them down or put books on them for a while to get them to kind of really lay flat.
I'd like to see these types of mats be sort of replaced by the one that's in a game called Eternal Decks that came out last year. It's it was more like it's it's not silk but it felt like silk. And it folds really well but then when you unfold it, there's no wrinkles. I'd like to see games with these mats kind of go towards that thing uh because you know, the wrinkles it's just it's it's not the end of the world but it'd be better if it always laid flat nice as well with no no creases. Um the other thing is the game can be hard to catch up if you're behind. It's a race. There's not a lot of catch-up mechanisms. And if you find yourself behind early, it's going to be a bit hard to sort of really catch up and pass them. Again, you can try to things and and steal patios from them, and absorb them, and things like that. And that can sort of swing things and put you in the right right way. It can happen, but it is a harder game to sort of come back from behind than some of the other games. But it is very good. It's a really clever, streamlined Knizia abstract game. Not an ounce of fat on it, and I love the replayability built in this with the multiple maps, the deluxe components that are available. For all these reasons, if you like Knizia games, you like quick abstracts, uh with again having the availability of different maps and such, this is a great one to check out. is Gazebo. Game Toppers upgrades every game you play, being the one table to rule them all with Game Toppers leg kits, dining covers, premium game mats, and more. And for a limited time only, my US and Canadian audience can get 15% off their premium game mats and accessories using the promo code gameboygeek15off.
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